Brigadier General John Gregg spurred around to the front of his regiments. Turning his horse to face the line, he shouted, "General Lee wants us to go and drive those people out. Remember, Hood's Brigade, that General Lee's eyes are upon you and his heart is with you. Forward!" .... When the veterans stepped off, Lee removed his hat and, standing in the stirrups, exclaimed loudly, as if to reassure himself, "Texans always move them." The Texans who heard him responded with a tremendous rebel yell. His mere presence electrified the line.... Tears of pride streamed down Private Leonard G. Gee's face. The orderly, who was screaming and yipping at the top of his lungs, choked back his tears and cried, "I would charge into hell for that old man."

Charge into that same hell from the perspective of the officers and enlisted men who lived through it in Victory Without Triumph, the second of John Michael Priest's volumes on the Battle of the Wilderness. Priest meticulously details the vicious infantry fighting along the Pack Road, Longstreet's counterstrike against the II Corps, the cavalry operations of both armies near Todd's Tavern, and John B. Gordon's daring assault against the Army of the Potomac's right flank. Embellished with 38 detailed, two colored maps, follow the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia through the last two days of the campaign which signaled the advent of Ulysses S. Grant into the Eastern theater of the war.