General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse | 
| Author: Joseph Glatthaar
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 31299
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 624
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.9
ISBN: 0684827875
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.742
EAN: 9780684827872
ASIN: 0684827875
Publication Date: March 18, 2008
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Condition: Ships immediately! Perfect and New! Has a publisher remainder mark. 1st Edition. 2008 Hardcover.
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Product Description
"You would be surprised to see what men we have in the ranks," Virginia cavalryman Thomas Rowland informed his mother in May 1861, just after joining the Army of Northern Virginia. His army -- General Robert E. Lee's army -- was a surprise to almost everyone: With daring early victories and an invasion into the North, they nearly managed to convince the North to give up the fight. Even in 1865, facing certain defeat after the loss of 30,000 men, a Louisiana private fighting in Lee's army still had hope. "I must not despair," he scribbled in his diary. "Lee will bring order out of chaos, and with the help of our Heavenly Father, all will be well."Astonishingly, after 150 years of scholarship, there are still some major surprises about the Army of Northern Virginia. In General Lee's Army, renowned historian Joseph T. Glatthaar draws on an impressive range of sources assembled over two decades -- from letters and diaries, to official war records, to a new, definitive database of statistics -- to rewrite the history of the Civil War's most important army and, indeed, of the war itself. Glatthaar takes readers from the home front to the heart of the most famous battles of the war: Manassas, the Peninsula campaign, Antietam, Gettysburg, all the way to the final surrender at Appomattox. General Lee's Army penetrates headquarters tents and winter shanties, eliciting the officers' plans, wishes, and prayers; it portrays a world of life, death, healing, and hardship; it investigates the South's commitment to the war and its gradual erosion; and it depicts and analyzes Lee's men in triumph and defeat. The history of Lee's army is a powerful lens on the entire war. The fate of Lee's army explains why the South almost won -- and why it lost. The story of his men -- their reasons for fighting, their cohesion, mounting casualties, diseases, supply problems, and discipline problems -- tells it all. Glatthaar's definitive account settles many historical arguments. The Rebels were fighting above all to defend slavery. More than half of Lee's men were killed, wounded, or captured -- a staggering statistic. Their leader, Robert E. Lee, though far from perfect, held an exalted place in his men's eyes despite a number of mistakes and despite a range of problems among some of his key lieutenants. General Lee's Army is a masterpiece of scholarship and vivid storytelling, narrated as much as possible in the words of the enlisted men and their officers.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 The Heart of General Lee's Army September 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse, Joseph Glatthaar, Free Press, 624 pages, 19 maps, 41 photographs, appendix, notes, bibliopraphy, index, $35.00.
An exceptional history by professional standards and a thoroughly entertaining work! Glatthaar's General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse is a finely balanced match of statistics and story. Not driven by campaigns and chronology, but by the soldiers and their voices, Glathaar's effort opens the Army of Northern Virginia in a way unlike Douglas Southall Freeman's Lee's Lieutenants. Recently, several battle studies have used soldiers' diaries in an intimate way; Rable's Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!; John Michael Priests' Antietam: The Soldiers' Battle, Tracey Power's Lee's Miserables: Life in the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Appomattox and Noah Trudeau's Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage. Glathaar has managed in 472 pages of narrative (yes, there are 150 pages of appendix, notes, bibliography and index) to re-introduce both the scholar and the lay reader to the Army of Northern Virginia.
Those readers who enjoy Bell Irvin Wiley's Johnny Reb and Billy Yank, John Billings' Coffee and Hardtack or Sam Watkins' Company Atchshould confidently approach General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse. Individual chapters focus upon religion and morality, arms and ammunition, combat, the homefront, medical care, desertion, and black Confederates. Campaigns and their battles are covered as they impact the soldiers in the ranks. Lee is treated honestly and without hagiography or disdain. Slavery is put in its place as a cause of the war, as a cause worth dying for and as a cause for regret.
CWL will place it on the Top Ten of 2008 and will return to General Lee's Army: From Victory of Collapse again. Most moving for CWL were three chapters 'The Grind of War', 'Spiral of Defeat' and 'The Final Days.' The collapse of the Army of the Northern Virginia, after a year of sacrifice beyond endurance by the men in the ranks, is nearly heartbreaking.
General Lee's army September 21, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
An excellent book as far as I can judge. It not only contains the big picture of generals' performances and their effect but also goes in depth down to logistics, medical services and the soldiers's performance. The book is also very readable even for an amateur historian such as myself.
Lee's Army September 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Well written and well documented. Approached the subject from the standpoint of the individual soldier and their writings...letters home or diaries. Well worth the time.
A history of the Army of Northern Virginia August 8, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a fascinating book. On the one hand, its depiction of the Army of Northern Virginia (ANV) is well known. On the other, it goes into considerable detail on the everyday lives of Lee's (and, earlier, Johnston's and Beauregard's) army. As such, it does add considerably to our grasp of what the ANV went through. The focus? In the author's own words (Page xv): ". . .scholars and enthusiasts have written thousands of books on various aspects of Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, but no one has embarked upon a major investigation of the army throughout the entire war." Joseph Glatthaar also develops a statistical data base (See Appendix I for more details) to provide greater information about the ANV. He worked with political scientist Kent Tedin to get a representative sample of soldiers from the army, 600 in all. For each, the author searched records to get personal information, unit information, and so on. Included as well are graphic comments from letters and other documentation. It makes for a fascinating look at Lee's army.
All in all, almost 200,000 troops, in all, fought in the ANV. A horrifying number were killed or wounded. The army bled a great deal during the Civil War.
This book covers a huge territory: Why the troops joined the army and fought (slavery, by the way, appears to have been one major motivator), the early battle experience and how poorly prepared soldiers were for the conflict, the early history of the army (under Johnston and Beauregard, before the latter was transferred west and the former injured at Seven Pines), Lee's accession to command, the Seven Days' Campaign (where Union General George McClellan, in essence, caved in), the second battle at Bull Run (or Manassas), and so on.
Some of the high points. . . The ups and downs of soldiers' morale. Religious revivals sometimes surged through the troops, as one way of helping deal with the horrors of the conflict. The book addresses the odd juxtaposition of independent, individualistic southern troops with the need for discipline among them. There is nice discussion of the uneven quality of commanders and Lee's predilection of moving his (perceived) less competent high officers to other commands (e.g., transferring Magruder from the ANV to Texas).
If you wish a great amount of detail on actual battles, from First Bull Run through the retreat to Appomattox Court House, this book will not satisfy. But that is not its focus. If you want a sense of the day-to-day lives of soldiers, the challenges in managing an army, Lee's key role in keeping citizens and soldiers motivated to continue, the decline in morale among citizens and soldiers as Sherman's advance after Atlanta continued, and so on, then this book will be of interest.
Anyhow, this strikes me as an important volume, giving readers a detailed perspective on the Army of Northern Virginia.
War To The Hilt July 20, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The Army of Northern Virginia was one of the greatest fighting forces in the history of the world. Interest in it remains high, even some 143 years after it ceased to exist.
General Lee's Army is an exceptional book. It looks at the ANV from every possible angle. Indeed, so comprehensive is Mr. Glatthar's study that one might call it the biography of Lee's Army.
Glatthar shows how the Civil War was truly about slavery. Of course it was, but Glatthar adds to the evidence. He shows how more soldiers in the ANV supported slavery than was ever previously supposed, and he does this convincingly.
He also demonstrates that one reason Lee's Army suffered defeat was because its soldiers could not be disciplined--that they were raised in a society that had little discipline. Thus, the men of Lee's Army would often do what they thought was best despite their officers' orders to the contrary. For instance, after a victory, the men would drop out of ranks to plunder the battle field for food, clothing, weapons, and ammunition. This sometimes prevented Lee from following up a victory. Of course, the lack of discipline was but one small reason among many for the ultimate defeat of Lee's Army. And this lack of discipline may have been one reason why this army was so unique and was able to fight so well for so long against overwhelming odds.
Glatthar's book is not without its faults. He lists several reasons for the defeat at Gettysburg. He does not include, however, some of the most important reasons for this defeat. He makes no mention of the impact of Stonewall Jackson's death on the battle. This was the first campaign since Jackson's death, and his presence at Gettysburg may have changed everything. And though Glatthar explains Lee's reorganization of the army from two corps to three after Jackson's death, he does not show the impact of the reorganization at Gettysburg. Some two-thirds of the army were under new commanders at several levels. Two of the corps commanders had no experience commanding a corps. This certainly influenced the outcome. Neither does Glatthar fault James Longstreet for his surly behavior. Longstreet did not support Lee's battle plans and carried them out with little enthusiasm. As a result, Longstreet's attack on July 2--which was supposed to be done simultaneously with an attack on Culp's Hill-- was several hours late.
In spite of these few shortcomings, General Lee's Army is a fantastic book and will serve as the history of that magnificent army for many years to come.
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