Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox (Civil War America) [Paperback]

William Marvel (Author)

Book Description

Series: Civil War America | Publication Date: February 27, 2006

Few events in Civil War history have generated such deliberate mythmaking as the retreat that ended at Appomattox. As the popular imagination would have it, Robert E. Lee's tattered, starving, but devoted troops found themselves hopelessly surrounded through no fault of their beloved commander, who surrendered them rather than sacrifice their lives. Victors and vanquished met at Appomattox in a moving surrender ceremony marked by a spirit of mutual regard.

According to William Marvel, this tale is a tissue of untruths that sprang from the imaginations of Lost Cause historians and Northern and Southern generals well practiced in the art of fabricating popular legend. Marvel offers the first history of the Appomattox campaign written primarily from contemporary source material, with a skeptical eye toward memoirs published well after the events they purport to describe.

Marvel shows that during the final week of the war in Virginia, Lee's troops were more numerous and far less faithful to their cause than has been suggested. Lee himself made mistakes in this campaign, and defeat wrung from him an unusual display of faultfinding. Finally, Marvel proves accounts of the congenial intermingling of the armies at Appomattox to be shamelessly overblown and the renowned exchange of salutes to be apocryphal.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Contradicting popular belief that Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was defeated because it was vastly outnumbered, out-equipped, and out-fed, Marvel sets the record straight on the last retreat and surrender of the Confederate army. Concentrating on the final days of the Confederacy in April 1865, Marvel asserts that past works have placed too much reliance on embellished memoirs that bolstered perceptions of the wartime bravery and conduct of both armies. Journalist Marvel, the award-winning author of Andersonville: The Last Depot, has meticulously researched contemporary diary accounts and letters and convincingly concludes that mistakes made by General Lee and his staff, coupled with the huge numbers of deserters during that final week, led to the Confederate defeat. The reader needs prior knowledge of Civil War history to be able to follow the narrative. Suggested background reading includes Bruce Catton's A Stillness at Appomattox and J. Tracy Power's Lee's Miserables: Life in the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Appomattox. The narrative would have benefited from larger and more detailed maps. Essential for academic and larger public libraries.
Maria C. Bagshaw, Lake Erie Coll., Painesville, OH
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Offers thought-provoking analyses and insights that will likely stir debate."
Washington Post Book World

"Marvel sets the record straight on the last retreat and surrender of the Confederate army."
Library Journal

"Marvel has cut away much distortion and hyperbole from the Appomattox story."
Washington Times

"This book establishes a new baseline for discussions about Lee's last campaign."
Journal of Southern History

"This well-written study stands as the best single-volume study to date on the Appomattox Campaign."
Blue & Gray Magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (February 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807857033
• ISBN-13: 978-0807857038
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,550,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

WILLIAM MARVEL is the author of Lincoln's Darkest Year, Mr. Lincoln Goes to War, Lee's Last Retreat, Andersonville, and several other acclaimed books on the Civil War. He has won a Lincoln Prize, the Douglas Southall Freeman Award, and the Bell Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fast paced narrative of Robert E. Lee's last campaign, October 19, 2002

By 

Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox (Hardcover)

William Marvel is well known for books of Civil War history challenging conventional wisdom, such as his very sympathetic biography of Ambrose Burnside. In "Lee's Last Retreat" Marvel's target is the hazy romanticism of the Lost Cause version of Appomattox wherein a band of peerless heroes gracefully surrender their arms only because they faced with a numberless horde of enemies led by the plodding, remorseless U.S. Grant. Marvel successfully demonstrates, in my opinion, that in fact Lee's army at the start of the affair was much larger than popularly supposed -- more than 70,000 men available to him -- and that Lee's army was plainly outmaneuvered and outmarched over the next week, its morale collapsing disastrously as thousands of soldiers deserted its ranks (Marvel includes an interesting discussion of how the records show that the soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia were more likely to desert the closer to their own homes they were). Marvel also devotes substantial space to discussing why Lee fatally delayed for an entire day at Amelia Court House, permitting Grant to catch up to him; the usual claim that Lee was waiting for supplies is rejected in favor of an explanation that the failure to erect a needed pontoon bridge over the Appomattox River was the primary reason. And there is an interesting discussion of the final surrender ceremonies. Our traditional view has been largely shaped by the writings of two remarkable men -- Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and John B. Gordon, both fine warriors and both men unable to resist romanticizing and expanding their own roles in post-war writings; Marvel's version is that mutual salutes exchanged by the two sides never happened and that Gordon tried desperately in violation of the agreed conditions to avoid making a public surrender.

I am certain that there are many who will disagree with some of Marvel's conclusions. Sometimes the old, romantic myths are difficult to shed. But if a reader is looking for a good, fast-paced narrative about the final campaign between Lee and Grant, then this book will fill the bill.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revisionist History? Not Really, January 5, 2003

By 

J. Yingling "LiteraryArky" (Beebe, AR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox (Hardcover)

This book has been hyped as a myth busting history of Lee's retreat to Appomattox. As such I feared that it would be a bashing of Lee and the Southern viewpoint of the war. Instead Marvel has written a very even-handed account of this story that has become an epic of American history.
"Lee's Last Retreat" is a fast paced book retelling Lee's retreat and Grant's relentless pursuit. Unlike so many recent Civil War books, Marvel does not get lost in the details nor does he make his book too long. He tells the story in 199 pages including 23 pages of photographs. To use a term seldom used to describe works of nonfiction, this is a real page turner. That is not to say that this is a "light" work. The author spices his account with a lot of detail from diaries and letters. His research and documentation is first-rate. For those wanting more he includes @40 pages of appendices and an order of battle. This is Marvel's second work on Appomattox and he is very familiar with the material. His other book was "A Place Called Appomattox".
Marvel does not hesitate to state his opinion and I found his insights fair and refreshing. I found myself laughing at some of his characterizations. For example, on page 87, he refers to George Custer as "the insufferably arrogant Custer." He spares neither Rebels nor Yankees where it is deserved.
"Lee's Last Retreat" adds to the excellent reputation that Marvel earned with his book on Andersonville. Add this book to your library.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bravery and valor all around., February 15, 2004

By 

Dennis Phillips "The Book Friar" (Bulls Gap, Tennessee USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox (Hardcover)

William Marvel has come under a fair amount of criticism for this book. Mostly he is accused of being anti-southern and attempting to re-write history in a manner that is not flattering to the troops of the Army of Northern Virginia. On the contrary, I found this to be an engaging book that not only does not rip away the luster of courage that is usually bestowed on the common Confederate soldier but actually accentuates it.

After nine months in the trenches of Petersburg it is no wonder that Lee's men were beaten down. A late uncle of mine fought in the trenches during WW I and his stories of the trenches made it clear to me just how awful trench warfare is. Finally the tenacious Grant turned Lee's flank at Five Forks and the Confederate Chieftain knew the game was up. Marvel takes up his story with the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond and tells the story of the miserable conditions faced by both armies in the days that followed. Lee made mistakes and Marvel has the courage to point them out. Still one has to wonder if Lee could have gotten his army to North Carolina even if he had conducted a flawless retreat. As the author points out, the Yankees could smell a final victory and the chance to at last go home. They were therefore much more inclined to accept a lack of rations and forced marches than were the Confederates. A few more days of hardship could send the men in blue home while all the boys in gray could look forward to was a Yankee prison.

I really have to wonder if Lee really wanted to make it to North Carolina. Marvel fails here to delve into the talks Lee had held with Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge long before Petersburg fell. Breckinridge realized the war was lost and had been discussing surrender with Lee, who seemed to agree with the hero of New Market. I suspect that Lee really did want to get to the Army of Tennessee but was not willing to cause many more deaths in what he had to know was a long shot.

Marvel does go to great lengths to point out that Walter Taylor's estimates of troop strength were distorted and that the Union had fewer men than Taylor said and the Confederates had more. On the other hand the Union troops were on a high while the Confederates had just lost Richmond and moral was extremely low. Marvel points out that the difference in real and Taylor's estimated troop strengths might have been made up for by this difference in moral. In fact, the Confederates almost to the end were more than willing to fight and when they turned on their pursuers and sent up the Rebel yell the Union troops usually reacted by falling back. Even after Lee surrendered many of his veterans vowed to fight on after they were exchanged. Marvel does nothing to cast aspersions on these brave men and in fact points out that many Confederates refused to be surrendered and fled the scene to fight again. It is true that the author points out the large number of desertions that accompanied the retreat but he also excuses most of them. For example, he points out that a large group had just been exchanged and had returned from Union prisons and would rather just walk away from the army than return to those prisons. The reader will find that some of Marvel's harshest criticism is reserved for Phil Sheridan and George Custer and their fanatical drive for unearned glory and Joshua L. Chamberlain's ego.

The one really glaring problem with this book is the maps or rather the lack thereof. There are a few maps but not nearly enough and what maps there are could have been made much more useful by actually showing troop movements on them. It is fairly hard to follow the armies across Virginia without good maps; I don't care how well the author tells the story. I think maybe he assume the reader is as familiar with the area as he is. Marvel does argue that the Confederates had a better chance of making the link with Johnston than has been accepted fact, but he backs up his argument. His argument that sheer wealth and numbers in the overall war did not overwhelm the South however is just silly fortunately that argument only comes up at the end of the book. Other than that though I found this to be a highly readable, well-researched, intelligent and fair book.