Letters from Lee's Army

Résumé du livre

This author was a Virginia aristocrat who fought for the Confederacy as much out of obligation to his class & region as for political reasons. Letter from Lee's Army presents the correspondence between the author & his wife, during the war. While he writes of the rigors of campaigning - the dramatically bad food, the constant dysentery, the cold & wet - we see the stoic wife gradually relying less & less on her husband to make decisions. During the course of the war she lost her home, three children, & her belongings to the struggle, all without the camaraderie & sustaining sense of purpose known to the soldier. These letters emphasize the stresses that war & separation can place on a marriage. The author enlisted in the Second Virginia Cavalry at the onset of the war & in 1863 was posted to Longstreet's Corps. Most of his service was in northern Virginia around the Rappahannock & the Rapidan Rivers, in the Shenandoah Valley, & with Lee's army at Gettysburg. In 1864 he went west with Longstreet's army to Chattanooga, & he returned with Longstreet for the war's final days.