This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

The spring of 1865 found the Confederate States of America in the final throes of collapse, with its armies shattered, its economy ruined, and its government desperately clinging to power as Union forces closed in from all directions. The once-mighty Army of Northern Virginia, which had inspired Confederate hopes and terrorized Union commanders for nearly four years, was now reduced to a shadow of its former strength, defending the approaches to Richmond with barely 60,000 effective troops against overwhelming Union superiority. General Robert E. Lee, the South's greatest military hero, faced the grim reality that his forces could no longer sustain the prolonged defensive operations that had kept Confederate hopes alive through four bloody years of war.

The strategic situation facing the Confederacy in early 1865 was hopeless by any rational military assessment, with Union armies under Ulysses S. Grant controlling vast swaths of Confederate territory while systematically destroying the South's ability to continue organized resistance. William T. Sherman's devastating march through Georgia and the Carolinas had demonstrated the Union's ability to strike at the Confederate heartland with impunity, while Philip Sheridan's destruction of the Shenandoah Valley had eliminated one of the South's most important agricultural regions. The Confederate government's loss of control over its territory was matched by economic collapse as inflation rendered Confederate currency worthless while critical shortages of food, clothing, and military supplies reduced the army's effectiveness.

The Army of Northern Virginia's condition in the spring of 1865 reflected the broader decay of Confederate military power as months of siege warfare around Petersburg had reduced Lee's forces through casualties, disease, and desertion to a fraction of their former strength.