Lee's Army of Northern Virginia: Melissa

» Ulysses - Melissa

Being a bit of a cynic (okay, a HUGE cynic-he,he), I can only say that I believe the reason so much has been written of Lee's campaign in Virginia with his Army of Northern Virginia (not Potomac, Michael, although, curiously enough, at the start of the war, both Confederate and Union armies were called the "Army of the Potomac")is because it WAS a victorious army, at least for a while. I mean, although a number of books have been written of the hapless and perhaps mismanaged Army of Tennessee, it is the Army of N Va. and the quality of it's leadership, the resliliance of it's troops, as well as the location between Washington, D.C. and Richmond in which it operated, that continues to facinate civil war buffs and romantics alike (not that there may be much different between the too, if you want to be honest with yourself). And whereas the Army of Tennessee met it's ultimate demise as an organized fighting force at the Battle of Nashville in late 1864, Lee's army met it's end in an almost too romantic way; fading off into history in Appomattox Court House, proud to the end.
There are more reasons. But this is the one that comes first in my mind.

Ulysses.

-- posted by Ulysses