No military unit in all the annals of American history exceeds in reputation Robert E. Lee's illustrious Army of Northern Virginia. In ten chapters based on exhaustive research, esteemed Civil War scholar Robert K. Krick gives eloquent examination to aspects of the army ranging from biographical sketches and the best and worst books on the subject, to Confederate troop strengths and locating soldier records. He begins with two key events: Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson's mortal wounding at Chancellorsville; and Jackson's most famous quarrel with a subordinate, which resulted in the unsuccessful court martial of General Richard B. Garnett. Krick continues with chapters on James Longstreet's failure at Knoxville and the prickly relationship between Jubal A. Early and the undisciplined Valley Cavalry. His piece on Robert E. Rodes is the first complete portrait of Lee's best division commander, whose wife methodically burned all of his letters sent home, forever preventing a full-scale biography. Krick, however, has uncovered a wide array of unpublished material on Rodes to sketch him in fresh perspective. Another essay considers the life and career of Colonel R. Welby Carter - a rogue
Robert K. Krick is the author of fourteen books on the American Civil War, including Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain, winner of the Douglas Southall Freeman Prize, and Conquering the Valley: Stonewall Jackson at Port Republic. For thirty years Krick was chief historian of the national military park that preserves the battlefields of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania, and the house where Stonewall Jackson died. He lives in Fredericksburg, VA.
