Product Description

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 this army ranging from biographical sketches and the best and worst books on the subject to Confederate troop strengths and locating soldier records. The Smoothbore Volley That Doomed the Confederacy gleams with Krick’s usual superior research, skilled writing, and sound analysis and sheds new light on one of the most popular Civil War subjects.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #623757 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 274 pages

About the Author
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 he was chief historian of the national military park that preserves the battlefields of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania, including the house where Stonewall Jackson died.

Customer Reviews

Slices of Civil War Life and Death!
Award-winning author Robert Krick has written a number of well-received books on the Civil War. Civil War enthusiasts should enjoy this collection of 10 Krick essays published by the Lousiana State University Press.

By and large, the essays deal with various aspects of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The opening essay is an exhaustive account of Stonewall Jackson's wounding and death. Wonderfully researched and well written, it's a marvelous opener to the book. Other essays deal with the ever-controversial James Longstreet, the death of General Robert Rodes, the fiery secessionist General Maxcy Gregg, Jubal Early's cavalry troubles in 1864, good & bad books on the Confederacy, locating & using Confederate army records, etc.

I enjoyed Krick's book tremendously. His essays are interesting, informative, and thought-provoking. Civil War enthusiasts will want to pick up this book. It provides not only interesting reading but much food for thought not to mention heated arguments over how good or bad certain Civil War generals really were!

Good Set of Essays by Krick
Robert Krick does a good job with his essays on various episodes and officers of the Army of Northern Virginia. I want to mention first the things I don't like about some of the essays: Krick is entirely too harsh on General Longstreet and I really don't understand why he feels so strongly about such a brave officer that he never met and he wants to be so critical of. Did General Longstreet make mistakes? Yes, of course. Every Civil War officer in high command made mistakes that they came to regret but Krick is too much from the Jubal Early blame Longstreet crowd and his Longstreet essays are not the best the book has to offer. I don't mean to preach but it is easy to say 150 years later that in a certain battle that this movement, etc. should have been done but we hindsight and officers like Longstreet were making the best decisions with the information they had.

On the best things that Krick does: his chapter on the accidental shooting of Stonewall Jackson is quite excellent. This essay gives the book its title but I don't think the title is meant to be taken literally. I thought it was hyperbolic on purpose. But the essay itself lays out with incredible detail about that controversial night. It is a A+ essay. There are also very nice essays on Maxcy Gregg and Robert Rodes. The Rodes essay has now been superseded by Darryl Collins excellent Rodes biography but Krick's essay is a nice short introduction to the fascinating figure of Rodes. The chapter on Jubal Early's cavalry trouble in 1864 is also very good. Also, a book review where Krick rips apart Alan Nolan's controversial 'Lee Reconsidered' is quite delightful. It is good to see Nolan's book cut down in size.

The other essays are quite good just take the Longstreet essays with a grain of salt and I think everything will be okay (For those interested, Jeffry Wert has a excellent modern day biography of Longstreet that gives the man a fair shake). I think this book makes a good companion to Krick's other Eastern theater books and read it with the pioneering work on the Army of Northern Virginia by Douglas Southall Freeman and Clifford Dowdey.

Recommended!

How the South was Lost
I've read quite a bit about the Civil War, but the eight essays in this book brought me a load of new information.

- The events leading to Stonewall Jackson's mortal wound are recorded in abundant detail.

- I had never read anything negative about Longstreet, but Krick solidly documents instances where Longstreet's stubbornness worked against the core mission of the confederate army.

- Garnett, McLaws, Rodes, and Gregg were just names to me (if I'd heard of them at all), but now I'll associate those names with the crucial roles these men played (or tried to play, had they not been undermined by their superiors).

- There's a great essay on the general ineptitude of the Valley cavalry and how it weakened the southern army. In fact, near the end of the war, they were described as a "straggling cavalry that infested the Valley ... a greater terror to their friends than their foes." Ouch.

This is an exceptional collection of illuminating facts about the Army of Northern Virginia. If you are interested in some well-researched and lesser-known information, dig in!