Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee

by Michael Korda

New York Times bestselling author Michael Korda's fresh, contemporary single volume historical biography of General Robert E. Lee—perhaps the most famous and least understood legend in American history and one of our most admired heroes.

Michael Korda, author of Ulysses S. Grant and the bestsellers Ike and Hero, paints a vivid and admiring portrait of Lee as a brilliant general, a devoted family man, and principled gentleman who disliked slavery and disagreed with secession, yet who refused command of the Union Army in 1861 because he could not "draw his sword" against his beloved Virginia.

Well-rounded and realistic, Clouds of Glory analyzes Lee's command during the Civil War and explores his responsibility for the fatal stalemate at Antietam, his defeat at Gettysburg (as well the many troubling controversies still surrounding it) and ultimately, his failed strategy for winning the war. As Korda shows, Lee's dignity, courage, leadership, and modesty made him a hero on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line and a revered American icon who is recognized today as the nation's preeminent military leader.

Clouds of Glory features dozens of stunning illustrations, some never before seen, including twelve pages of color, twenty-four pages of black-and-white, and nearly fifty in-text battle maps.

Genres: Biography, History, Civil War, Nonfiction, American History, American Civil War, Military Fiction

785 pages, Hardcover

First published May 13, 2014

About the author

is an English-born writer and novelist who was editor-in-Chief of Simon & Schuster in New York City.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 5 out of 5]

”His place in history is unique: a Caesar without his ambition; a Frederick without his tyranny; a Napoleon without his selfishness; and a Washington without his reward.”


Another one of those fascinating things about General Robert E. Lee is that the only insignia of rank he ever wore was the three stars of a Colonel. This was the final rank he achieved before resigning as an officer in the American Army.

The South certainly conferred sainthood upon Robert E. Lee during the war, after the war, and onward into perpetuity. It wasn’t just the South. Even while the war was still raging many in the North looked on him with more than just respect, but something more like reverence. There were many that wished he had taken the commission that the old warhorse Winfield Scott offered him in 1861. Someone else may have emerged from the South, but Lee is possibly the perfect example of where one man can make a difference.

Has there ever been a point in history where one man is offered the top command on both sides of a conflict? I have a feeling that is a very unique occurrence.

Lee was an engineer by trade and proved to be a very able strategist while serving under General Winfield Scott during the Mexican-American War. In fact there were many cases where Lee’s timely advice prevented Scott from making what could have been disastrous decisions. Scott never forgot the calmness of his demeanor nor the well formed arguments Lee made while under his command. When the Southern states began to succeed Scott knew the man he wanted immediately.

The Mexican-American War proved to be a valuable training ground for future Civil War Generals.

”No fewer than seventy-eight of them would become generals in the Union Army, including Ulysses S. Grant, Winfield Scott Hancock, Joseph Hooker, George Meade, and George McClellan. Fifty-seven of them would become Confederate generals, including Lewis Armistead, P.G.T. Beauregard, Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, Joseph E. Johnston, James Longstreet, and George Pickett. Hardly any senior officer on either side of the Civil War was a stranger to Lee.”


The dashing Lieutenant Robert E. Lee. Women young and old looking forward to receiving some attention from this young man

It is easy to tell that while he was serving in the military that he was always weighing up his fellow officers, putting chalk marks in his mind beside their strengths and notating their weaknesses. He never intended to having to fight against them or with them as a “Rebel” leader, but on the slippery slope of military advancement he wanted to understand his competition. When he found himself looking across a line of butternut and blue men to see Hooker, Meade, McClellan, and eventually Grant on the other side he had a good idea of the decisions those men would make sometimes before they themselves knew what they would do. The same held true with the officers under his command.

And:

”In audacity, which is the mainspring of strategy as it is of tactics, Lee has few equals.”

He also had something few commanders have experienced since maybe the Crusades. He had an army of men who believed that God was on their side and that their faith in their cause would carry them to victory. This all become personified in Lee. If Lee believed they could break the Union line then the men from his generals to the lowliest private believed it too. Even after the disastrous third day at Gettysburg, when the final Confederate charge is repelled the men coming back down that hill, most wounded in some fashion, begged Lee for another chance. One more run up that hill and the Yankees would break. For all intents and purposes the war was over on July 3rd, 1863, but it would take the Union almost two more years to force a surrender.

Lee had survived this long by pushing the Union back and capturing their supplies to feed his men, to arm his men, to provide his men with bullets. Many of the men of The Army of Northern Virginia where never issued boots or rifles. Those they had to find on the battle field. When Lee surrenders at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9th,1865 one of his fears was that General Ulysses S. Grant would see how many of his troops would be surrendering barefoot.

It is a scary thought to think what might have been the result if Lee had been supplied with as much food, bullets, rifles, boots, and men as Grant. What might have happened? Some of us right now might be reading this review as citizens of the Confederacy and others as citizens of the Union. The bigger ramifications might have come during WW1 and WW2 when the wars in Europe needed the help of The UNITED States of America.

Robert E. Lee was not perfect. He had faults that led to inefficiencies, misunderstandings, and lost opportunities. This was the first modern war and the armies were massive and spread over a huge amount of terrain. One man could not oversee everything. Lee’s personal staff, though good, was too small. Information was not relayed from Lee quickly enough to the Generals that he was expecting to understanding the changing scope of a battle in the same way as himself. He also lacked:

”What Lee needed was a chief of staff like Eisenhower’s Major General Walter Bedell Smith: ‘Ike’s hatchet man,’ whose job was telling people what they did not want to hear and what Ike did not want to say to them himself. But Lee preferred to act as his own chief of staff, which did not suit his nature and added to the strain on him.”

There are similarities between Eisenhower and Lee also I see parallels with President Obama who was weakened considerably when Rahm Emanuel left his staff to run for Mayor of Chicago. Like Lee and Eisenhower, Obama is uncomfortable with direct confrontation, and needs a man like Emanuel who doesn’t mind baring his knuckles and knocking heads together. It has proved detrimental in his second term.

Lee was a gentleman and any theatrical displays of emotion made him extremely uncomfortable. To avoid those scenes he went to great lengths not to have open conflicts with his top officers.

”The reason lay in the very heart of Lee’s personality, the mysterious factor that so often outweighed his skill and audacity, as well as in the bravery of his ragged, poorly supplied troops. Although a thriving cottage industry has grown up, particularly but not exclusively in the South, to eradicate Lee’s mistakes and turn him into a kind of military secular saint, the real man was not always right, and his generalship was often hampered by his reluctance to enforce his will on his own generals.”

His other mistake, that I agree with Michael Korda about, was his stubbornness to always share the same hardships as his troops by staying in a tent even when a perfectly habitable house presented itself. He was in his middle fifties and suffering from angina (it would eventually kill him). There were many times when he felt unwell that sprung more from being underfed and sleep deprived than from his ongoing health issue. He had this brilliant mind for strategy and for seeing the scope of a battle clearly. It would have been in the best interest of his men if he had elected to take better care of himself.


General Stonewall Jackson, a brilliant tactician in his own right, but he always deferred to Lee.

General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, in his late thirties, was suffering from similar issues, mostly sleep deprivation. There were several moments in early battles where his inability to get his men where they needed to be could be attributed to his foggy mind. The greatest blow to Lee was the loss of Jackson in 1863. He relied heavily on him because with only a few words Jackson perfectly understood what Lee wanted him to do. He was aggressive and strict on discipline. He was almost as adored by his men and the South as Lee.


General James Longstreet, the perfect soldier who will disagree, but when overruled will carry out his orders.

To balance Jackson, Lee also had General James “Old Pete” Longstreet. ”Longstreet was as good a soldier (as Jackson), but he was an instinctive contrarian and stubbornly insisted on making Lee think twice, and to separate what was possible from what was not.” Longstreet and Jackson both received a lot of criticism after the war for what went wrong, mostly because of the inability of people to find any fault with Lee. Longstreet, in particular, spent the rest of his life defending himself over the third day of Gettysburg. Even though he disagreed with Lee on tactics he always attempted to follow Lee’s orders to the best of his abilities. He respected Lee and even in disagreement never raised his voice to his commanding officer.

The South Lost.

After the war Lee was asked to be the President of what was then called Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. Enrollment increased from around a 100 students to over 400 students with his involvement with the college. After his death in 1870, the college was renamed Washington and Lee College.


Mary Anna Custis Lee was never the prettiest girl, but she was well loved by her soldier husband even though she was spoiled, scatterbrained, and obstinate.

I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with Robert E. Lee because we share the same birthday on January 19th. (I came along a little later.) He was a notorious flirt throughout his life yet would never even consider stepping out on his wife Mary Anna Randolph Custis (the ultimate collectible for the discerning Washington collector). She was the step-great grandchild of George Washington. Washington was Lee’s hero, so there is an odd relationship between his veneration for the man that fought to create this union and his decision to fight for the side that was trying to tear it asunder. Or maybe Lee was fully embracing what he felt his hero would do, fight for the right to escape “tyranny”.


Celebrated photographer Matthew Brady convinced Lee, shortly after his surrender, to pose for a series of photographs.

Certainly there is a uniqueness about Robert E. Lee, a man born, unfortunately, during interesting times. His health finally caught up with him only a few short years after the end of the war, but it was easy to tell from his final words that he was preparing for yet another campaign.

”Strike the Tent.”

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.”
- Benjamin Harvey Hill, on Robert E. Lee, 1874 Address to the Southern Historical Society

“It seldom happens in history that one man comes not only to embody but to glorify a defeated cause. More exceptionally still, Robert E. Lee would become a national, not just a southern hero…It is hard to think of any other general who had fought against his own country being so completely reintegrated into national life, or becoming so universally admired even by those who have little or no sympathy toward the cause for which he fought.”
- Michael Korda, Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee

“But trailing clouds of glory do we come/From God, who is our home.”
- William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

If you’ve ever considered reading about Robert E. Lee, now is the time to do it. In communities all across the country, his statue is being targeted for removal. And in communities all across the country, this is sparking a passionate debate over the meaning of the man the novelist Michael Shaara called “the most beloved General in the history of American war.” Right now, we are in the midst of a figurative battle for the soul of our collective memory. Lee is not the cause of it; but he is right in the middle. He is a symbol. No longer of honor, of chivalry, of reconciliation, but of division.

So, like I said, if you are ever going to learn about him, now is the time.

And this is the book.

Michael Korda’s Clouds of Glory is an excellent yet frustrating cradle to the grave biography of the man who has come to emblemize the Lost Cause. At 693 pages of text, it is no lightweight. Nevertheless, it is quite accessible, an example of popular history done right.

Considering Lee’s eventful time on earth, a single volume has an almost impossible task. Korda has to make difficult decisions on what to cover in depth, what to cover in passing, and what to ignore. Roughly the first two hundred pages are given over to Lee’s pre-Confederate career. He was a West Point graduate (second in his class), accomplished engineer, Mexican War hero, doting husband, inveterate flirter, and perennially on edge with regards to promotion and finances. Korda does a good job here of establishing the influences in Lee’s life, from George Washington (to whom his wife was related) to his father (a war hero and financial ruin) to General Winfield Scott (who wanted Lee to command the Union forces at the outbreak of the Civil War).

The bulk of Clouds of Glory is dedicated to the first three years of the Civil War. There are chapters on each of Lee’s crowning achievements, including his victories in the Seven Days, Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. Interestingly, Korda barely skims the final two years of war. There is an entire chapter devoted to the three days at Gettysburg, where the Army of the Potomac turned back Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania. After that, there is only a single chapter to cover the bloody clashes between Lee and General Ulysses Grant. This is a bit disappointing, since the level of detail drops considerably as Korda hurries through the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, the siege of Petersburg, and Lee’s final retreat. Once the war is over, so is the book, essentially. There are only twenty-two pages given to Lee’s postwar career (as president of Washington College; now known as Washington and Lee University) and death.

On the whole, I really liked Clouds of Glory. Korda has a knack for vivid set pieces, and when he takes the time to set the scene – as he does with John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, and for the surrender at Appomattox – the book reads as good as a novel. There is a certain exuberance to the research, as Korda attempts to give you every scrap of information he dug up. What he can’t fit into the main body, he puts into numerous footnotes at the bottom of the page. Because he walked many of the battlefields, and visited many of the locations, Korda is able to deliver a real sense of being there. His battle descriptions are good enough to overcome a terrible hodgepodge of maps, and he demonstrates a keen ability to explain the correlation between strategy, terrain, and troop movements. There is also an idiosyncratic charm in the way that Korda quotes from novels and poetry, and makes constant references and comparisons to Dwight Eisenhower, the British Army, and both World Wars. (He manages, among other things, to compare Generals McClellan and McDowell to Laurel and Hardy). This isn’t a buttoned-up history by any means. Rather, there is an easygoing looseness that is really appealing. I typically read several books at once. That didn't happen here. When I started, I didn't want to stop; and when I put it down, I looked forward to picking it back up.

That’s not to say that this is perfect. It is not, by any means.

I had some real issues with Korda’s style. First and foremost, he writes the most crazy run-on sentences this side of Faulkner. Sentences that might go on for entire paragraphs. Sentences where you get to the end and can’t remember where you started. Korda seems intent on packing as much information into each sentence as he can. It’s like he has to pay for each period.

Korda also tends to be repetitive. To be sure, repetition can be an effective rhetorical device. Here, though, it smacks of poor editing (more on that in a moment). Korda keeps saying the same thing over and over, and the things he’s reiterating are not important. For instance, he advises us twice that 19th century references to dinner are what we would now call lunch. When introducing General Thomas J. Jackson, he reminds us several times that Jackson’s nickname was “Stonewall.”

Looseness can be a virtue, as I mentioned above. But there are times when things are a bit too loose. When the writing is just lazy or clichéd. For instance, there are countless facile comparisons of Lee to Napoleon, which Korda never fleshes out. (Russell Weigley, in The American Way of War, also saw the two men as similar, but not in the way that Korda would have you believe. Weigley wrote: “Like Napoleon himself, with his passion for the strategy of annihilation and the climactic, decisive battle as its expression, [Lee] destroyed in the end not the enemy armies, but his own”). The laziness becomes sloppy when Korda attempts to describe General Joseph Hooker. He first says that Hooker was more incompetent than General Ambrose Burnside (which, if you’re not a student of the Civil War, means really, really incompetent); then, five pages later, turns around and says that Hooker is “by no means” as bad a general as is typically recalled.

A word has to be said about the editing and presentation of Clouds of Glory. To wit: it is bad. There are numerous niggling grammatical errors scattered throughout the text. There are also several factual errors, such as Korda stating that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was enacted in 1845, rather than in 1854. These are minor things. The transposition of two numbers here; a dropped word there. But this isn’t a self-published manuscript sent to me via email. This is a Harper Collins publication. This is a book with a cover price of $40. I don’t blame Korda for this, but it lowered my overall enjoyment. The publisher should be embarrassed.

One of the most interesting things about Clouds of Glory is seeing Korda grapple with his sense of Lee. He writes in a style that is both modern and a throwback to older hagiographies. Korda does not attempt to hide Lee’s flaws. For instance, he discusses the issue of slavery. A lot. And he is not a blind apologist. For example, he does not pretend that Lee praying next to a freedman at church somehow makes him less than a kindly white supremacist. (Lee: “I have always observed that wherever you find the Negro, everything is going down around him, and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving”). Korda also explains the various criticisms of Lee’s military career, including the issuance of unclear orders, his refusal to delegate to a chief of staff, his over-eagerness to take the offensive, and his mono-focus on Virginia, to the exclusion of other theaters of war.

That said, in the process of discussing the layers of Lee’s myth, Korda ultimately submits to them in myriad ways. He tries to massage certain issues regarding Lee and slavery (including the whipping incident of the slave Norris, which Korda believes is “not proven”). He also doesn’t put any stock in the military critiques, save for the belief that Lee was too polite to his subordinates, and tried to do too much himself. (Criticizing Lee as too virtuous is a popular technique among his many fans). Korda is enamored of Lee’s ability to put things “in God’s hands,” and accordingly often gives him the benefit of the doubt as a “Christian.” This leads him to believe some pretty unbelievable stories, such as the tale of Lee saving a sparrow during a cannonade.

I’m not dinging Korda for succumbing to the Lee legend. He is not the first or the last. I certainly respect the fact that Korda presents enough information for the reader to make up his or her own mind, despite the obvious respect – close to adoration – he has for his subject.

Lee is worthy of study not only because of his role during the American Civil War, but for what he has come to symbolize in the mythology of the Lost Cause. That’s why I read this, and why I think it is a worthy volume. Lee is no hero of mine. There are plenty of people in the world to admire who never found themselves fighting on the wrong side of a war for freedom. You can defend Lee all you want: as a reluctant warrior; as chivalrous; as kindly and noble and brave. But at the end of the day, he was an ardent Confederate nationalist for a country – in the words of Vice President Alexander Stephens – whose “cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.”

Frederick Douglass said it well, during a speech on Decoration Day, 1894:

“Fellow citizens, I am not indifferent to the claims of a generous forgetfulness, but whatever else I may forget, I shall never forget the difference between those who fought for liberty and those who fought for slavery; between those who fought to save the Republic and those who fought to destroy it.”

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bring on the opposing view to the US Civil War during this forty days of biography reading, which takes me into the life of Robert E. Lee. Contrasting nicely with a previous biography of Ulysses Grant, I was permitted to see some of their similarities, while also noticing that the path leading them to Appomattox could not have been more different. Allowing Michael Korda to take the reader through the man and his personal divergent. The story ebbs and flows effectively, while permitting Lee to emerge as a person who is more than his Civil War infamy. Korda professes that Lee can be seen as a great man, a hesitant Confederate, and a tactical general, all while peppering the narrative with historical accounts of the war, which appeases the curious reader. A must-read, if only to offset the glory that many offer the Union leaders who paved the way to victory. Korda effective persuades the reader to take a second look at this man and his personal passions.

That Robert E. Lee was a man due respect might be a foreign concept to the reader, but Korda lays the groundwork to support this throughout his detailed narrative. Born to a father, Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee II, who had ties to General George Washington and offered his eulogy in 1799, Lee grew up acknowledging the importance of rules and structure. This helped shape Lee's young life and turned him towards the military, while fostering a love for his home state of Virginia. Lee found himself turning to the structure of daily life, which pulled him towards West Point, where he was able to put his passions into action. Studying the military tactical tomes of Revolutionary leaders and learning of the still-fresh military action of Napoleon Bonaparte, Lee took these all into consideration, while honing his strong skills in surveying and engineering. Hard working and dedicated, Lee graduated and continued working for the military, though was without a war to keep the skills shape. Instead, he turned to working for the War Department, taking trips around the country and into Canada, as long as there were funds and an interest in scouting out these lands. Around this time, Lee also caught the eye of Mary Custis, the step-great-granddaughter of George Washington, which Korda uses to further support the fact that Lee had military glory all around him his entire life. Lee married Mary and they had seven children, all of whom Robert loved deeply. He sought to provide for them as long as he could and helped out whenever possible, eventually moving to live with Mary's father, George Washington Parke Custis. The Lees lived in Arlington House, which would eventually become the most famous cemetery in the United States. While Lee was away, serving in various military efforts, he never forgot his family and penned letters as often as he could. Lee also returned to West Point as its Superintendent, helping to hone the skills of the next generation of cadets. Korda explores Lee's passions throughout the tome, some of which were in line with his ancestors and superiors, while others could not have strayed more defiantly. At a time when statism was stronger than love of country, Lee held Virginia as his passion above a unified United States, which might have helped him turn to the South and the Confederacy. Even after the dust settled on the Civil War, Lee was held in such regard that he was offered the presidency of a university. His honour not left in tatters, Lee was a man of some regard and held his personal ideology through thick and thin, though did that include a blind love of all things confederate?

While Robert E. Lee has long been called an essential part of the Confederate Army, Korda delves deeper throughout the tome to explore just how 'confederate' he might have been. Surely a Virginian through and through, Lee wanted nothing more than to support his home state through any skirmish. Before any outbreak of war, Lee sensed the strong sentiment of slavery that was pulling at the fabric of the country. As Korda opens this book, he offers a detailed account of the 1859 insurrection at Harpers Ferry. Armed abolitionist John Brown sought to promote a slave rebellion at a farm compound in this small Virginia community. Lee was summoned there by President Buchanan and Secretary of War John B. Floyd. Pitting the US military against Brown, this lay the groundwork for what some have come to believe was Lee's passion to suppress abolitionist ways. Lee is cited as saying, in the years when slavery and slave states became a political debate, that these activities were more a moral sentiment rather than one of politics. Lee referred to his religious and social upbringing to defend these opinions, though did not feel that legislatures or their leaders should be ensconcing the idea of ownership in laws. In essence, one might be led to believe that Lee felt the Union versus Confederate conflict was based less on the sentiment of permitting slavery than defending the land. When Virginia was balancing on the edge, Lee chose to defend his homeland to the death, though seems to have been sober in his thinking rather than stuck on rhetoric. As shall be discussed below, Lee's choices might have shocked some, but it was surely a personal passion rather than a general acceptance of an ideology that saw Lee turn to the Confederates, thereby branding him in the same camp as Jefferson Davis and some of the Southern Democrats. Just as George Washington fought to protect the land on which he stood, Lee pushed his troops from Northern Virginia to clash with Grant, Sherman, and anyone else who might have crossed his path. Whatever his personal beliefs, Lee's military leadership showed promise and attention to detail, making him a general equalled by few other men.

That Lee was a sensational military man cannot be overshadowed by his lack of victory in the Civil War. As history has shown and Korda makes clear throughout, the momentum of the Confederate Army could not outlast the power of the Union's attacks. However, Lee's military prowess came from much work done as a soldier during the Mexican War in the 1840s, an international skirmish where many of the military greats of the Civil War cut their teeth. Lee saw the intricacies of war and the specifics of the Napoleonic virtue of troop dispersion to ensure victory in the face of a dedicated opponent tested regularly. Lee returned to Virginia victorious and sought to remain dedicated to the US Army. However, Korda makes clear that Lee was committed to an Army that had little hope of ever promoting him to general, with closer to two dozen men ahead of him in queue for promotion. Lee was also older than many, leaving him to wonder if he had any chance of ever winning his stars before having to retire. When called into service to quell the uprising at Harpers Ferry, Colonel Robert E. Lee led troops and made sure that John Brown was captured, if only to send him to the gallows, which lit an early fuse and helped Lincoln gain the White House in November 1860. With war about to erupt within the United States, Lincoln turned to Lee and offered him the role of Brigadier General and overseer of the entire Union Army. However, with Virginia not yet decided and potentially turning to the Confederacy, Lee declined, shocking Lincoln and many others in positions of authority. Lee watched Virginia side with the South and accepted a call by Confederate President Davis to lead the Army of Northern Virginia and pushed into the massacre that was the US Civil War. Korda paces a large portion of the book's narrative through the various battles and campaigns of the war, ones that saw early victory for Lee and the Confederates, before Union soldiers pushed on and fought hard to overturn their humiliations. Core commanders bumbled some of Lee's plans, leaving them to fall in the hands of Union leaders and perhaps turning the tide. As Union generals, including Grant and Sherman, pushed troops forward and smashed the Confederate army on two fronts, they eventually crushed the Confederate Government into submission. Korda pulls on the sentiments of many historians who list Lee as one of, if not the greatest generals of all time. Napoleon and Nelson are bandied about in the same sentence, where Grant is left to peer in from outside the tent. Be it his dedication in the face of defeat or the willingness to put his troops before himself, Lee rose above the foundation of the campaign in which he fought to surrender only with honour. While few military men who ended in defeat ever receive hero status, Lee is well deserving as a man of military dignity and dedication. He would live out his final years after Appomattox with one final position and died a hero, at least to some.

Turning to Michael Korda and his presentation of Robert E. Lee, the reader can pull much from this detailed piece. Korda pulls few punches, neither painting Lee as a military saint nor a dastardly villain, as might have been the expectation of those captured and forced to surrender. He depicts Lee as a man who held his views and would not backdown until there was absolutely no chance for success. Looking at topics including love of family, slavery, Confederate politics, and military tactics, Korda weaves a powerful account of a man whose is synonymous with the Confederate Army. Was Robert E. Lee wrong in choosing to fight for the Confederacy, whose victory was anything but certain? Might Lee have been better to flee rather than be demoralised and embarrassed by the end of the War? Should Lee have stayed out of the War, lacking the passion held by Jefferson Davis? These are questions left for the reader to synthesise, though Korda offers much to open the discussion. With long and thought-provoking chapters, Korda segments Lee's life into massive pieces and leaves the reader to push forward (as Confederate soldiers might have done?), at times getting lost in the minutiae. Citing historians, academics, and first hand sources to bring the narrative to life, Korda offers a wonderful view into some of America's most interesting military manoeuvres. The reader might complement this tome with something that tells the other side (Sherman or Grant biography, perhaps?) to even out the story and depict the war as a two-sided affair. Korda's attention to detail is second to none and provides the reader with a strong collection of ideas on which they might base a final verdict on Robert E. Lee. Might he rest alongside his step-great-grandfather by marriage as a great General in US history, or perhaps a man whose name should be tarnished alongside all the blood shed at his order over four years of horrible war that tore a country apart and is still only being held together with straining fault-lines? The jury is out, but the reader ought to cast their vote with confidence.

Kudos, Mr. Korda for this sensational piece. A wonderful addition to my biography marathon that allowed me to learn more about this American firmly rooted in history, you have made a fan out of me.

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[Tom Stamper · Rating 5 out of 5]

The problem in much historical writing is that the writing comes second to the research and therefore the most prominent books are by researchers rather than writers. In other words you get a 500-800 pages of dull prose with a story trying to escape. Those kinds of books might hold new revelations and ideas, but you have to trudge through a lot of pedestrian prose to get there. I hate research so I can respect the amount of work that goes into nonfiction writing, but I'm also just a guy that wants to enjoy reading so I often avoid important works. Therefore, Michael Korda is a breath of fresh air. He understands history and he is a great writer.

After reading Paul Johnson's book Heroes I earmarked a couple of his subjects for further reading with Robert E. Lee being at the top of the list. Going in I realized that so many of my impressions of Lee came from the Martin Sheen portrayal in the movie Gettysburg, which I have seen a dozen times despite the length and a wife that would rather watch a pedicure than the Civil War as entertainment.

Korda's writing is about a man with the feelings and struggles of a real person rather than an abstract figure that will invade Pennsylvania some day. He makes me imagine Lee as a guy raising kids and watching his daughters court charming rogues. Lee is a guy trying to overcome a famous but flawed father by setting a better example. So when you want him to dress down a subordinate or firmly order his men into attack you also understand that he doesn't want to be a win-at-any-cost general. He wants to win but he isn't going to be Sherman or even Vince Lombardi. He's going to be a gentleman.

Without any prompting from Korda the reader contemplates whether Robert E. Lee is a tragic figure destined to lose because of his birthplace and ancestry or if Lee is an unnecessary martyr because of the grip of history. If his wife was not a descendant of Martha Washington and his own father wasn't a revolutionary general would Lee care so much about Virginia? What kind of life would he have lived had he accepted Lincoln's offer to command the union army?

These are the questions I was asking as I read the book and that is a tribute to Korda who makes you keep reading the story despite a dark house past midnight. That is my criteria anyway for great writing. This was a great book.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 1 out of 5]

A horrible, ethically challenged book that's also not that new, not that good

Korda's treatment of the Seven Days campaign is the only good think in this book, but not enough to save it from a 1-star rating.

First, despite the volume of endnotes, there's really not a lot of depth, so it's not that new in that way. That's especially true of him never referring by name to a 2007 Lee biography which is much "newer" than his, especially in matters off the battlefield. I find Korda's editors to be flat-out deceitful in their blurbs for this book, and Korda as well for never even mentioning Elizabeth Brown Pryor's 2007 work in the main text.

Related to that, when you're referring to D.S. Freeman once every dozen pages and Fuller and others once every 25, it looks more like you're either cribbing from them, or cribbing from views opposing theirs, than writing anything new.

On the not that good side, here's just a couple of highlights.

1. NO MENTION by Korda that Lee was offered the leadership of the Klan before it was given to Nathan Bedford Forrest after Lee said no. Whether Lee would have accepted without the issue of poor health, who knows. But, it's inexcusable for Korda to not even mention it.

2. On Grant, the man who rapid-marched from Fort Henry to Fort Donelson, then, just over a year later, masterminded the Vicksburg Campaign, didn't have Lee's skill at maneuver, let alone his taste for it, according to Korda???

3. Despite repeatedly talking about Lee's failure to name a chief of staff, the indirectness of his orders, and (contra the work of Longstreet) failure to allow for adequate time for infantry reconnaissance of battle ground, especially in unfamiliar territory like Gettysburg, Korda flat-out refuses to make an overall assessment of Lee's generalship. It's like he's got his plaster saint in mind as military leader and isn't going to listen to reality.

4. As for Lee's relative enlightenment on slavery? Not so fast.

For her 2007 biography, Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters, historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor drew on a cache of previously unknown Lee family papers, discovered in 2002 in two sturdy wooden trunks that Lee's daughter stored in a Virginia bank about a century ago. Pryor presents a multifaceted man, more accessible and at the same time more puzzling than ever. Lee not only believed in slavery; he was capable of treating his own slaves cruelly.

Pryor notes:

"He also started hiring slaves to other families, sending them away, and breaking up families that had been together on the estate for generations. ... He also petitioned the court to extend their servitude, but the court ruled against him."

So, on the public persona of Lee as a "moderate" on slavery just doesn't ring so true.

In short, this book looks like a cheap knockoff by Korda to capitalize on the Civil War sesquicentennial. I thought he was better than this as an author, and better ethically.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always rather thought that Robert E. Lee was probably a great military leader and admired by denizens of the South. Growing up in the South with Southern traditions myself, I felt that my assumptions were correct.

Michael Korda depicts Robert E. Lee as factually as he can. In the hands of a more skilled author this could have been a masterpiece. However, while Korda did a pretty fair job, he was annoyingly repetitive and guilty of half a dozen spelling mistakes. The most annoying thing was his not providing clear and accurate battle maps--absolutely essential when discussing Lee's maneuvers at Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, etc. It was maddening and cost me hours of trying to match the text with whatever maps I could find.

This confusion was especially annoying since he mentions Lt. Col. Esposito's excellent cartography of famous military battles. (Esposito was still at West Point while I was there and his son was an upperclassman in my company (F-2) and was my squad leader to whom I had to report at reveille every morning and recite to his question, "How's the cow?" Me: "Sir, she walks, she talks, she's full of chalk..."

Perhaps Lee also had to recite this absurd rhyme or something like it as well when he was a cadet (incidentally the highest scoring cadet in Academy history second only to Gen. Douglas MacArthur). Lee also later became the Superintendent of the Point, experience he later used as President of Washington (and Lee) College in Virginia.

Most surprising to me was that Lee was a skillful flirt throughout his life but was faithful to his crippled wife. He was unquestionably a demigod among his soldiers and officers. His Confederate underling at Gettysburg, General George Pickett, said of Lee, "That old man massacred my troops," or something like it, referring to Pickett's calamitous charge.

'There was no general more sang-froid and graceful in combat and erect and beautiful in the saddle or the church pew than Lee, while his heart was full of sadness for the suffering of his brave barefoot, starving, bedraggled rebel troops." All this and its irony Michael Korda reports in Clouds of Glory.

As I read this book I began to really understand that Lee was in fact a traitor to his country--the United States, not Virginia, and to his fellow Union officers with whom he had served all his life. (Are all husbands who flirt disloyal in the end?) He was loyal to the state of Virginia all of whom did not reflect Lee's deeply held values--kindness, loyalty, clear headedness. Lee had been a perfect student, a perfect soldier and a perfect family man, but had a defective soul.

Unfortunately, I expect to see more of this confusion in leaders' minds in coming years, since we have similar perplexing circumstances ahead of us given how misapprehensions and lack of wisdom seem to plague those whom we choose to lead us.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the title "Clouds of Glory" suggests, this book brings some drizzle on the pristine image of the man who came to symbolize the Confederate cause. While he clearly admires Lee, Korda shows him to be an accidental general giving unclear and sometimes contradictory orders and not being able to handle face to face confrontation.

Korda shows how Lee's world view was shaped by his family which was very much entwined with leading Virginia families, particularly the Curtis's and the Washington's. The young man's images of his (always absent, always broke) father surely contrasted with those of the impeccable founder of the new nation. Lee and his mother engineered his appointment to West Point; without this free education Lee would never have gone to college. While he while diligently worked in the Army Corps of Engineers on assignments as diverse as reworking the Mississippi River which was fundamental to the growth of Saint Louis to building and repairing roads, forts and other military support. As an engineer in the Mexican War he became an accidental scout and strategist. All the while, he was yearning for something else.

You see in this book how Lee deferred his decision making on the issue of the day to the State of Virginia... as Virginia went, so would he. Perhaps this is a result of his avoidance of individual confrontation. There would be his wife, a fierce supporter of the Confederacy, other neighbors and family members to face with any other decision. Once he joined this cause, he became its supporter.

While Lincoln's team of rivals has been famed, Michael Korda shows plenty of rivalries in the Confederate team too. Jefferson Davis' preference was for General Johnson so he kept Lee in Richmond on a short leash until circumstances forced a change. Generals Jackson and Longstreet couldn't be more different, and Jeb Stuart enjoyed the limelight. Only Jackson would follow his orders to a T. No one w/could be confronted face to face when they didn't.

Fortunately, for me, the battle narratives focused on the strategies and what they meant for Lee rather than the tactics (and suffering). You see the vague orders and sometimes contradictory orders and their effect. Fortunately for Lee, errors were matched by omissions by the Union generals. An example is the chapter on Gettysburg. Korda gives the possible interpretations of Lee's orders and how they were followed. You see why different historians have assigned responsibility for this loss to the Confederacy to Lee,and/or Longsteet and/or Stuart. Korda covers the significant actions that fed into the tragedy, but it is not a good description of the battle.


There is a lot on Lee's family life. You learn where Mary and her daughters were and the condition of their lives. You read how Lee encounters his sons in uniform. There are a host of relatives, all but one for the Confederacy, who come and go from the scene.

The last pages of the book are particularly strong. The description of Lee's army, his surrender and his return to family life are very good. Lee seems to have buried the war quickly, applying for a pardon (which Grant said he didn't need due to the conditions of the surrender) within two weeks (finally granted by President Gerald Ford).

There are good photos of the people you want to see. The index had everything I needed. The maps could use some work. An example is p.626 where the Y formation is shown, but the reader wants to know: Where is Richmond?

You come away understanding a bit more about Robert E. Lee. The accidental nature of his career is what sticks with me.

[Steven Walle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an other great read. The history is very sound and the author brings it to life on the pages. I recommend this to all American history buffs. Enjoy and Be Blessed. Diamond

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robert E. Lee has always been a curious figure in American Civil War history. More than anyone else he represented the Confederacy, both during the war and after it. Lee became the Confederacy's secular saint, part of its central myth and legacy. Yet even whilst the Confederate States and all that they stood for are rightfully regarded by history as morally indefensible, Lee has somehow always avoided that opprobrium. Even during and immediately after the war, when one would have expected Northern resentment and anger to be at its height, there was immense respect for Lee, and that respect has remained through the years.

It is always hard to pin down something as intangible as charisma, appeal, personality - but Michael Korda attempts to in this ambitious biography of Lee. His conclusion is that the same qualities that led Lee to his enthronement as the Confederacy's secular saint were also the qualities that led to his failings as a general. Simply put, Lee was too much of a gentleman. He avoided confrontation with his officers; his orders were polite and veiled in conventional niceties that gave subordinates an out to avoid them; he requested instead of demanded; he was loved and admired instead of feared. That Lee was a military genius is not in question, and had the resources and manpower of the Conferacy been on level terms with that of the United States things may have different, but again, maybe not. Perhaps genius needed to be allied to the bulldog mentality of Grant, for example, in order to be truly effective.

This is the only biography of Lee I've read so it's difficult to draw comparisons, but I have to confess I was disappointed. I've read many books on the Civil War, many biographies of the major players, but this was one of the few I found a slog. I realise that in a biography of a general it would be hard to avoid descriptions of battles, but in some cases Lee himself is absent for pages and pages of blow-by-blow accounts of battle. A little more brevity would have been welcome. After all, it is less in the military accounts and more in the more personal details where this book shines: the analysis of Lee's thoughts and actions, the refuting and measured weighing of historical opinion and memoirs of the participants, the portrayal of Lee not as a saint or a military genius, but as a weary, honuor-bound, fallible man.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

When events surrounding the removal of a Robert E Lee statue in Charlottesville lead to it being selected as the site of a Unite the Right rally on August 12, 2017, I thought I should read something about Robert E Lee. I did not have any particularly significant selection criteria in picking this book. But the author does seem particularly positively inclined to Mr. Lee.

I was surprised to find that although Robert E Lee had a lengthy career in the US Army, he spent a good deal of that time assigned it to very non-military projects due to his civil engineering training. He worked on surveying in the border dispute between Michigan and Ohio. He also worked in St. Louis on issues related to the flow of the Mississippi River. He also worked on a number of projects building fortifications along the Atlantic coast.

It was interesting to read about how he applied his civil engineering skills as a warrior digging trenches and building battlements to create defensive barriers and protections. Not surprisingly considerable space in the book is devoted to detailed descriptions of battles and the movement of troops. I guess a lot of readers of Civil War history enjoy that kind of information but I did not find it particularly enjoyable or informative reading. I was impressed by how often the author noted events of pouring rain. And oppressive heat. It seemed to be one or the other most of the time. A pretty miserable experience for most of the soldiers apparently. And Lee was one of those leaders who lived pretty similarly to those he commanded, mostly in a tent and not retreating into relative luxury of nearby homes.

The author does try to add his two cents about the many controversies of battle decisions during the war. And he at least talks as if he is giving a fairly balanced view. He mostly gives the strong view that Lee was a pretty decent guy. He suggests that Lee's main failing as a general was that he gave those serving under him a little too great latitude rather than giving orders and demanding obedience. Many interesting examples of that dynamic were presented.

I am used to reading books about Vietnam where the subtext of the author is to affirm that war is hell. Clearly the Civil War was hell with slaughter of thousands on the battlefield. But the tone of the book seemed somehow different in spite of the many bodies. You did not see the individual impact and individual misery of the soldiers. Lee seemed even a little cold blooded as he viewed the battlefields strewn with corpses.

The author portrays Lee as a hero in the north and the south as a result of his demeanor. The author gives several examples where he was humane to individual black people yet he was very negative about black potential as a class. He is portrayed as very concerned and focused upon individuals in his time as the commander at West Point and as the president of Washington college after the war. I was much more interested in the story of Lee as a person that I was about Lee as the general.

[OpenBookSociety.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://openbooksociety.com/article/cl...

Brought to you by OBS reviewer JoAnne

First off, let me say that I love anything to do with The Civil War, and will read nearly any book regarding it. I have been highly anticipating this book, and dove into it with both feet. I must say that it is the most comprehensive account of Robert E. Lee that I have read to date.

The book begins with the Harper’s Ferry fiasco, wherein John Brown expected to cause a slave rebellion; but of course, it all ended quite differently, and John Brown lost his life and that of his sons. We are given the history of General Lee‘s upbringing; from birth on, and the type of father he had – a wastrel and scoundrel to be sure – and his mother, from whom he learned his frugality and nearly everything else, and they were very close throughout his life.

He was lucky enough to marry a woman he truly loved, even though her father, George Washington Custis, opposed the match. They had seven children and he completely doted on them, giving them everything he could while still being parsimonious about himself. He felt he could get by ‘on very little,’ but never refused a reasonable request from them. Indeed, we learn that General Lee was a wonderful, loving, and generous parent.

Mr. Korda deals extensively with General Lee‘s military career, from it’s early beginning to the end. It is a very detailed account, and he intersperses throughout the letters from Robert to Mary about his feelings regarding the situations he was thrust into.

Although I may not agree with everything that has been written about him, feeling personally that some of it may have been extraneous, I found this a fascinating biography of a great General who gave everything he had to the service of his country, and even more so, to the family he loved so well.

A highly recommended book.

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent book! The only reason I gave it four instead of five stars was because the battle scenes became way too tedious for me. I cannot begin to write a review that is worthy of the information and detail in this book. My favorite parts were the descriptions of the many personalities.

For a great review please refer to a fellow Goodreads friend's review : Jeffrey's Review

[Shelly♥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would give 3.5 instead of 3....

Michael Korda (who has also written a biography of U.S. Grant) tries his pen at untangling the life of Robert E. Lee, a man considered both hero and traitor by fellow countrymen. Korda uses the framework of Lee's legacies to define his life, showing readers how the deeds of Henry "Lighthorse" Lee (and the misdeeds) along with the connections to George Washington, built a foundation of honor that would later rule Lee's life. From the early days of growing up in Virginia, through his West Point years, his service in the U.S. Army and finally as leader of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee carried himself with humility and honor unsurpassed by others of his generation. Yet his story is also filled with details of courage, fortitude, engineering genius and military prowess. Korda attempts to tell the entire story in this ambitious one volume book. (Keeping in mind that Douglas Southall Freeman's 4 volume Pulitzer Prize winner is the standard for Lee.)

Korda has his work cut out for him, for any student of the Civil War will know that even the story of the 4 years of Lee's life in the Army of Northern Virginia could encompass an entire volume. While Korda breathes life into the Lee we have hardly heard of - the youthful Lee, son of Ann Carter and Henry Lee, there is just not enough room in any one volume work to truly do justice in any depth to this part of his life. Korda covers all the Battles, shares the heartache of some of the side events. But at the end of the day, the abbreviated version may say enough about Lee in these circumstances, but sometimes does not represent the events to the full depth of understanding. This might not be a problem for new students of the Civil War, but to those with more than rudimentary knowledge, it may be frustrating.

Korda's style of writing is a bit different than many of the historical bios that I enjoy. While his work is full of quotations and details, he does not footnote the work in the usual manner. Most footnotes in the book are "add on" information - little tidbits that will enhance a reader's understanding of the topic of discussion (can be helpful for someone who is not well versed). Yet, the sources for the other information are provided only in a bibliography, except in the instance where Korda quotes the person by name who made comment of Lee in the text.

The book reads differently as well. Korda writes in a more conversational tone, as though he is sitting down and sharing the story personally with readers. He often jumps ahead of himself in telling the fate of the various individuals in Lee's life, only to cover it in detail later on in the timeline of the events. This contributes to "storytelling" feel that is created by the language. It does make for a very readable account.

The book is not without error. I found several instances of sloppy fact checking (Jeb Stuart died on May 12, 1864 not May 11. Douglas Southall Freeman's bio of Lee is four volumes, not three.) His perspectives on the war are decidedly not typical - he supports Longstreet at Gettysburg, and defends him vigorously throughout the book.

My overall feeling - I enjoyed the book. I learned a ton of information on Lee that was previously unknown to me. The style of writing made it readable. I would recommend for new students of the Civil War and those who may not have read about Lee previously.

Note: I was provided a copy of the book by the publisher. All opinions expressed are my own.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been many years since I have read anything about Robert E. Lee. I saw this new biography by Michael Korda and grabbed it. Michael Korda is the son of English actress Gertrude Musgrove and film production designer Vincent Korda. His uncle was Sir Alexander Korda the famous British film producer and director. In 2004 he wrote “Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero” and in 2008 “Ike: An American Hero”.

In this exhaustive study Korda examines the life and times of Robert E. Lee from birth to death, illuminating not just the man, but his extended family and the society which produced him. The book traces Lee’s life from relationship with his father, the famous light cavalry leader light horse Harry Lee to his marriage to Mary Custis and his own relationships to his seven children. Lee’s mother was Ann Hill Carter; she was raised at the famous Shirley Plantation on the James River. Ann was from one of the wealthiest and oldest families of Virginia. Lee graduated second in his class at West Point. He was one of the rare cadets that graduated without a demerit. Lee was commissioned into the engineers and spent several years building coastal fortification. Lee became famous for diverting the course of the Mississippi river at St Louis, improving the port and allowing for river navigation from New Orleans to St Paul.

Korda provides a crisp and concise account of Lee’s major engagements. The author is good at explaining Lee’s strategic thinking, maneuvering of armies and the sometimes crippling limitations imposed by logistics, bad maps and worse roads. Korda has a knack for describing the complex unfolding of Civil War battles in lucid prose. Most of the book consist of gripping, if perhaps, excessively lengthy, accounts of Lee’s military campaigns. Korda clearly has command of the life and times of Lee. All three of Lee’s sons fought for the confederacy and General Lee would run into them periodically on an off the battlefield, including his son Rooney as he was being carried from the field with a serious leg wound. Michael Korda’s mastery of such details adds texture to his account. The reader learns that none of Lee’s four daughters married and his sister sided with the Union for which his nephew fought. Lee lost his two homes, Arlington the Union confiscated and the White House (Martha Curtis Washington home), the Union burned to the ground. Lee’s wife was Martha Washington granddaughter. The war’s devastation did not spare lee’s family.
“Clouds of Glory” is unfortunately marred by more than a few annoying errors of fact that should have been picked up in editing. For example, Northern politicians with Southern leaning were called “doughfaces” not “doughboys”. At the time of the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831, the enslaved population of the United States was two million not four million. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854 not 1845. This is a very long book and it suffers on occasion from redundancy and inadequate organization. The book suffers for the want of good editing.

As its subtitle suggest, one of Michael Korda’s aims in “Clouds of Glory” is disentangling Lee for his myth. In this he mostly succeeds. Although it appears Korda greatly admired Lee, he challenges the image of a man who could do no wrong. I read this as an audio book downloaded from Audible. Jack Garrett did an excellent job narrating the book.

[Porter Broyles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clouds of Glory is a very interesting introduction to Robert E. Lee. While I've read a number of books about the Civil War and Biographies of various Union notables, this was the first Bio I've read about Lee.

The book provides a preliminary basis of Lee's youth and military career up to the Mexican American War. The section dealing with the Mexican American War was absolutely phenomenal. I've read several good books on that war (A Wicked War, So Far from God, and A Glorious Defeat and the synopsis contained herein was one of the best one's I've encountered. Of course, this book put Lee at the forefront of the Mexican American War. This actually helped explain a lot of issues unanswered in other books. The other books mention that Lee garnered great fame and accumen during the war, but didn't really explain his exploits. Other books on the Mexican American War make leaps which make more sense when you understand Lee's role. This section alone makes the book worthwhile.

The book then explores the period between the Mexican American War and Civil War. Again this period was very interesting as it helped to explain Lee's persona and why he ended up fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

The last half of the book deals primarily with the Civil War. Excellent synopsis. Korda attempts to explain why/how Lee became so idolized in American Culture. Despite losing the War, he became an American hero. In both the North and South he was idolized. Korda tries to explain this phenomenon without falling into apparent idolization himself, but sometimes he fails.

I do have a literary gripe with the book: The author sometimes uses the same phrases over and over again. After talking about what other historians have said (pro or con), he would often say, "And there is some truth to this." Another frequently used phrase was after talking about a battle plan, "a quick glance at a map" would prove/disprove the logic of the plan.

[Drew Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Often times biographies paint the subject in either a completely positive or negative light. Michael Korda does a fantastic job in his painting of Robert E. Lee as not only one of the greatest generals this world has ever seen but also a human who made mistakes like everyone else. You can question a lot of Lee's decision but his character in making those decisions was always consistent and fell back on his belief in the sovereignty of God. A lot of faults that Korda and other biographers find in Lee would not be faults when looking at Lee with a Christian worldview. Overall this is one of the most entertaining and captivating biographies that I have read.

"Robert E. Lee's place in history is unique: a Caesar without his ambition; a Frederick without his tyranny; a Napoleon without his selfishness; and a Washington without his reward."

[Edwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy read. Found 2 errors. Most egregious was on page 688. Korda writes that Lee testified at the trial of President Davis. Jefferson Davis was never put on trial! Hard to believe that Korda got this so wrong. Another smaller error I found was on page 654 where Korda mentions Pickett's "regiment" being destroyed at Gettysburg. Pickett didn't have a regiment! He was a division commander. Later in the book (towards the end) Korda gets it right with the Pickett quote about Lee destroying his division. Not glaring errors, just poor proof-reading. Korda's book is definitely better than the hagiography by Douglas Freeman.

[Josh Liller · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really interested to read this book with all the positive reviews. For such a major figure in American history, Robert E. Lee is sorely lacking in a biography to go with his stature. The only great Lee biography seems to be Douglas Southall Freeman's Pulitzer-winner from the 1930s, a 4-volume behemoth that from being written by a devout Lost Causer. Korda has written several dozen books, including biographies of Grant and Eisenhower which would make him seem a good choice to tackle the subject. As a non-American he would also seem likely to be unbiased on the many heated issues related to the Civil War.

This book does have some things going for it. The book is a bit hefty, which is necessary for the subject. There are some clear themes and conclusions about Lee's personality. Korda clearly thinks positively of Lee, but also recognizes that, like any person, he had flaws. There is also a mostly modern view on James Longstreet. Lee's "Old Warhorse" was a longtime scapegoat of the Lost Cause, but has gotten some reevaluation in recent decades now that Lee's halo has largely come off. Korda also makes some clearly stated disagreements with two classic authors on the subject of Lee, Freeman and J.F.C. Fuller.

Unfortunately, this book is riddled with flaws, especially once it reaches the Civil War. Korda oversimplifies Lee's views on slavery, especially making an awkward comparison to Lincoln. Eric Foner rather vehemently disagreed with this comparison in a book review; I see the point Korda was trying to make, but still think it a poor choice or at least one that could have been better qualified. Even though he is willing to disagree with Freeman on some points, Korda far too often uses Freeman as the source for quotes. He is also lazy with some of his explanatory footnotes, being so brazen as to repeatedly cite Wikipedia. Korda lists Hennessy's outstanding Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas in his bibliography, but at one point makes a Wikipedia footnote for something that could have easily been cited from Hennessy. Furthermore, he seems to have completely missed a major argument of Hennessy's book: that Longstreet's repeated delays in attacking were justified and Lee agreed with them once he investigated the situation. If Korda disagrees with that conclusion then he should have said so rather than just ignoring it.

The high page count is justified by the subject, but not by the execution. There are too many clever uses of French expressions and references to Tolstoy. Korda hits his themes too hard at times, becoming annoying repetitive in places. Worse, the book becomes incredibly spotty dealing with the latter part of the Civil War. The book never addresses Lee's intentions with Stuart on the third day at Gettysburg, skims over Lee's handling of the retreat from Gettysburg, doesn't mention Mine Run or the Bristoe Campaign (which one author called "Lee's last strategic offensive"), makes on a passing mention to North Anna, skims over the siege of Petersburg, and doesn't mention the last-ditch breakout attempt Lee ordered at Fort Stedman!

This book is also riddled with minor errors, some of them particularly head-scratching. Korda repeated refers to Gettysburg's Copse of Trees as "Ziegler's Grove" which is actually a different part of the battlefield. He also repeatedly refers to the heights defended by the Confederates at Fredricksburg as "Saint Marye's Heights"; where he got the "Saint" part of the name I have no idea.

This book has enough content and insights to avoid a complete thumbs down, but has so many shortcomings that I can't really recommend it to anyone.

[Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please, let me vent and find some relief from my thoughts and impressions that threatens to strangling and overwhelm me!!!
After reading "Clouds Of Glory" by Michael Korda, for me its like coming from the battle with the sharp and cutting odor of gunpower still lingering in my nostrils and hearing the cries of the wounded and dying soldiers scattered on the bloody battlefield..

A great job by Michael Korda, he has given anew life and vigor to the American civil war..
He has recreated the times of General Lee with his legends like Stonewall Jackson and president Davis, the reader cannot avoid being caught in the whirl of this turbulent and unsafe times!!

Kordas lively description of R. E. Lee as an evangelical Christian, with a profound faith in his redeemer and Scriptures, also as the best warrior and strategist ever, and as a man of honor and high moral values has won me over--I must confess--

Lee was highly loved and even glorify by his soldiers, because of his great victories over the federal troops, with an army with less powerful weaponry and also with less soldiers, the confederates under his leadership managed to inflict severe wounds on the Yankees!!

But also a R. E. Lee isn't infallible..
So, Gettysburg is not only the turning point of the American civil war, but it also exposes Lees shortcomings in his character brutally clear wich his soldiers must then pay at a high bloody cost!!

When it comes to books about the American civil war, I'm a sucker..
And I'll tell you why!!

A deep divided country, charismatics personalities, and a society struggling to preserve and protect the way of life and his traditions and also values;
Then you have a liberal president such as Lincoln was, trying to impose his worldview even with force over his countrymen!!

Sounds familiar to you??

I must say that despite all the wrong views from the South about slavery, the more I learn about General Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and so many others..
I feel that I have more in common with them as with the Yankees!!

Well, a very good written biography and thoroughly researched by Korda..
The reading never feels dull or burdensome, despite having nearly 800 pages.
I also strongly recommend the audio book from Audible read by Jack Garrett!!


I could continue to write and speak a lot more about it, but..
Better you read it for yourself!!!
If you are interested in the American civil war, then.. GO FOR IT!!!

Dean;)
PS:
And happy reading to all my goodreads family..

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very fine biography of General Robert E. Lee. It traces his life from his ancestors to his death while serving as President of Washington College (later, Washington and Lee College, accounting for his valuable contributions in the development of the college). One signal event that affeced him was his status as the son of "Light-horse Harry" Lee, a major figure in the Revolutionary War. Afterwards, he led an up and down life, ending up in great debt and dying as largely disgraced.

Lee's childhood is discussed and his career as a cadet at West Point is well detailed. He was a top notch student--who experienced no demerits for bad behavior (an extraordinary achievement). He became an engineer upon graduation, and he had a number of major achievements. He married Mary Custis, daughter of the adopted son of George Washington. Lee inherited property--including the family home (later taken over by the United States government after the outbreak of the Civil War--now a part of the Arlington Cemetery).

The book nicely summarizes his years as an engineer, his important role in the Mexican War, his career as a cavalry officer later on. . . . His knowledge that his growing family was constrained by his limited income as an officer and the difficulty of advancement in the "old army." He was given command of the military forces designated to return order to Harper's Ferry after John Brown and a small band captured works at the Armory there. Then, the Civil War. . . .

The book does an excellent job describing his role, his strengths (and weaknesses) as a commander. Minor issues do arise: Porter Alexander was a Colonel at Gettysburg--not a general (page 597). Was Joeseph Hooker really an incompetent general (page 504)? He was pretty adept as corps commander and did some nice things as commanding General of the Army of the Potomoc. He did badly at Chancellorsville, and may have been in over his head. But to term him as more incompetent than Ambrose Burnside does not seem justified. On pages 646 and 647, we see General Ulysses Grant ordering an attack all along the Petersburg-Richmond line. Not noted is that this followed bad defeats of the Army of Northern Virginia at Fort Stedman and Five Forks, when the weakness of the Confederate forces became all too clear to Grant and Lee.

And so on. This is a fine biography, with a nice discussion of Lee's life after the end of the Civil War.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive and enjoyable biography of Lee, touching on all of the historical controversies that surrounded and still resonate about the man and his role in the Civil War. Korda does a man's job examining Lee as a complete person, not an easy job considering that his subject was famous for his equanimity and good manners under conditions of almost unbelievable stress. Lee was not a god or a marble statue, but he was a very great battle commander, even if his command style probably should have been more forceful, considering just how many head cases there were in the upper ranks of the Army of Northern Virginia. A worthy addition to your Civil War bookshelf.

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the fact that the author made the effort to get behind the mask. He showed Lee as a warm human being, and he also showed him as a work in progress. He had to LEARN to command large groups after having spent his career in other roles.

[John Woltjer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I taught US History at a Private School for 15 years, and have always found the Sectional Crisis, Civil War and Reconstruction periods the most interesting in our national history. American was never really a nation until its most fundamental principles became real after the massacre of 640,000 of our own citizens in the Civil War. Whether or not we would be a nation dedicated to the principles of our Founding documents was postponed for a few decades because our Founders could not find a way to make us a nation "all free." And, as Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I've never found military history particularly interesting because I see the battles of the war simply playing out a much larger drama that is, at its core spiritual. I have never found a more fascinating person in human history than Abraham Lincoln, and my consistent answer to the question: Of anyone in history, who would you choose to spend an evening with, he is my choice. I have also always found Robert E. Lee to be a source of great interest because he is such an enormous study in contrasts. A man who strongly disliked slavery and thought secession insane; a man of deep religious conviction who was perhaps never as animated as he was when crafting military strategy and seeing it play out on the battlefield; a man who loved his family deeply and yet, given his choice of career spent precious little time with them. Michael Korda's book on Lee has the feel of what will be for a very long time, the definitive work on the man. He is a masterful writer that deals with many of the earlier treatments of Lee, referring often to the hagiography by Douglas Southall Freeman that stood for many years as the definitive work on Lee for those who worshipped him. Korda picks the man apart, acknowledging him for his absolutely masterful use of a variety of military tactics that have become the source of many books on military strategy. He deals with his personal life as a husband, father, and man of religion. He plumbs the history of his antecedents and the considerable embarrassment that his father, Light Horse Harry Lee brought down on the family. And though the book does a fair amount of treatment of battlefield tactics, it is done in a way that adds considerably to an understanding of the man without becoming ponderous. There are many discussions about flanking movements, building defensive fortifications, fording rivers, etc., but they do add a physical dimension to battles that for those of us not particularly drawn to those things is helpful. I finished this book with a very powerful sense that Lee is not a transcendent character but is so emblematic, so thoroughly the embodiment of the animating spirit of the South that he serves as a perfect symbol of a man of some considerable depth, who was, at base, a provincial, small minded man who could not see anything beyond the fate of his own family and his own state. His constant professions about doing the work of God on the battlefield; of how, though he felt motivated by his religious faith to bring his considerable skills to the task, he would begin a battle and then let "God" carry it through to its proper end. My sense of him was almost completely diminished after reading this book because of the horrors that he was the Confederate architect of--the only man in the South that could guarantee that the war would go on much longer than necessary. And because he never felt or wanted to take credit for what he was doing because it was "God's handiwork." The man was so fundamentally flawed that he stands as the perfect symbol of everything that was wrong with the antebellum South. A slaveholding region that had a massive inequality in the distribution of resources due to the plantation system; that was fundamentally organized not around cities or states as much as organized around Plantations, each one a relatively isolated fiefdom with its own harbors, enslaved labor force and very little public education or meaningful work for those without slaves. (Only 5% of the Southern population had slaves and the vast majority of them were owned by the Plantation aristocracy which also controlled the political establishment). So Robert E Lee, who hated slavery; who opposed secession; who was trained at West Point and was its commander for a number of years; who undertook a number of engineering projects like rerouting the Mississippi around St Louis to benefit the shipping industry; who was offered the command of Union forces after South Carolina seceded and fired the first shots at Ft Sumter, starting the military conflict: That man refused to take the command of Union forces because he could not raise his sword against his "country" (Virginia) or his people (Virginians.) And, during the war, save for his two disastrous excursions into the North (Antietam and Gettysburg) refused to take up command in any other state when others deemed it might be more beneficial to the Confederate cause, refused to because to defend Virginia was to defend what he thought most worthy of defending in the Confederacy. This man commanded forces with thousands of men with no shoes or adequate clothing for warmth in the winters who suffered horribly from starvation illness and deprivation; this man who loved horses, commanded men on horseback whose horses were horribly emaciated due to inadequate forage, many of which starved or froze to death due to his ruthlessness in battle. This man, this embodiment of the South that was the architect of one of the most flawed and ill-conceived wars ever undertaken found solace in his God and felt that he deserved little or no credit because all of what he had accomplished he owed to his God. After years of studying Lee I have come to a settled view of the man. I never understood why he was not tried for treason (giving aid and comfort to the enemy) and found it inexplicable that he was revered after the war by the South AND the North. It comes down to this simple principle: "The sins of the fathers are visited upon their sons." What Korda's book brought me to (indirectly, because he does not really deal with the issue) was the belief that the nation had a huge debt to pay for the Faustian bargain it made when it forged a Constitution that combined a belief in universal human freedom and slavery into the same contract. When you make a pact with the devil, the devil will always come to get his due. The Civil War was, as Lincoln so brilliantly stated in his Second Inaugural Address, a spiritual battle at its source: In his view God had ordained that the war would have to go on until the 200 years of sweat from unrequited toil (of the slaves) would by paid, and where all the blood of the lash would have to be equally paid by blood drawn by the sword. In that sense I can now see that Lee WAS an essential actor in a much deeper drama; the war with the most brilliant political leaders on one side (North) and most brilliant military leaders on the other (South) was guaranteed to be a long one. The war would have to go on for a long time because there was a moral and spiritual debt to pay for the nation's hypocrisy. WE, America, had to pay the debt with our own blood, and if there is such a thing as the karma of a people, then the war was our karmic debt, so perfectly crafted to make us pay for the crime we had committed by making a pact with evil. I give this book 5 stars--it was exceptionally written, a true "can't put it down" read. In places I grew weary of the narrative that said over and over: Lee COULD have won the battle IF J.E.B Stuart/Stonewall Jackson/Longstreet et.al. had arrived when they were supposed to and possibly ended the war to the benefit of the Confederacy. Those points are, to my mind, utterly pointless unless you are ONLY dealing with the military dimension of the war. But what Clouds of Glory brought me even more firmly to is the belief that there was absolutely NO way the South could have won the war when the conflict is seen on the much larger stage of deeper animating principles underlying our existence. I was reminded of Martin Luther King's quote that, "The arc of the moral Universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Though the war saw so many battles won by the South due to the military genius of Lee, they feebly pulled against the larger arc of the moral Universe. As brilliant as Lee was, he was engaged in and brought his enormous skills to a conflict doomed to fail from the start. But as the embodiment of all of what the South thought was most noble and true about itself, he simply brought those massive and irreconcilable structural flaws that existed there onto a battlefield which predetermined absolutely that their suicide would be a long and painful one, and that the new nation birthed from that conflict would have many struggles to overcome for a very, very long time to come.

[Master Chief · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely good. And what an emotionally devastating read. Lee did not deserve what happened to him, he was far too noble, too decent, too dignified, too audacious and too brilliant to have met with defeat. I had to put down the book numerous times during the battle of Gettysburg, that “desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago.”

The sense of tragedy never implanted itself more deeply in me than in reading of those events, that doomed charge by Pickett on the third day, the “absolute edge of no return, to [either] turn back now and make home or sail irrevocably on and either find land or plunge over the world’s roaring rim.”

It will never exit my mind that of his faults as a general, the principal two were that the man was too kind and peaceful with his subordinates, and that, as he said, “I believed my men were invincible.” Lee’s Immortals were, if not invincible, then pretty damn close, and they gave it the best they had. They gave the last full measure.

The tragedy of Lee’s life, the aimlessness of his career, the illness of his wife, the shame of his father, the death of his children, the agonizing decision to choose his state over his country, his horror and shock at secession, his reluctant willingness to engage in a war that he knew was near hopeless, in which he knew would be a long and bloody war between brothers, the loss of his friends and generals, and his utter and complete decent behavior in all of this, his acceptance of defeat and surrender, his devotion in binding up the nation’s wounds, all of this would have been enough to bring if not an American than a Southerner to tears, all of that would have been good enough, emotional enough to bear.

But when his life is juxtaposed with the modern day, where his legacy is now in the gutter, when his statues are torn down and melted, when his flag is banned and soiled, when his descendants revile him and when Americans curse his name and deem him a “traitor,” this is enough to bring one not of his quality but of his kind to the brink of wrath, and heartbreak, to know that a noble Christian gentleman, the last Knight of America and of the South, the King of Spades, the Tycoon, Marse Robert, Bobby Lee, is now profaned by a people not worthy to black his boots. God rest the soul of Robert E. Lee, who was:

“A foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward."

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book after reading a couple of book critic comments suggesting that this was not just another tome about the morally correct, ethically uncompromised, practically perfect in every way leader of the movement to "maintain the gentlemanly Southern way of life." I had tired of the "this man could do no wrong" adoration books. So I was anxious to read something a bit more balanced in its depiction of Robert E. Lee.

Korda makes an effort to identify some of Lee's battlefield leadership shortcomings. But, beyond those "if only Lee had ordered Longstreet or Jackson to attack" in this or that way, Korda's Lee comes across to the reader as the Mary Poppins of the South. Lee, son-in-law of George Washington's adopted son after all, took up arms against his country, against many of the men he fought alongside in pre-Civil War action. He had no problem ordering brutal attack on soldiers ("those people") who earlier had fought with him and for him. But, oh yes, he was respectful to women, and he actually shook the hand of a slave once, etc.

I had to read this book in short bursts. The book's continuing adulation of the man who fought against this nation, his nation; who owned and kept slaves; and who continued to wear his Confederate grays long after his surrender at Appomattox Court House was more than I could take in long sittings. I needed time to get some fresh air periodically. I guess 1.7 million deaths does that.

[Charles Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just love this book. And I'm not the biggest fan of biographies. I've read books about the Civil War but this was the one that really brought it alive for me. Korda found many things to admire about Lee but this is hagiography. Without judging he brings out Lee's flaws and perhaps why the South ultimately lost.Though there is no doubt Lee had an incredible ability to see an entire battlefield. This was in the days before radio communication so his skill was absolutely necessary to coordinate multiple attacks. I did think that those rebel commanders around him came off in some cases as oafish - brave but often too slow. I'm now going to read volume 1 of the Shelby Foote trilogy. Just two cautions: Lee went to West Point and trained as an engineer. So the first part of the book has him traveling to American forts to build up fortifications. Some may find this a bit slow. Also the maps in the book are bit weak. I have a copy of the Atlas of the Civil War which really helps to visualize the battles. There are also some American battleground sites that have animated film of the battlefields. It will help you to enjoy this great bio even more.

[Vickie (I love books) · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books by one of my new favorite authors about one of my favorite historical figures. It’s easy to read easy to follow. Great research and shows Lee as he was faults and strengths. I recommend this book and this author. I’ll be reading more by him.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is interesting that the author had previously written a book about Grant, as Grant and Lee form a natural pair when it comes to examining generals.  The author has the chance to note strengths and weaknesses of the two generals, pointing out that the logistical strength of the North was used best by Grant and did not make much of a difference when Lee was so much more tactically superior to many of the commanding generals of the Army of the Potomac.  That said, the duel between Lee and Grant is only a small part of this particular book, far smaller than one might think when one is beginning the book and reading the slow pace that the author covers the beginning of the Civil War.  It is possible that the author's knowledge of Lee's heart problems means that he focuses more on the time when Lee was comparatively young before his angina and hardening of the arteries made it more difficult for him to act like the younger people in the war that he was surrounded by and opposed to.  Even so, the author spends a great deal of time and attention talking about Lee's flaws, far more than many readers might expect.

This hefty book of around 700 pages consists of 12 fairly large chapters.  The author begins his preface in media res with a look at Lee's efforts to quell the rebellion of John Brown just before the beginning of the Civil War.  After that the author looks at Lee's childhood and the effect of his father's unreliability on his early life (1) as well as his education as a soldier in West Point (2).  The author then looks at Lee's experience as an engineer in the military (3) as well as a decorated and celebrated officer in the Mexican War (4).  After that the author discusses the long peace and Lee's frustration at a lack of advancement in the prewar army (5).  From this point the pace of the book slows dramatically as the author discusses Lee's efforts in West Virginia and Port Royal in 1861 (6), his takeover of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Seven Days battles (7), his experiences at Second Bull Run and Antietam (8), Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville (9), and Gettysburg (10).  At this point the author breezes through the rest of the material, discussing the campaign between Lee and Grant that ended in Lee's surrender (11) as well as the last few years of Lee's life as his health declined (12), after which there is an acknowledgements, notes, bibliography, map and art credits, and an index.

In reading this book one gets a sense of the sort of minefields that exist for a contemporary writer in writing about Robert E. Lee.  For example, there is still enough fondness for Lee and his tactical brilliance as well as his reserve and diplomacy to make this sort of revisionist biography a difficult one.  Also, the author finds it necessary to deal with the question of not only Lee's ability and his struggles to enforce his will on occasionally recalcitrant generals (see Ewell on Day 1 of Gettysburg, for example), but also the postwar fights between people like Longstreet and Early.  And then there are the people who will not appreciate any praise of Lee, even praise as guarded as this author gives such praise, because of his behavior as a slaveowner and a rebel.  All of that makes this sort of book a difficult one to write, and one wonders if the author would have taken on such a thankless task as a New York Times hack writer had he not already written about Grant in the first place.

[Jarrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well written biography of R E Lee. I say that because the author does a great job of staying unbiased and presenting the facts as they are written. He tries to get an understanding of the person of Lee rather than the myth of Lee. Though he does a very good job of articulating how he became a mythical figure in the US - before, during and after the war. His explanations of events and circumstances of his upbringing and early life in the academy and Mexican/American war help to set the stage for the happenings of the Civil War and his leadership style.

While a decent General, it seems to me that his successes in the Civil War have been amplified for glory. With major victories in the early years ending with the failure of Gettysburg, one can only realize that his inability to motivate and get his soldiers and officers to get better results falls directly on his shoulders. His failures and inability to properly delegate to his commanders lead to his major failures. However, there were times he was able to get results when outnumbered and get positive results at times - Chancellorsville / Fredericksburg. His ability through engineering to slow down the Union army and extend the war should not be overlooked. Whether this is success or not is up for debate. He does seem to give quite a bit of critique to Freeman's earlier work and does get a bit repetitive throughout. I'd like to have seen more inclusion of his writings on slavery and the personal documents he kept regarding how he treated those in bondage to him and generally his overall view.

This book gives a really good insight into the times and history of the Civil War and the largest character of the rebel side. His achievements, successes, failures and objective accounting of his actions are laid out in an easy to follow and interesting read. It's a nice complement to any Civil War shelf.

[Nick Roser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to this on Overdrive and it did a great job of retaining my full attention from start to finish. I particularly enjoyed the introductory chapter on Lee’s part in quelling the John Brown Raid, the background of his family history including his father’s friendship with George Washington, and the chronological covering of his military actions in the American Civil War. The most interesting section of the book runs from the Seven Days battles of 1862 up thru Gettysburg in the summer of 1863. Each major battle is approached from an operational standpoint within the larger scope of the war and key tactical moments, blunders, or controversies are touched on when necessary. Lee’s position and limitations as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia are framed well, and the analysis of his choices and his subordinates abilities seem logical and thoughtful. The overall tone of the book was balanced and while the author recognized the many of Lee’s strengths, his weaknesses are not ignored. I came away with the satisfaction that I learned and expanded my understanding of Lee as general and person. Additionally, I did not feel like there was a major Lost Cause agenda here and previous biographers are called out for their particular slants. However, I was disappointed by what seemed to be a rushed ending to the story. I anticipated a chapter solely dedicated to interpreting Lee’s complicated place in our history, but there isn’t much of that. The legacy of Lee, depending on who might have been asked, varied between hero and ultimate traitor the day he died. Those same perceptions from either side of the aisle still exist today but are also ever changing and evolving as our history is re-interpreted. I think the author did a disservice to the reader by not ending on that note.