General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse

by Joseph T. Glatthaar

Book Overview

"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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684827875
• ISBN13: 9780684827872
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 600 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The Heart of General Lee's Army

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.

THE WAY THEY WERE ............. FROM THEIR OWN VOICES IN LETTERS

I am not what you would call a Civil War buff or expert of that war, yet I do have many volumes on that conflict in my home library, with several of my ancestors fighting for and perishing in the conflict for the Union. A few years ago I felt a volume on Lee's retreat from Gettysburg was needed, and a book from the University of North Carolina soon appeared that did deal with that very subject. Many times I've thought a book was also needed on the mainstay of the Confederacy, the Army of Northern Virginia. and now this volume appears. This new book is both well overdue and well done. Sometimes when doing a review it seems I have read a different book than many other reviewers doing reviews on that book. Sadly, I get that same feeling here. In the author's own words he has been crafting this book since the late 1980s, and much of the book is based on the participant's own words from their own letters. How anyone can quibble with what these men wrote is beyond my understanding. And in reading these letters, many of the writers did not live beyond the war, so one just must accept what they wrote, felt, saw, and how they prioritized their last months. Many saw state's rights as #1, others saw northern invasion as #1, while others mention slavery as #1. Doesn't really matter, does it, all of these items forged them into what became the Army of Northern Virginia. And early on, one fact the author mentions, is the affect of the home on the battlefront and conversely how the battlefront affected the home. As a newly formed nation, they knew their future depended on supporting one another if there was to be any chance of a successful outcome. Don't be mislead by the fact of my living in Virginia: I was born and raised in Ohio, and except for my own years of military service, I never really left the state of Ohio for 50+ years. Yet in retirement for various reasons, I have chosen to reside permanently in Virginia. These letters, facts, and expressed opinions as laid out in this book are not only interesting in many ways to me but they also confound me in some ways. My views, since I remain a northerner or a "Yankee" down here, would certainly not entirely match the views of many Virginia friends, but a book such as this is needed if for no other reason than to show exactly what those Virginians of the war period thought and felt. What drove them to defy a country many of their grandparents had helped to fashion and build. They were very much aware they were in process of destroying what earlier Virginians felt worth building. Also the Virginia of 2008 in many ways is not the Virginia of the 1861-1865 period, so in a wonderful way the book also puts the contemporary reader in touch with what it meant to be a Virginian back then. Back then Virginia was a commonwealth as it is yet today, and back then Virginians also felt themselves equally blessed and special, as most of that holds true even today. This book makes interesting reading while offering man

The best book on the ANV

When I was asked to review Joseph T. Glatthaar's latest book, General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse, my first impression was, "What? Yet another book on the Army of Northern Virginia?" While not as abundant as books on Gettysburg or Abraham Lincoln, there have been plenty of previous works that dealt with Robert E. Lee and his men. However, this new work quickly changed my mind. It is, quite simply, the most complete overview ever written on the Army of Northern Virginia. Brilliantly researched, using a variety of primary sources not often used in other contemporary works, this book offers page after page of fascinating new information that adds depth to the historiography of Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Glatthaar of course deals with the battlefield combat prowess of the ANV and its legendary campaigns and fights, as well as its leader and his subordinates. More importantly, he studies the men of the army, as well as the impact their military service had back on the home front. Tucked in between chapters dealing with the various campaigns are some real gems -- chapters that deal with a diverse range of topics that considerably add to the overall portrayal of what life was like for Lee's army. These include treatises on religion and morality and their impact on the ANV's morale and spirit; discipline and issues within the ranks; infighting between leading officers; early recruits constrasted to the replenishments of 1862 and beyond; supply and logistics; desertion and reasons why; arms and ammunition; blacks within the Confederate ranks; and medical care. In effect, Joe Glaathaar touches on virtually every aspect of the Army of Northern Virginia in this magnificent work that is sure to become THE authoritative book on Lee and his troops. The book is hardback, and at 600 pages is quite hefty, but is very readable and it flows well. Published by the Free Press (a division of Simon & Schuster), the book is a must have for any Civil War buff interested in understanding the most celebrated army in Southern U.S. military history, and for we descendants of Yankee soldiers, it provides an excellent look at the vaunted force that our ancestors faced at Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, and at the rag-tag depleted force of the trench warfare and Appomattox. Appropriately subtitled "From Victory to Collapse," General Lee's Army is a masterpiece of modern scholarship.

A Major Work by a Major Historian

When Civil War historians of the stature of James M. McPherson and Gary W. Gallagher praise a book, we should all pay attention. They couldn't have been more correct about Joseph Glatthaar's latest offering. This is a magisterial, definitive work of Civil War history, fully worthy of all five stars and even more, if they could be offered. The text represents an impressive blending of military and social history. General Lee's Army deserves a prominent place in every Civil War library, public or personal. Glatthaar has provided us with a rich tapesty of understanding that does not overly idolize Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia but treats them farily and honestly in their triumphs and failures. In two words: Highly Recommended.

An Intimate Look at the Soldiers of a Great Army

Joseph Glathaar's "General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse" is not the kind of Civil War book I ordinarily buy -- my shelves hold relatively few Confederate-specific titles. By geography and ancestry my fundamental orientation is pro-Union (several members of my family served in various Union Army regiments, none in Confederate units) and a part of me must view the Confederate Army as "the enemy". But what I saw of Glatthaar's new volume on the bookstore shelves persuaded me to buy it. It is in part a narrative history of the campaigns and battles of the Army of Northern Virginia (I suppose I would say that this forms the skeleton upon which to hang the main narrative), but is much more a "socioeconomic" look at the common soldiers (and common field officers) of the ANV, especially how their attitudes and morale evolved over the course of the war. Glatthaar bases his study in part upon a statistical analysis of many soldiers in the ANV, but the main thrust of the book is firmly based on good-old history drawn from innumerable primary sources, and it provides an excellent look at the men who served for so long in a terrible struggle. I found it worthwhile reading, even for a dyed-in-the-wool-uniform New England Yankee.