As The Last Full Measure opens, Gettysburg is past and the war advances to its third brutal year. On the Union side, the gulf between the politicians in Washington and the generals in the field yawns ever wider. Never has the cumbersome Union Army so desperately needed a decisive, hard-nosed leader. It is at this critical moment that Lincoln places Ulysses S. Grant in command - and turns the tide of the war. For Robert E. Lee, Gettysburg was an unspeakable disaster - compounded by the shattering loss of the fiery Stonewall Jackson two months before. Lee knows better than anyone that the South cannot survive a war of attrition. But with the total devotion of his generals - Longstreet, Hill, Stuart - and his unswerving faith in God, Lee is determined to fight to the bitter end. Battle by staggering battle, Shaara dramatizes the escalating confrontation between Lee and Grant - complicated, heroic, deeply troubled men.