General Lee’s Army – From Victory to Collapse

Book Review: General Lee’s Army – From Victory to Collapse, by Joseph T. Glatthaar

During my lifetime, I’ve often heard it said that the American Civil War was fought, not specifically over slavery, but over state’s rights. That sounded plausible to me, and it was a premise that I’ll admit to have accepted. However, now that I’ve fully read Glatthaar’s General Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse I’m of another opinion. The war was most certainly fought over slavery. Slavery so permeated the South that nearly every family was directly affected by it. Even those whites that held no slaves had connections to this peculiar institution, enough so that they were willing to go to war to defend it.

This is the first book that I’ve read that was specifically about the Army of Northern Virginia. I found it to be fascinating, enough so that I plan to read more on the subject. Over a period of about 20 years, historian Joseph T. Glatthaar assembled the volume from a wide range of sources – from letters & diaries to official war records. Glatthaar then added a new, definitive database of statistics, which allowed him to rewrite the history of the Army of Northern Virginia. The author takes readers from the Southern home front to Manassas, the Peninsula campaign, Antietam, Gettysburg, and finally – Appomattox.

The story of General Lee’s men – their reasons for fighting, their cohesion, mounting casualties, diseases, supply problems, and discipline problems – tells a story of the war that you may not have previously understood. Since the author used not only official government sources, but also numerous letters and diary entries, the volume shows the humanity (or should I say inhumanity?) of the War. Did you know that over half of Lee’s men were killed, wounded, or captured? I didn’t…

General Lee’s Army is a stunning success, complete with vivid storytelling, often narrated in the words of the soldiers, as well as their family members. This use of some of the same sources that family historians find so useful is part of what makes this book so “readable,” and of interest to those of us who don’t consider ourselves to be historians as such, at least not in an academic sense. Genealogists will appreciate the copious notes and bibliography found near the end of the book. Needless to say, I highly recommend General Lee’s Army.

By Joseph T. Glatthaar; 2008; 6×9; 618 pp; hardbound; Published by Free Press, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020; ISBN: 978-0-684-82787-2; $35.00 plus p&h – and for far less at Amazon! Now, get your copy of General Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse