From Second Manassas through Chancellorsville, the Army of Northern Virginia was one of the finest fighting forces in history. As long as Lee, Jackson, Longstreet and Stuart were all alive and together, they were unbelievably effective. In the four major battles in that stretch (Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Antietam, Chancellorsville), they were always significantly outnumbered, sometimes drastically so; and they were poorly provisioned, even to the point of not having shoes for the troops. And yet they routed the Yankees in three of those battles, and even when the enemy had a copy of Lee's orders and knew what he was planning at Antietam, they still fought the Yankees to a tactical draw.
I am proud to say that my great-grandfather and his brother fought in the 3rd Arkansas Regiment, which was a unit in that Army.
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