Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served under Robert E. Lee

by Joseph T. Glatthaar

Overview

In this sophisticated quantitative study, Joseph T. Glatthaar provides a comprehensive narrative and statistical analysis of many key aspects of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Serving as a companion to Glatthaar's General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse, this book presents Glatthaar's supporting data and major conclusions in extensive and extraordinary detail.

While gathering research materials for General Lee's Army, Glatthaar compiled quantitative data on the background and service of 600 randomly selected soldiers--150 artillerists, 150 cavalrymen, and 300 infantrymen--affording him fascinating insight into the prewar and wartime experience of Lee's troops. Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia presents the full details of this fresh, important primary research in a way that is useful to scholars and students and appeals to anyone with a serious interest in the Civil War. While confirming much of what is believed about the army, Glatthaar's evidence challenges some conventional thinking in significant ways, such as showing that nearly half of all Lee's soldiers lived in slaveholding households (a number higher than previously thought), and provides a broader and fuller portrait of the men who served under General Lee.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807877869
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	06/15/2011
Series:	Civil War America
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Joseph T. Glatthaar is Stephenson Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xv

1 The Army 1

2 The Infantry 21

3 The Cavalry 33

4 The Artillery 44

5 Northern‐ and Foreign‐Born Soldiers 57

6 Upper and Lower South 68

7 Officers and Enlisted Men 83

8 Year of Enlistment 97

9 Age 115

10 Marriage and Fatherhood 127

11 Economic Class 140

12 Slaveholding 154

Conclusion 166

Notes 179

Sources 201

Index 203

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Scholars, Civil War enthusiasts, and anyone with an interest in the Army of Northern Virginia must read this first-rate piece of research and analysis by Glatthaar. It will be a highly useful companion to his narrative history, General Lee's Army, and is sure to become one of the most cited reference works on any Civil War army.—Robert K. Krick, author of Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain and Lee's Colonels

Editorial Reviews

Professor Glatthaar's book is a wellspring of solid data concerning the Army of Northern Virginia. It should not be overlooked by anyone interested in improving his understanding of the Civil War." —On Point



Glatthaar has produced a study that should not be ignored.—Journal of American History



A book that anyone interested in researching or learning more about the Army of Northern Virginia should examine.—Blue & Gray Magazine



This text is full of such fine-grained data on every facet of the soldiering population.—Journal of Interdisciplinary History



A valuable resource for Civil War historians and a must-read for serious scholars of the Army of Northern Virginia. . . . A superb example of the fruitful potential that quantitative study holds for other Civil War topics.—North Carolina Historical Review



Nicely detailed and easy to comprehend.—Register of The Kentucky Historical Society



The preeminent statistical study of Lee's Army.—Tennessee Historical Quarterly



The importance of this work cannot be understated. This is a new milestone in historiography of the Civil War soldier.—Journal of the North Carolina Association of Historians

From the Publisher