Star-Crossed: A Quantitative Reassessment of the Relative Combat Performance of the Army

Everyone KNOWS the Army of Northern Virginia was a "winner" and its sister army, the Army of Tennessee was a "loser," right?

In his book, Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History, Richard M. McMurry draws the somewhat controversial conclusion that Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was not only the better led army, but that the composition of Lee's army indeed made it the better army, when compared with its Western sister, the Army of Tennessee.
While few historians would beg to differ with the first conclusion - the likes of Bragg, Polk, Hardee and Hood simply do not compare with the leadership offered by Lee, Jackson and Longstreet - historians have generally not cared to examine the potential for a more fundamental reason for the success of the one army, and the failure of the other. To do this at a more fundamental level, the historian should compare the basic building blocks of each army, at the company and regiment level, and the raw material, the quality of the men, that comprised them. This book does exactly that by quantitatively examining those assumptions on which Two Great Rebel Armies potentially false premise is based.
Star-Crossed: A Quantitative Reassessment of the Relative Combat Performance of the Army of Tennessee Compared to the Army of Northern Virginia will take the terms "winner" and "loser" and actually quantify what those terms mean with respect to Civil War armies. Specifically, data gathered from several sources will have statistical analysis techniques applied to three broad areas:

• 1) A statistical analysis of appropriate numerical factors to determine the combat performance of each army,
• 2) A full sampling of all Confederate general-grade officers who had early command experience as a colonel or below with a regiment or battalion, and
• 3) A detailed examination of the ANV's and AoT's respective Orders of Battle, circa May-June 1864, and determination of the organization dates for each infantry unit (regiment, battalion), in order to assess which army was made up of more of the first-formed (thus, higher-quality, according to McMurry) infantry units

The results of this analysis will allow for a true determination of each army's combat performance.
Which was the better army? We all already know the answer don't we? You might just be surprised.