Robert E. Lee: A Biography
Contents:
Write a customer review. Read reviews that mention civil war robert lee lost cause highly recommend interested in the civil ever read longstreet volume volumes research general subject gettysburg historical military account early attention chancellorsville complete. Showing of 31 reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Lee is one of the iconic figures of American history and this is the definitive biography of his life.
Douglas Southall Freeman learned his military tactics and strategy covering the First World War for a newspaper. He brings that knowledge to this four volume biography, explaining how and why Lee was able to effectively engage enemies who often outnumbered him and eventually defeated him. The string of victories that Lee gave the Confederacy in bear some of the most famous names in American Military history. Read here how they came about from the commander's viewpoint. The author tries to place the reader in Lee's position, showing what he would have known at the time thereby helping the reader understand how command decisions were made.
The writing of Douglas Southall Freeman is some of the best history you will ever read. His style is easy and direct and he demonstrates a knowledge of his subject beyond most writers even today. I cannot recommend this author or this biography highly enough. I read a lot of history and this is as good as it gets! Freeman's writing based on objective fact from exhaustive research combined to found an entire school of writers, the Virginia school of Civil War Scholarship.
It may sound tedious, as I am sure the research was, but it reads as easily as a grand novel. I cannot imagine a better book on the subject being written - I believe it to be the benchmark on the subject. This work has stood the test of time. A Pulitzer Prize winner, it deserves to be read as much today as when it was first published. One person found this helpful.
Robert E. Lee: A Biography [Emory M. Thomas] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The best and most balanced of the Lee biographies . Robert E. Lee is one of the iconic figures of American history and this is the definitive biography of his life. Douglas Southall Freeman learned his military tactics.
Lee became a man I could relate to, tragic and admirable, but, most of all, human. Jul 08, Chris rated it it was amazing Shelves: Well crafted biography designed to reveal the man behind the many myths. In addition, it serves as a corrective to the harsher critiques of Lee by Thomas Connelly and Alan Nolan. Thomas is no Lee apologist and puts human clothes on the man. Points of Lee's wit shine especially in this regard - and serve both to let us know Lee better and to dispel those mythic trappings.
General Lee As a Northerner always had a strange affinity for Lee after reading about his personal problems in this book it makes me want to learn more about the man not the myth.
Feb 15, Michael Geiger rated it really liked it. Mar 16, Tom rated it liked it. Lee was a remarkable man, engineering degree from West Point, only later to discover that he was probably a better soldier than engineer. His tackling of the river problems near St. In the end a tragic figure. The author's style just turned me off a bit, the sort of thing that gives history a bad name. Jun 11, Shane rated it really liked it. Few events in the history of the United States have captured the same interest and emotion as the Civil War has.
Due to the recent increased media focus on the war, its legacy, and those who fought in it, I picked up Emory M. Lee published in , seeking a more scholarly view and it was satisfying. Thomas, Regents Professor of History at the University of Georgia and the author of a number of other books on the Confederacy and the American Civil War, describes Few events in the history of the United States have captured the same interest and emotion as the Civil War has.
In these Lee appears either as a gentlemanly, hero-saint of the South Freeman , or as a man who despite his best efforts is constantly frustrated with failure Connelly. Taking a different turn, Thomas portrays an enigmatic Lee. Lee is portrayed as a man of seemingly endless contradictions. A shy man, raised by the women in his household, Lee chose the path of rigorous military training. Upon marriage Lee was a loyal husband, and yet a shameless flirt with a series of young ladies throughout of his life. Lee was a man of simple pleasures, who desired the peace of farm life, and yet he continuously sought the rigors of army life and war.
A reluctant rebel who questioned the legality of secession and desired the union between North and South, Lee nevertheless threw his best efforts into ensuring a Southern victory. Nevertheless I had several issues with this book. It's like one moment you are reading some basic Civil War history, the next it feels like you are reading a purple passage from some Classical historian.
There is also an innuendo on page His style shifts, the narrative becomes overwhelmed with quotes and action for a page and a half. Nov 01, Brian rated it really liked it Shelves: Emory Thomas gives a southerners perspective on the life of Robert E. The preface of this book gives the reader a sense that they will be given a pro-southern view of the war and while that is true at times the biography is generally balanced well. Lee is portrayed as a hero which he was to the south and shown as a military genius which was mostly true. Lee accomplished amazing things by bold actions and the principles of movement and concentration.
This book tracks his childhood where he l Emory Thomas gives a southerners perspective on the life of Robert E. This book tracks his childhood where he lived in the shadow of a father who was a failure.
Robert E. Lee: A Biography
It then moves to his years at West Point where he excelled and graduated at the top of his class. He was given several assignments across the country from building a fort in Savannah to defending the Mississippi near St. He even spent time in New York City rebuilding forts there before heading off to war in the Mexican American War.
- Early military career.
- Green Peas : Designed for Victory.
- Alien Dreams?
Lee served with distinction in the war and learned a great deal from Winfield Scott about fighting an offensive war with smaller numbers than the enemy. He would take these lessons to heart against the north. Lee would refuse both the United States Army and the Confederacy when they offered him posts in their armies. It was only when his home state of Virginia left the union that he accepted command of all Virginia militias.
Fitzhugh wrote little of Robert's academic prowess, dwelling much on the prominence of his family, and erroneously stated the boy was An equestrian statue of Lee was installed in Robert E. Day, [] [] [] while in Georgia, this occurred on the day after Thanksgiving before , when the state stopped officially recognizing the holiday. Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U. April 22, []. Archived from the original on June 21, Lee on American Experience complete transcript".
As the militias were absorbed into the army Lee found himself without a command. Jefferson Davis would use Lee as a roving advisor helping to make overall strategic decisions, a sort of Halleck of the South initially. Lee would eventually take command of the army once Johnston was sent out to command the Army of Tennessee. This would be a post that Lee kept throughout the entire war. Lee was able to achieve stunning victories by daring action but in the end resources were against him. Lee correctly believed that his army had to achieve victory very quickly because a war of attrition favored the north.
Unfortunately for Lee he was at times too bold and all of the battles are categorized well here. For a book written in there is a good deal of attention paid to the west which is now considered a vital battlefield. Lee was forced to surrender after a vicious battle near Appomattox courthouse where PA miners actually blew up a whole underneath his army. Lee won daring defensive victories but each time his army was smaller and his position more tenuous. It was a post he would excel at. Lee would not become a citizen of the union until historians discovered his petition in when Congress made him a citizen again.
This biography provides an excellent and balanced look at Robert E. I would highly recommend for Civil War scholars who want an updated biography and one that is not too biased in one direction. Feb 13, Bill rated it really liked it Shelves: Surprisingly readable and reasonably insightful. Here and there the author strays into pontificating on his own ideas, which he sometimes does by "interpreting" what Robert E. Lee himself said on a particular topic. At one point, he freely substitute his words for Lee's and the assigns some different meaning to what Lee says.
Troubling, but no so egregious that it ruins his work. Fascinating man, of course and this book seems to cover all you'd need to know. Where I found it slightly lacking was Surprisingly readable and reasonably insightful.
Navigation menu
A Virginia convention, which had previously voted 2 to 1 against secession, now voted 2 to 1 against furnishing troops for an invasion and to secede, and Lee resigned from the army in which he had served for 36 years. He explained his decision in a letter to his sister Anne Marshall:.
Now we are in a state of war, which will yield to nothing. The whole South is in a state of revolution…and though I recognize no necessity for this state of things, and would have forborne and pleaded to the end for redress of grievances, real or supposed…I had to meet the question whether I should take part against my native state. With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home.
I have, therefore, resigned my commission in the Army, and, save in defense of my native state, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword. The attempt at a quick suppression of the Southern states was over and, as Lee was one of the first to realize, a long all-out war began.
Between July and June , Confederate Pres. Jefferson Davis appointed Lee to several unrewarding positions, the last of which was the trying post of military adviser to the president. During May , General Johnston was leading a heterogeneous collection of Confederate troops back toward Richmond , Virginia, from the east, before the methodical advance of Union Gen.
The battle became a turning point for Lee: Johnston was seriously wounded, and Lee was at last given field command. In three weeks he organized Confederate troops into what became the famed Army of Northern Virginia ; he tightened command and discipline , improved morale, and convinced the soldiers that headquarters was in full command. McClellan, waiting vainly for McDowell to join the wing of his army on the north side of the Chickahominy River, was moving heavy siege artillery from the east for the subjugation of Richmond when Lee struck. Combining with Jackson, who moved in from the valley, Lee defeated Gen.
Until the spring of , he was successful in keeping the enemy away from Richmond and from the northern part of the state, twice expelling the enemy out of Virginia altogether. He inflicted several severe defeats on the enemy, most strikingly at the Second Battle of Bull Run Second Manassas , August 29—30, To shift the fighting out of Virginia, Lee crossed into Maryland , where he hoped for support from Southern sympathizers. But his plans fell into Northern hands, and his forces were nearly destroyed at Antietam Sharpsburg on September 17, He was, however, able to withdraw the remnants across the Potomac , to reorganize his army, and to resume his series of victories at Fredericksburg , Virginia, in December of that year.
At Chancellorsville May 1—4, he achieved another notable victory, although outnumbered two to one, by splitting up his army and encircling the enemy in one of the most audacious moves in military history.
But he was producing no more than a stalemate on the Virginia front, while Federal forces won important victories in other parts of the Confederacy, and time was against him. Largely to resupply his troops and to draw the invading armies out of Virginia, Lee once more crossed the Potomac. Then, in May , Ulysses S. Grant , the newly appointed commanding general of all Union forces, drove at Lee with enormous superiority in numbers, armaments, and cavalry. The horses of the troopers of Confederate Gen.
Jeb Stuart were in poor condition, and Stuart was killed early in the campaign.
Robert E. Lee
Grant could neither defeat nor outmaneuver Lee, however, and the superb army Grant had inherited sustained losses of 50, men in the May and early June battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna, and Cold Harbor. Grant, however, his losses replaced by fresh recruits, had advanced within seven miles of Richmond, while Lee, his soldiers too weakened physically and his officers too inexperienced to attempt countering maneuvers, had lost the initiative.
Lee himself was, moreover, physically declining and frequently incapacitated by illness. At Petersburg, Lee extended the field fortifications into permanent lines that presaged trench warfare.