New and Noteworthy---The Hearts and Minds of the Army of Northern Virginia

Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served under Robert E. Lee (Civil War America) by Joseph T. Glatthaar, The University of North Carolina Press, 256 pages, $50.00

From the Publisher: 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.

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

CWL: Joseph T. Glatthaar's companion to his remarkable General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse, Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served under Robert E. Lee is quite likely of offer more insights into both the enlisted men's and commissioned officer's' hearts and minds. This is likely to be required for any undergraduate and graduate student focusing on Civil War history. Glatthaar delineates the research method for his stereotype breaking description of the Army of Northern Virginia. Bell Irvin Wiley is smiling from beyond the veil.