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49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A excellent book on the Army of Northern Virginia, December 6, 2000
I developed a strong interest in the Civil War four years ago after reading a biography on President Lincoln that touched on how frustrated he was with trying to find competent officers to lead the Army of the Potomac. When I drove to Knoxville, Tennessee I took the audio books Gods and Generals, and The Last Full Measure by Jeff Shaara with me. The descriptions of the battle ground and unfolding battle were so vivid that I could see it clearly in my mind. By the time, I was finished with both audio books I was hooked. Since I completed both audio books by the time I drove from Utah to Tennessee, I picked up a copy of Grant Moves South (which is the story of the Union's western campaign) by Bruce Catton at Chattanooga,Tennessee when I went and saw the Chickamaga battlefield. After seeing the war from the western point of view on the Union side I wanted to see the war from the Southern point of view on the eastern campaign - that led me to this book.
This book is an abridgement of the original three-volume version (the footnotes have been taken out). It is an incredibly well written book. It is a history of the army of Northern Virginia from the first shot fired to the surrender at Appomattox - but what makes this book unique is that it is a biography of around 150 Confederate officers. The book discusses in depth all the tradeoffs that were being made politically and militarily by the South. The book does an excellent job describing the battles, then at a critical decision point in the battle, the book focuses on an officer - the book stops and tells the biography of that person, and then goes back to the battle and tells what information the officer had at that point and the decision he made. At the end of the battle, the officers decisions are critiqued based on what he could have known and what he should have known given his experience, and that is compared with 20/20 hindsight.
An excellent read.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Shadow of the Original, August 25, 2008
Bah, humbug. Having read the original 3-volume works (my parents gave it to me for Christmas of 1954), and re-read it from time to time, I found this abridgement unsatisfying and almost a mockery of the original. I recommend that any person seriously interested in the Army of Northern Virginia spend the additional money for the original.
I supposed the current work would be satisfactory for a newcomer to the Civil War and might even give this work five stars. Freeman was the undisputed giant with respect to Southern History, also writing the 4-volume set "R. E. Lee, A Biography," and editing the 52-volume set of the "Southern Historical Society Papers," which is usually purchased as an adjunct to the 130-volume "War of the Rebellion, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies." All of these are still available (for up to $2,500.00), and they are indispensible for the committed Civil War Historian.
Freeman's prose is as lively and readable today as it was when he wrote in the 1930s and 40s. In fact, I would give five stars to all his works including "George Washington" and "The South to Posterity." I am not sorry I purchased the LL abridgement, as it is of course a good read, but not the reference the original was.
So buy this abridgement, but then move up to the original or buy the original in the first place.
Freeman develops all of the subordinate commanders of the Army of Northern Virginia, with a particular emphasis on Stonewall Jackson. Personnel from Major Pelham on up are treated with sympathy and respect even when their battlefield performance was not up to par. It is as if Freeman was emulating his hero, Robert E. Lee, who spoke kindly whenever possible about his people. There is no attack-dog writing here, but the reader will be able to form valid and accurate judgments from Freeman's evidence and commentary. Many of the generals featured in this work are not household names, not having been spectacular failures or featured prominently at Gettysburg. Officers like Ramseur, Rodes, Pegram, Anderson, Rosser, Early, A.P and D.H Hill, Pender, Gordon, Mahone and Field all come alive in Freeman's work, lightly in the abridgement, but thoroughly in the original.
There is much to learn here, and much to be proud about for all Americans, Union and Confederate.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An exhilirating, if partisan, account still worth reading, July 23, 2000
Douglas Freeman leaves no doubt that his heart lies with the doomed Southern cause. Yet he does not on that account engage in blind worship of poor generalship. Of course this is the war as seen through the experiences of the Army of Northern Viriginia, as the title clearly asserts. It is more than that, it is one of the pioneering works that tries to take the reader into the minds of the various commanders by presenting only that information which was available to them at the time. This avoids the type of hind-sighting that armchair strategists can indulge in the comfort of their study. Freeman acknowledges some serious shortcomings in the Confederacy's efforts on the whole. For example, he points out the woeful lack of formal military education in the junior field-grade officers who were often placed at the head of a brigade without any more background than barracks-rooms tales or childhood games with toy soldiers. Their lack of foresight with respect to supply and munitions expenditure (the all-imortant, though "boring" logistical considerations)would negate the most meticulous plans made with map and pen and protractor. Freeman finds Lincoln to have been a more astute wartime Commander in Chief than Jefferson Davis despite the latter's military background. His complaint that southern officers were often selected more for their political connections than their military prowess is one that affected the North equally. Freeman acknowledged as well the tendency of Lee's subordinates to rush headlong into offensive operations without considering alternative methods of picking ground so as to force the enemy to come to them, thereby gaining the advantage of cover and superior position. This has almost become a commonplace but Freeman's excellent narrative provides example after example. Most importantly the power of the writing carries the reader along...this is no dry academic text. This is, as the subtitle mentions, a "study in command" but one marked by considerable insights into the physical and psychological limitations of the chaotic 19th century battlefield, given the primitive nature of communications -- telegraph and semaphore notwithstanding. The abridgement is judiciously accomplished retaining most of the essence of the three-volume original. Published in 1942, Lee's Lieutenants, despite the bulkiness of the original set, was carried overseas by American Army and Corps commanders for inspirational reading. One Korean war analyst mentioned that he was apprised after the war that a Chinese general kept a heavily underlined copy of the translated third volume with him.
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