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Robert E. Lee and the Fall of the Confederacy, 1863-1865 (The American Crisis Series Books on the Civil War Era) | 
 enlarge | Author: Ethan Rafuse
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $34.95
Buy New: $27.84
You Save: $7.11 (20%)
New (13) Used (5) from $27.84
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 250910
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0742551253
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.73092
EAN: 9780742551251
ASIN: 0742551253
Publication Date: August 28, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In this reexamination of the last two years of Lee's storied military career, Ethan S. Rafuse offers a clear, informative, and insightful account of Lee's ultimately unsuccessful struggle to defend the Confederacy against a relentless and determined foe. This book provides a comprehensive, yet concise and entertaining narrative of the battles and campaigns that highlighted this phase of the war and analyzes the battles and Lee's generalship in the context of the steady deterioration of the Confederacy's prospects for victory.
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From victor to vanquish October 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
From the triumph of Chancellorsville to the surrender at Appomattox is less than two years. In this time Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia went from victor to vanquish. Ethan S. Rafuse examines how this happened in this intelligent and thoughtful book. He takes a close look at Lee, his army, political decisions in Richmond and Washington contributed to this process.
This is not a book about failure. This is a story of hanging on in the face of long odds, of maximizing resources and managing upward. The secondary story is how Washington's decisions helped Lee maintain his army until US Grant has the political capital to overrule Washington and pin Lee to Richmond. The author has the knowledge to write this book and the ability to communicate the nuances of strategy to us, allowing the reader to understand the problems Washington created for the Army of the Potomac and how this helped Lee. Washington's insistence on "covering the capital" severely limits operations in Virginia. The refusal to consider an approach up the James River, a holdover from the Seven Days, frees Lee to conduct a war of maneuver.
The book contains one of the few good accounts of the period covering Lee's retreats from Gettysburg to the start of the Overland Campaign. The chapter "Waltzing with Meade" is a revelation to those who know about this but have not seen how it fits into the overall war. This is not a detailed battle history. Battles occur and have a huge impact on the army. However, the reasons for accepting battle, the reaction to it and how this changes the army's position is where the author spends his time.
This is a well-written intelligent account. The author's positions are well supported and footnoted. It can be a challenging read but is never a boring one. Ethan S. Rafuse continues to challenge the standard history of the war with intelligent analysis that is free of existing traditions. In doing so, he is showing us a war that is more historic accurate than anything we have seen. This is another of his great books.
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