Glatthaar has provided an exceptional account of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia (ANV). Despite the title, Glatthaar explores the history of this army from its inception in 1861 to the final surrender, whereas Lee took over June 1862, well over a year into the war. Rather than pure battle history, Glatthaar instead weaves dozens of thematic topics into a chronological overview of the war in Northern Virginia. These topics run the gamut from recruiting, training, and desertion, to religion, morale, medical treatment, and logistics.
I found the most informative portion of the book to be the examination of the relationship of Lee’s soldiers with slavery ownership. The popular view has been that relatively few southerners owned slaves, and that the high-end slave owners escaped the conflict while most of the serving soldiers were poor farmers. Glatthaar examines data from the Census and other sources (to be mentioned later) showing that a high percentage of wealthy, slave owners served in the army. He also advises that even if a southerner did not personally own slaves, he probably had a family member who did, and he could use them for short periods as needed. He also points out that many non-slave owners could “rent” slaves for brief periods to support their own work. The result of this examination is to reveal just how pervasive the institution ran throughout the South.
Any study of CSA military activities is handicapped by the scarcity and unreliability of the sources, especially when compared to Union sources. Glatthaar uses 1860 Census data, soldier letters to home, and a database of 600 ANV soldiers compiled by a political science professor from the University of Houston. Glatthaar states that over two hundred thousand soldiers served in the ANV—so many of the assertions in this work must be considered in the context that this database represents only .3% of soldiers in Lee’s army. Observations derived from soldier correspondence also merits some caution. All the soldiers were assigned to specific regiments, and the situation confronting the soldier in one regiment would not have been the same across the army’s scores of regiments. So comments about morale, intensity of combat, and even logistics might only reflect the environment of that regiment and brigade, not the entire army. Still, the historian has to work with the documents available, so these observations should not be considered critical.
I would quibble with some of Glatthaar’s analysis or lack thereof—this should only be expected given the enormous range of his work. First, I wish Glatthaar could have been more specific with his use of the term “overwhelming” when describing Union forces throughout the war. Dealing with ANV combat strength is always tricky, but we can observe that the ratio of force varied throughout Lee’s command time. The ANV was outnumbered by approximately two to one in the battles at Antietam and Chancellorsville. On the defense at Antietam, the ANV held its own, while Lee managed to achieve a spectacular victory at Chancellorsville. Outnumbered by about 3:2 at Fredericksburg, the ANV achieved a major tactical defensive victory. Lee scored offensive victories during the Seven Days and at Second Manassas in spite of being outnumbered by about 5:4 (Seven Days) and 7.5:5.5 (Second Manassas). The ANV was unable to achieve success at Gettysburg, but I would argue this setback owed more to improved Union tactical skills and the terrain rather than Lee’s inability to coordinate his attacks. (Dispute about this battle has raged for 150 years, so we should not expect universal agreement about the outcome of this battle). Grant’s Overland Campaign began with slightly less than a 2:1 advantage, and this ratio seems to have declined owing to his losses, expiration of Union enlistments, and desertion of reluctant conscripts and bounty hunters. The nature of Civil War combat allowed armies to survive tactical combat without destruction, in spite of being outnumbered. The “overwhelming “ numbers of the Union was only decisive in the final months of the war, after Lincoln’s re-election and victories by Sherman, Sheridan, and Thomas had released another 100,000 troops to potentially enter the fray outside Richmond and Petersburg. Rather than overwhelming numbers, what really seemed to have devastated the ANV’s effectiveness were the continuous operations during the siege of Petersburg, where Lee’s overstretched army could not maintain its training and health. When Lee’s army had to come out of its trenches at the end of March, it collapsed within two weeks. Outnumbered by two to one in March 1865, the ANV could not replicate a Chancellorsville action; on the contrary, it was completely outclassed. I would like to have seen Glatthaar expand his analysis here, as it may contradict the argument that Grant’s Overland Campaign was essential to tie down Lee’s army. Could Grant instead have gripped Lee’s army as he did without major offensive operations somewhere in Northern Virginia, sparing some 120 thousand casualties, while the Confederacy collapsed around Lee? Perhaps this is a dangerous what if argument and it certainly does not have an answer.
I do think Glatthaar could have profited from using Newton’s Lost for Cause, which provides a thoughtful and documented analysis of Lee’s strength during the Overland Campaign and summer and fall operations around Petersburg. (Even more interesting, but published after Glatthaar’s work, is Owen Young’s The Overland Campaign, another detailed statistical analysis that shows the numerical imbalance was perhaps not as great as usually believed.) While Lee’s army certainly suffered in these operations, the Army of the Potomac fared worse, both in relative decline in strength, and certainly in the decline in effectiveness, as best witnessed by the collapse of Hancock’s Second Corps. Glatthaar’s focus on the impact of attrition on the ANV blurs the impact on the Army of the Potomac (AOP). Lee certainly lost heavily, both in the ranks as well as senior officers. But the AOP lost heavily as well. Consider that at Gettysburg the AOP lost three of its seven corps commanders (and seven corps, not six, as Glatthaar twice states). Corps command was no guarantee of a safe place on the battlefield. I think the real impact of attrition on the ANV is the somewhat ironic circumstance that Lee was fortunate that his two initial corps commanders, Jackson and Longstreet, were also his best, and he could not replace them with equivalent competency. By contract, the AOP was not harmed by losing its initial 1862 corps “draft choices” of Sumner, Franklin, Heintzelman, Keyes, Mansfield, and Porter. Early divisional commanders like Ewell, AP Hill, DH Hill, Anderson, McClaws, and Hood were also superb divisional leaders, who then often left for corps and even army commands (excepting McClaws).
It would also have been interesting to see Glatthaar examine Lee in his very late appointed role as commander of all Confederate forces; and to examine the impact on the ANV of incorporating the brigades under Beauregard that had defended Petersburg before Hill’s veterans arrived. I also think Glatthaar could have paid a bit more attention to the assertions in McMurry’s Two Great Rebel Armies that observes the relative advantages enjoyed by Virginia’s greater pre-war preparedness than those in Tennessee.
These observations are minor compared to the great work done by Professor Glatthaar. Any serious student of the conflict in Virginia should add this book to the required reading list.
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Billy Bastogne
Excellent and touching portrait of the main Southern army
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 19, 2013
