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"The best and most balanced of the Lee biographies."—New York Review of Books The life of Robert E. Lee is a story not of defeat but of triumph—triumph in clearing his family name, triumph in marrying properly, triumph over the mighty Mississippi in his work as an engineer, and triumph over all other military men to become the towering figure who commanded the Confederate army in the American Civil War. But late in life Lee confessed that he "was always wanting something." In this probing and personal biography, Emory Thomas reveals more than the man himself did. Robert E. Lee has been, and continues to be, a symbol and hero in the American story. But in life, Thomas writes, Lee was both more and less than his legend. Here is the man behind the legend.
This book challenges the general view that Robert E. Lee was a military genius who staved off inevitable Confederate defeat against insurmountable odds. Instead, the author contends that Lee was responsible for the South's loss in a war it could have won. Instead, as this book demonstrates, Lee unnecessarily went for the win, squandered his irreplaceable troops, and weakened his army so badly that military defeat became inevitable. It describes how Lee's army took 80,000 casualties in Lees first fourteen months of command-while imposing 73,000 casualties on his opponents. With the Confederacy outnumbered four to one, Lee's aggressive strategy and tactics proved to be suicidal. Also described...
A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning historian and best-selling author of Gettysburg comes the definitive biography of Robert E. Lee. An intimate look at the Confederate general in all his complexity—his hypocrisy and courage, his inner turmoil and outward calm, his disloyalty and his honor. "An important contribution to reconciling the myths with the facts." —New York Times Book Review Robert E. Lee is one of the most confounding figures in American history. Lee betrayed his nation in order to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose. He was a traitor to the country he swore to serve as an Army officer, and yet he was admir...
Meet ROBERT E. LEE is the story of a great American leader forced to make a terrible decision. Robert E. Lee the Virginian, son of a Revolutionary hero, served in the U.S. Army as America moved towards Civil War. Loving his country, he hated to see the Union split, but he could not fight against the South. His agonizing decision, his brilliant military leadership, and the fine example he set when the battle was done, are all recounted in this thoroughly researched and richly illustrated book.
"Ty Seidule scorches us with the truth and rivets us with his fierce sense of moral urgency." --Ron Chernow In a forceful but humane narrative, former soldier and head of the West Point history department Ty Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the myths and lies of the Confederate legacy—and explores why some of this country’s oldest wounds have never healed. Ty Seidule grew up revering Robert E. Lee. From his southern childhood to his service in the U.S. Army, every part of his life reinforced the Lost Cause myth: that Lee was the greatest man who ever lived, and that the Confederates were underdogs who lost the Civil War with honor. Now, as a retired brigadier general and Profess...
History has been kind to Robert E. Lee. Woodrow Wilson believed General Lee was a “model to men who would be morally great.” Douglas Southall Freeman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his four-volume biography of Lee, described his subject as “one of a small company of great men in whom there is no inconsistency to be explained, no enigma to be solved.” Winston Churchill called him “one of the noblest Americans who ever lived.” Until recently, there was even a stained glass window devoted to Lee's life at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Immediately after the Civil War, however, many northerners believed Lee should be hanged for treason and war crimes. Americans will be sur...
Reid looks beyond the legend to arrive at an objective assessment of the man and his military career.
1865. The Civil War is over, and the South lies in ruins. But for some people, former slaveholders have not been punished enough. A cabal of powerful men, led by Charles A. Dana, the assistant secretary of war, plot to break the spirit of the South once and for all - by convicting General Robert E. Lee of treason and hanging him like a common criminal. To this end, they have convened a secret military tribunal in Lee's former home in Arlington, Virginia. Jeremiah O'Brien of the New-York Tribune, a long-time protégé of Dana's, is the only reporter allowed to attend the trial. His exclusive reports on this momentous event, and the book he intends to write, will surely make his fortune. Yet a...
Robert E. Lee was both a military genius and a spiritual leader, considered by many—southerners and nonsoutherners alike—to have been a near saint. In The Marble Man a leading Civil War military historian examines the hold of Lee on the American mind and traces the campaign in historiography that elevated him to national hero status.
The generalship of Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy's greatest commander, has long fascinated students of the American Civil War. In assessing Lee and his military career, historians have faced the great challenge of explaining how a man who achieved extraordinary battlefield success in 1862–1863 ended up surrendering his army and accepting the defeat of his cause in 1865. How, in just under two years, could Lee, the Army of Northern Virginia, and the Confederacy have gone from soaring triumph at Chancellorsville to total defeat at Appomattox Court House? In this reexamination of the last two years of Lee's storied military career, Ethan S. Rafuse offers a clear, informative, and insightful ...