And Keep Moving On is the first book to see the Virginia campaign of spring 1864 as Ulysses S. Grant and
Robert E. Lee saw it: a single, massive operation stretching hundreds of miles. The story of the campaign is
also the story of the demise of two great armies. Lee's army lost a third of its senior leadership, about
33,000 of its best troops, and most of its offensive capability. Of Grant's army, 55,000 Federals were killed,
wounded, or captured in the forty days of the campaign. The scale of casualties and human suffering that
the campaign inflicted makes it unique in U.S. history.
This is not just another battle book. Mark Grimsley places the campaign in the political context of the 1864
presidential election; appraises the motivation of soldiers; appreciates the impact of the North's sea power
advantage; questions conventional interpretations; and examines the interconnections among the major
battles, subsidiary offensives, and raids. In an especially powerful chapter he discusses the extent and
causes of the physical misery sustained in what one soldier called "the hardest campaign" and draws out the
campaign's importance as a touchstone of the "Lost Cause" mythology.