The Petersburg Canon, Part VII: Grant's Fifth Offensive, September 1864

                A single book covers the next of Grant’s offensives at Petersburg, his fifth.  This book is Richard Sommers’ Richmond Redeemed.  It still sets the standard for scholarship among books on the Siege.  Dr. Sommers looked up practically every source, published and unpublished, in his research for this book.  He did it the old fashioned way, by writing to or visiting many, many repositories.  He did not have the benefit of the extensive digitalization of sources in the past few years.  Hats off to Dr. Sommers!  I have thought long and hard about how an amateur historian can attain the standard Dr. Sommers has set, and the only path that seems practical to me is to narrow the scope of the project to the point where the research can encompass all available sources.  That means focusing on a brief, limited action or on a small unit.