Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox
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, OHCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.