GLORIOUS ARMY
From the time Robert E. Lee took command of the Army of Northern
Virginia on June 1, 1862, until the Battle of Gettysburg thirteen months
later, the Confederate army compiled a record of military achievement
almost unparalleled in our nation's history. How it happened—the
relative contributions of Lee, his top command, opposing Union generals,
and of course the rebel army itself—is the subject of Civil War
historian Jeffry D. Wert's fascinating and riveting new history.
In
the year following Lee's appointment, his army won four major battles
or campaigns and fought Union forces to a draw at the bloody Battle of
Antietam. Washington itself was threatened, as a succession of Union
commanders failed to stop Lee's offensive. Until Gettysburg, it looked
as if Lee might force the Union to negotiate a peace rather than risk
surrendering the capital or even losing the war. Lee's victories fired
southern ambition and emboldened Confederate soldiers everywhere. Wert
shows how the same audacity and aggression that fueled these victories
proved disastrous at Gettysburg. But, as Wert explains, Lee had little
choice: outnumbered by an opponent with superior resources, he had to
take the fight to the enemy in order to win. For a year his superior
generalship prevailed against his opponents, but eventually what Lee's
trusted lieutenant General James Longstreet called "headlong
combativeness" caused Lee to miscalculate. When an equally combative
Union general—Ulysses S. Grant—took command of northern forces in 1864,
Lee was defeated.
A Glorious Army draws on the latest
scholarship, including letters and diaries, to provide a brilliant
analysis of Lee's triumphs. It offers fresh assessments of Lee; his top
commanders Longstreet, Jackson, and Stuart; and a shrewd battle strategy
that still offers lessons to military commanders today.
A Glorious Army is
a dramatic account of major battles from Seven Days to Gettysburg that
is as gripping as it is convincing, a must-read for anyone interested in
the Civil War.
