Other editions of book The Shades of the Wilderness: A Story of Lee's Great Stand

Joseph A. Altsheler wrote several volumes of fiction that cover the service of Confederate soldier Harry Kenton and his friends as they take part in various battles of the Civil War. Altsheler’s books have been historically popular among young readers and adults alike. This volume covers the Battle of the Wilderness, the first major battle of Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign against Robert E. Lee. Lee was able to hold off Grant’s attacks at Chickamauga, but the tactical stalemate merely meant the campaign would continue to Spotsylvania Court House and towards Richmond.

The Shades of the Wilderness, published in 1916, is the seventh novel in Joseph Alexander Altsheler's Civil War series. The books follow the lives of two cousins as they fight in the Civil War, Dick Mason with the Union Army and Harry Kenton with the Confederate Army. Joseph Alexander Altsheler was an American reporter and author best known for his popular historical fiction for children and young adults. Altsheler wrote books that formed different series on historical events such as The French and Indian War, The Civil War, and World War I.

"The Shades of the Wilderness" is the seventh book of the Civil War Series by Joseph A. Altsheler. Picking up where "The Star of Gettysburg" left off, this story continues the Civil War experiences of Harry Kenton and his friends in the Southern army, from the retreat after Gettysburg, to Richmond, and then through the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania, to Robert E. Lee's heroic stand during the siege of Petersburg. Other books in the Civil War series are: "The Guns of Bull Run," "The Guns of Shiloh," "The Scouts of Stonewall," "The Sword of Antietam", "The Star of Gettysburg", "The Rock of Chickamauga", and "The Tree of Appomattox."

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As the Army of Northern Virginia retreats from Gettysburg, Lieutenant Harry Kenton worries that Lee's army may be trapped by the flooded Potomac River before it can reach the relative safety of southern soil. A watery wrestling match with the Northern spy William J. Shepard and a confiscated Union dispatch confirm Harry's suspicions that General Meade's Army of the Potomac is trying frantically to cut off Lee's line of retreat. Pursued by Union cavalry, infantry, and the partisan citizens of Pennsylvania, Harry must reach General Lee with the news before it's too late. Convinced that the conflict between himself and Shepard has become a personal one, Harry rejoices each time he successfully eludes the spy's ever-present grasp but remains respectful of Shepard's amazing abilities. If it wasn't for the war, they could surely become the best of friends! With Lee's army safely across the Potomac, Harry and his comrades await the North's next offensive. In the battles of The Wilderness, these staunch southern fighters suffer horrible casualties in a desperate defense of Richmond. As the South's resources for waging war dwindle, General Lee needs a miracle to save the Confederacy. Can his battle-hardened veterans stop the Northern juggernaut? This eight-book set tells the story of America's greatest conflict through the lives and experiences of Kentucky cousins Harry Kenton and Dick Mason. Torn between family ties and political beliefs, father and son Kenton serve in the Confederate army, while Dick Mason leaves his widowed mother and fights to preserve the Union. Unlike many contemporary historical fiction accounts of the Civil War, this series brings to life the human drama of the war without resorting to foul language and gratuitous violence. Our editing team updated the punctuation and footnoted less familiar words making these classic books more understandable for the modern reader.

A train of wagons and men wound slowly over the hills in the darkness and rain toward the South. In the wagons lay fourteen or fifteen thousand wounded soldiers, but they made little noise, as the wheels sank suddenly in the mud or bumped over stones. Although the vast majority of them were young, boys or not much more, they had learned to be masters of themselves, and they suffered in silence, save when some one, lost in fever, uttered a groan. But the chief sound was a blended note made by the turning of wheels, and the hoofs of horses sinking in the soft earth. The officers gave but few orders, and the cavalrymen who rode on either flank looked solicitously into the wagons now and then to see how their wounded friends fared, though they seldom spoke. The darkness they did not mind, because they were used to it, and the rain and the coolness were a relief, after three days of the fiercest battle the American continent had ever known, fought in the hottest days that the troops could recall. Thus Lee's army drew its long length from the fatal field of Gettysburg, although his valiant brigades did not yet know that the clump of trees upon Cemetery Hill had marked the high tide of the Confederacy. All that memorable Fourth of July, following the close of the battle they had lain, facing Meade and challenging him to come on, confident that while the invasion of the North was over they could beat back once more the invasion of the South.