The Damned of Petersburg: A Novel (The Battle Hymn Cycle, 4) - Hardcover

Ralph Peters is an award-winning, bestselling novelist; a retired U.S. Army officer and former enlisted man; the author of numerous works on strategy; and a popular media commentator. In uniform and as a researcher and journalist, he has covered numerous conflicts and trouble spots, from Africa to the Caucasus, from Iraq to Pakistan.

Renowned for accuracy and authenticity, his Civil War writing, under his own name and as Owen Parry, has won numerous prizes, including the American Library Association’s Boyd Award (twice), the Hammett Prize, the Herodotus Award, and the Meade Society’s Order of Merit. In 2015, he received the Andrew J. Goodpaster Prize as an outstanding American soldier-scholar.

“If Thucydides and Tolstoy together were commissioned to write a historical novel about the American Civil War, the result would be something like Ralph Peters’ The Damned of Petersburg. Combining unflinching Thucydidean realism about warfare with Tolstoyan empathy for humanity, Peters recreates the bloody Petersburg campaign through the eyes and in the words of the men who lived and died during it. Anyone who wants to understand why the Civil War is the defining event in American history should read this deeply researched and beautifully written epic.” ―Guy MacLean Rogers, Kenan Professor of Classics and History, Wellesley College. Author of Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness

“Ralph Peters does it again! You are there in the trenches. You are there in the Crater. You are there in hell with The Damned of Petersburg, yet another brilliant addition to the best series of Civil War novels ever written.” ―William Martin, New York Times bestselling author of The Lincoln Letter

“No one can come close to Peters’ unique combination of passion and pride and tragedy. I predict that The Damned of Petersburg will be a classic that people will read for the next fifty years.” ―Thomas Fleming, author of The Secret Trial of Robert E. Lee

“In this excellent historical novel, Ralph Peters has brought to life the desperate fighting that flared around Petersburg and Richmond in the summer and autumn of 1864, the crisis of our Civil War. With fine maps, the gripping prose conveys how the fighting felt...a must-read for Civil War novice and aficionado alike.” ―John Horn, author of The Siege of Petersburg

“Peters’ research is impeccable. His account of life in the trenches is told by the actual participants, from the common soldier to the higher-grade officers. Readers can only feel as if they were participants in that dirty, hot summer of 1864, with death constantly facing them.” ―Chris Calkins, former National Park Historian at the Petersburg National Battlefield and author of The Appomattox Campaign

"Peters creates a superbly detailed retelling of the Civil War...fast-paced...thoughtful...magnificent." ―Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"The writing is very engaging and the use of period and regional slang is superb (Faulkner, eat your heart out.) The descriptions are also very graphic, showing in detail how brutal that war was.” ―Historical Novel Society

“An extraordinary novel taking readers into the heart of the Civil War. Ralph Peters has masterfully captured each and every detail. It was fascinating from page one and still captivated me until the ending.” ―Manhattan Book Review (five stars)

"A gifted writer and superb storyteller . . . powerful . . . Peters' brilliant narrative evokes what soldiers on both sides saw, felt, smelled and, ultimately, endured in combat as well as in daily camp life. Every single word seems carefully chosen." ―historynet.com