Lees Lieutenants 3 Volume Abridged A Study in Command

A towering landmark in Civil War literature, long considered one of the great masterpieces of military history -- now available in a one-volume abridgment. Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command is the most colorful and popular of Douglas Southall Freeman's works. A sweeping narrative that presents a multiple biography against the flame-shot background of the American Civil War, it is the story of the great figures of the Army of Northern Virginia who fought under Robert E. Lee. Dr. Freeman describes the early rise and fall of General Beauregard, the developing friction between Jefferson Davis and Joseph E. Johnston, the emergence and failure of a number of military charlatans, and the triumphs of unlikely men at crucial times. He also describes the rise of the legendary "Stonewall" Jackson and traces his progress in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign and into Richmond amid the acclaim of the South. The Confederacy won resounding victories throughout the war, but seldom easily or without tremendous casualties. Death was always on the heels of fame, but the men who survived -- among them Jackson, Longstreet, and Ewell -- developed as commanders and men. Lee's Lieutenants follows these men to the costly battle at Gettysburg, through the deepening twilight of the South's declining military might, and finally to the collapse of Lee's command and his formal surrender in 1865. To his unparalleled descriptions of men and operations, Dr. Freeman adds an insightful analysis of the lessons learned and their bearing upon the future military development of the nation. Accessible at last in a one-volume edition abridged by noted Civil War historian Stephen W. Sears, Lee's Lieutenants is essential reading for all Civil War buffs, students of war, and admirers of the historian's art as practiced at its very highest level.

Douglas Southall Freeman was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1886, the son of a Confederate soldier. After receiving a Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University at the age of twenty-two, he embarked on a newspaper career. He was named the editor of the Richmond News Leader at the age of twenty-nine, a post he would hold for thirty-four years. In 1915, Freeman was commissioned to write a one-volume biography of Robert E. Lee; twenty years later, his four-volume R. E. Lee won the Pulitzer Prize. The three volumes of Lee's Lieutenants took him a relatively modest eight years to complete. He won another Pulitzer Prize for his six-volume biography of George Washington, which he finished only hours before his death in 1953.

Contents

Maps

Introduction: James M. McPherson

Foreword: Douglas Southall Freeman

Editorial Note: Stephen W. Sears

Dramatis Personæ

1. Opening Guns

2. Beauregard's Battlefield

3. Beauregard's Star Wanes

4. Johnston Passes a Dark Winter

5. Challenge on the Peninsula

6. Seven Pines

7. To Defend Richmond

8. Guarding the Valley

9. Jackson Launches His Offensive

10. Victory in the Valley

11. Struggle for Richmond

12. Richmond Relieved

13. Lessons of the Seven Days

14. Facing a New Threat

15. Return to Manassas

16. Across the Potomac

17. Desperate Hours on the Antietam

18. Rebuilding an Army

19. Battle at Fredericksburg

20. In Winter Quarters

21. Facing a New Campaign

22. Jackson Gets His Greatest Orders

23. Victory and Tragedy at Chancellorsville

24. Renewal and Reorganization

25. Across the Potomac Again

26. Two Days of Baffle

27. Gettysburg and Its Cost

28. Challenges for Longstreet, Hill, and Smart

29. Tests and Trials of Winter

30. The Wilderness and Spotsylvania

31. Richmond Threatened

32. New Fronts, New Baffles

33. The Darkening Autumn of Command

34. In a Ring of Iron

35. The Last March

Notes

Bibliography

Index