Part of the author's ongoing study of the use of fortifications during the American Civil War, Hess notes that these works almost emerged spontaneously, a response to Grant's emphasis on continuous contact and action to gain strategic and moral superiority over the Confederate forces. While it's arguable that Grant could not sustain the attrition he was inflicting on his own field force, this was probably the price that had to be paid to regain the strategic mastery that Lee had won and maintained in the eastern theater of the war to that point. What I'm not sure this book works as is a synopsis of Grant's Overland Campaign; you're still better off taking a deep breath and diving into Rhea's epic series for that. ( )