General Lee's Army

An extensive study of the Civil War–era lives of the men in Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.

2008 Winnter of the Fletcher Pratt Literary Award

Astonishingly after 150 years of scholarship, there are still some major surprises to be learned 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.

Praise for General Lee’s Army

“The storied history of the Army of Northern Virginia has never had a better chronicler than Joseph Glatthaar. . . . [A] fast-paced narrative of campaigns and battles, to be sure, but also an analysis of the army’s socioeconomic makeup based on research more thorough and penetrating than has been done for any other Civil War army.” —James M. McPherson, author of This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War

“This is now the indispensable first place to go for anyone interested in Lee, his army, and their storied campaigns.” —Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War

“Glatthaar marshals convincing evidence to challenge the often-expressed notion that the war in the South was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight and that support for slavery was concentrated among the Southern upper class. . . . This well-written work provides much food for thought for all Civil War buffs.” —Publishers Weekly