Robert E. Lee: A Life

by Allen C. Guelzo

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning historian and best-selling author of Gettysburg comes the definitive biography of Robert E. Lee. An intimate look at the Confederate general in all his complexity—his hypocrisy and courage, his inner turmoil and outward calm, his disloyalty and his honor.

"An important contribution to reconciling the myths with the facts." — New York Times Book Review

Robert E. Lee is one of the most confounding figures in American history. Lee betrayed his nation in order to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose. He was a traitor to the country he swore to serve as an Army officer, and yet he was admired even by his enemies for his composure and leadership. He considered slavery immoral, but benefited from inherited slaves and fought to defend the institution. And behind his genteel demeanor and perfectionism lurked the insecurities of a man haunted by the legacy of a father who stained the family name by declaring bankruptcy and who disappeared when Robert was just six years old.

In Robert E. Lee, the award-winning historian Allen Guelzo has written the definitive biography of the general, following him from his refined upbringing in Virginia high society, to his long career in the U.S. Army, his agonized decision to side with Virginia when it seceded from the Union, and his leadership during the Civil War. Above all, Guelzo captures Robert E. Lee in all his complexity--his hypocrisy and courage, his outward calm and inner turmoil, his honor and his disloyalty.

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

624 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2021

About the author

Allen Carl Guelzo (born 1953) is the Henry R. Luce III Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College, where he serves as Director of the Civil War Era Studies Program.

Reviews

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fully balanced and measured biography of Robert E. Lee has been long overdue and Guelzo suits the bill.

Lee is obviously still a divisive figure in our time, particularly on what he represents for racial relations and Southern white machismo. Since Southall Freeman's massive multi volume take (ironically produced during the height of Southern "Lost Cause" fervor in the early twentieth century), the conversation has been fraught. Freeman's impressive work was flawed by a heavy reliance on analytical hagiography, but since, many books have attacked Lee blisteringly. This book is balanced and - significantly - not overlong. It also states the biographical facts without impressing 2021 judgment too heavily, allowing the reader to draw their conclusions until the epilogue.

At 434 pages total, the Civil War is placed within the narrative of Lee's life within this book (approximately 150 pages or so). The Civil War years actually benefit from this treatment, as the focus is on Lee's overall strategic impetus but not the minutiae of every battle. Hugely important engagements such as Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and the final days of the Confederacy are given 10-12 pages each, but very lucidly described. Let's face it: if you are reading this book, you most likely have read other books on the war that do get into detail on those battles. Here we see what Lee was trying to accomplish without digressions into officers not directly engaging with Lee on either side.

Guelzo wisely reminds us (anti-mythically) that Lee had never lead a major army before the Civil War. With moments of brilliance, and momentarily brilliant subordinates, Lee fought the right overall strategy to give the South a chance. Within this structure, we can see why Gettysburg was the turning point of the war. Lee never regained the offensive and was essentially pounded into submission by a relentless general (Grant) and overwhelming resources. The Confederacy was never going to win this on the battlefield. Because the political realm was an absolute chaotic mess in the CSA, and Lee despised politics and politicians, the organizational structure of the CSA led to its doom.

We get to understand that family probably meant most of all to Lee: his disgraced and absent father - an officer of Washington's in the Colonial army, his wife and children, and Arlington House, which become his home. In fact, like Gone With the Wind, Lee placed the utmost importance on the sites of "home" in life. Ironically, he lost all of those homes in pledging himself to his home state of Virginia.

The chapter about his decision on which army to pledge himself to is one of the strongest of the book. He truly despised succession, warned against it, and felt that slavery would eventually die out on its own. Like Lincoln (at least initially), he felt slaves would best be served by relocation to Africa. But like his American ancestors, he was for gradual emancipation, after his lifetime, and even whipped his own inherited slaves when they tried to escape. He wasn't a racist in the aggressive sense of the word (the N word doesn't appear in his quotes in this book), but he also felt that blacks were inferior. Guelzo wisely doesn't pummel Lee for those viewpoints but simply states them. Yes, in 2021, that is the definition of racism, but it was a majority view of white Americans in 1861. We've evolved, but at the time, it wasn't egregious. While he never promoted desegregation after the war, and disliked the 14th and 15th Amendments, he was agreeable to the 13th abolishing slavery. In essence, he was a moderately conservative white Southern male of his time. There are no apologies for that outlook, but neither was he a virulent instigator of black violence (other than the whipping of his "property") nor was he directly responsible for violence against blacks who weren't armed military opponents.

Upon retirement, he foreswore military connections other than his friends from service, and indeed reinvigorated Washington College with what we would call an emphasis on STEM education, which was a result of his advanced training in engineering and infrastructure. He also suffered health issues during the war, with scholars like Guelzo now accepting that he had two heart attacks in 1862, and a couple more after the war to lead to his fatal decline.

What impressed me most is that I could see Lee in this book as a deeply human being. He probably wasn't as great a general as we suppose (yes, he made some brilliant decisions on strategy to defeat his enemies but he also got lucky at times and at other times, he made some critical mistakes). Neither was he a Southern savior - in fact, he was pretty much inflated by the advocates of the Lost Cause, the mythologizing by Southern apologists to turn embarrassing defeat into a "rigged war" where the South would have won if it wasn't for the overwhelming resources of the North. Lee knew that wasn't true. He predicted it was most likely to end precisely as it did.

If you truly want a measured and balanced look at Robert E. Lee, warts and all, but without an overarching political agenda, Guelzo hits the spot. It's never overlong, it's factually based, and it covers all of the elements that made Lee who he was. A refreshing look that should be the standard for some time.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written and fair account of the famous general. The concluding thoughts on Lee's legacy in the epilogue are OK, but they feel rushed, uneven, and calculated to avoid controversy. This book could also benefit from some additional editing; many quotations throughout are repeated close together. But overall, I think Guelzo has written a great biography here, and it was a pleasure to read it.

[Eric Byrd · Rating 3 out of 5]

He was a paragon of genteel whitewash and smooth humbug, self-deception and self-pity; a “kind master” to that other southern delusion, the “happy slave”; and like Hitler’s generals, he thought that to be politically spineless was to be politically blameless. In the uneasy years between his surrender in April 1865 and President Johnson’s Christmas Day amnesty of 1868, with a grand jury’s indictment for treason hanging over his head, “Lee prepared to be wise as the serpent while remaining as harmless as a dove,” writes Guelzo, reworking Matthew 10:16 into what I find a perfect image of Lee’s life-long hypocrisy.

He gently deplored slavery, like many mellow Virginia gentlemen (preaching its positive good was for the nouveaux riches of the Cotton Kingdom and the filibusteros dreaming of Cuban coups in the taverns of New Orleans), while he pocketed significant income from slave labor, and counted on that labor to provide legacies for his children; privately called secession foolish and bound to fail, yet spilled the blood of thousands to help it succeed; and repeatedly, theatrically declared that he would give up all his slaves to keep the Union intact, yet refused to make precisely that sacrifice, when loyalty to the Union and the US Army, the organization to which he pledged two oaths and gave thirty years of service, required him to fight rebels who in retaliation would indeed have seized his land and slaves.

Well, I shouldn’t say precisely: before secession became a fact Lee of course imagined the exchange as hypothetical, an angel offering him abstract options, not a difficult sacrifice certain to alienate his family and little likely to be celebrated in posterity. Farragut of Mobile Bay, Thomas of Chickamauga, Buford of Gettysburg – to archaically style those heroes – though southerners remained loyal, at great cost, and their decisions to remain loyal are far less romanticized than Lee’s to revolt. As it happened, the US government seized Arlington House, freed its slaves and planted graves in its gardens, though it left Lee’s other, considerable assets untouched.

From interviews I gathered that Allen Guelzo is a Believer - Wikipedia confirms he is an Episcopal presbyter whose bibliography begins with a study of Jonathan Edwards - and he sees Lee’s Christian professions for what they were: empty. Even to someone like myself Lee’s voluminous letters, quoted on every page, indicate that he was instead a synthetic compound of gracious platitudes, at times specious, and often vacant – the formulas of a self-absolving ego, ever innocent. “Self-pity played a far larger role than compassion in Lee’s character,” writes Guelzo, “and his pursuit of perfection froze compassion into obligation.”

After reading Guelzo’s book and Jonathan Horn’s, my impression is that the shame of Lee’s father’s disgrace (imprisonment, abandonment, penury) made his mother desperate to fashion a perfect gentleman in her son; and she succeeded, he was faultless as a surrogate man of the house, and as an adult everything women of her milieu wished for in a man. Maintenance of that perfection, the control of his temper, the cunning social caution and terror of material insecurity, left little energy for moral inquiry. Nevertheless, Guelzo concludes, self-pity and frozen compassion "need not be the case in us," and

Mercy - or at least a nolle prosequi - may, perhaps, be the most appropriate conclusion to the crime - and the glory - of Robert E. Lee after all.

I admire that but can't help but give Henry Adams a hearing:

I disagree with my brother Charles and Theodore Roosevelt. I think that Lee should have been hanged. It was all the worse that he was a good man and a fine character and acted conscientiously. These facts have nothing to do with the case and should not have been allowed to interfere with just penalties. It's always the good men who do the most harm in the world.

[Tim Michiemo · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.2 Stars

Allen C. Guelzo's "Robert E. Lee: A Life" is a biography of the controversial Confederate General Robert E. Lee. This is a great book and Guelzo offers a balanced and insightful view into the life of Robert E. Lee.

One of my first insights from this book is that Lee's life almost seems like a tragedy. Lee's father was a Revolutionary hero that ended up making a string of poor financial decisions that negatively affected Lee and his family. Much of Lee's life was devoted to not only reclaiming the dignity of the Lee family name but also a desire to financially support his family in a way that his father never did. Lee believed the military would supply this financial support and so he became an engineer at West Point. Lee spent much of his youth frustrated at his lack of promotion but in his later years he eventually began to gain acclaim in the Mexican-American War. When the Civil War began, he was first offered a generalship in the Union Army, but rejected it, Guelzo argues because he feared the loss of his Arlington property and livelihood if the Confederacy lost. Lee's strategy of keeping on the offensive almost won the Confederacy the war, but because of several blunders, and Grant's opposition, Lee was defeated and honorable surrendered at Appomattox. Lee went on to revitalize Washington University as President and was a symbol of peaceful resignation during the Reconstruction of the South.

Robert E. Lee's life and legacy have almost been commandeered by white supremacists and the Southern lost cause mentality. Lee thoughts were at times clearly but aloofly white supremacist, but he was set on being a figure of honorable surrender and peace rather than continued Southern rebellion. Although Lee's life was fraught with disappointment and self-pity, I think that Lee is a symbol of the mercy of the Republic and the quiet resignation of a defeated foe. Robert E. Lee modeled to the South what it meant to be reconciled to the Union, and the fact that he was not convicted of treason was a symbol of the Union's gracious reception of the South. I am no defender of monuments to Lee but there is something to admire in the whole story of a nation that can accept rebels and call them family and the peaceful reception of that forgiveness and grace.

Thus, I think this is a great book to begin with to understand the life and thinking of Robert E. Lee. Guelzo does a great job of offering an unbiased view of his life and understanding the true motivations and feelings of this tragic yet honorable figure.

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the world of Guelzo’s Civil War books. He’s an antidote to liberal pieties. In writing a Lee biography, he had to skate between the “Lee as exemplary Southerner” and the “slavery was the root of all evil, a system Lee defended” positions.

The last third of the book is the author’s own (rather stern) judgments, seemingly hinged on the unhinged, small 2017 demonstration by white supremacists in Charlottesville. That was nearly 150 years after Lee’s death. I’m no “lost cause” fan, but surely Lee should be judged by then-contemporary standards.

Which Guelzo also tries. Yet those are peppered with out of place Freudianisms (“Lee lived through the women [wife, daughters, cousin] in his family”). Lee, the author says, turned to war as a means of escapism. Keep in mind that until the end of the Civil War, Lee never held a job outsides the Army Corps of Engineers. And—oh yeah—he graduated number one from West Point, and went on to have a successful tenure a that school’s leader.

Guelzo also had to write a complete book—but there are strange omissions. Did Winfield Scott really say “Lee was making the mistake of his life by turning down command of the Union’s armies?” We don’t really know, because Guelzo says Lincoln had their mutual friend Frances Blair sound Lee out. Did Lee say, “I never could take up arms against my state”? It seems so, because that formulation was preserved in ample letters. Did the war end—as legend has it—in the parlor of the man in whose fields it began, at First Bull Run? Who knows?

Lee is critical of Longstreet about Gettysburg— a critique that would grow and be absorbed by the “lost cause” doctrine, but I’ve walked that ground dozens of times, and the fault was the AWOL JEB Stewart, whose cavalry screen might have detected that Lee’s marching orders would have uncovered the flanking action to the entire Union left, hours before Longstreet would reach the Rebels’ jumping-off point.

Many of these points are covered in Guelzo’s other excellent Civil War histories. But to reach a critical judgment about Lee (lousy staff work: fair; great strategy but poor tactics: somewhat fair; over-reliance on initiative of Army and Corps Commanders: bingo) without the above seems like cheating on a closed book exam.

In the end, Guelzo concludes Robert E. Lee is the textbook example of treason. But compare Napoleon. The sole reason why the Battle Flags still adorn Napoleon’s Paris tomb, but not Lee’s, must come down to slavery itself. If so, why didn’t Guelzo associate himself with McPherson and other left-wing Civil war historians right up front?

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long the beau ideal of the Lost Cause movement, Robert E. Lee's public image has shifted over the last couple of decades as historians have reappraised his military record and personal life, discarding the delusions of Douglas Southall Freeman and other lost causers to reveal the man behind the myth. Writers like Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Jonathan Horn and Ty Seidule have made great contributions to this reassessment, but there has remained a gap waiting to be filled by a one-volume account of Lee's life and career.* Now, Allen C. Guelzo has filled the gap, organising all the pertinent facts of Lee's life and the contradictions in his character into a cradle-to-grave biography that reads beautifully. Neither an indictment of Lee nor a hagiography in the Lost Cause tradition, Robert E. Lee: A Life is a book in which facts speak loudest. Consequently, Lee finally resembles a fleshed-out individual -- complicated, conflicted, human.

Guelzo doesn't shy away from the controversies of Lee. His token "opposition" to chattel slavery is found to have been eclipsed by his decision to fight on the side that was aiming to protect and expand the institution (to say nothing of Lee's response upon the return of his family's escaped slaves). On the flipside, the recent trend of underselling Lee's achievements as a general is challenged, with Lee emerging from Guelzo's examination as arguably the Confederacy's greatest soldier. The classic explanation for Lee's decision to fight against the United States, long portrayed simply as a Virginia son siding automatically with his native state, is even subjected to scrutiny. Guelzo concludes that Lee's decision was a little more calculated and logical than the hagiographers would have it: Lee's property, family and reputation were tied up in Virginia, and his conversations with Francis Blair and Winfield Scott convinced him there might not be a large-scale armed conflict. Under such circumstances, siding with the CSA seemed a reasonable course of action.

The book concludes with Lee's post-war years and his time as president of Washington College. Many a civil war buff has perceived a redemption arc here, exaggerating Lee's role in healing the wounds of war. In fact, he oversaw an ambitious educational project that set several benchmarks, yet remained committed to notions of white supremacy and conservative rule in America. Guelzo argues that Lee's balmier writings during this time may have been influenced by the threat of prosecution that loomed over him for a time. Of course, Lee wasn't prosecuted, and the book ends as all Lee biographies must: with his famous death scene. After this, there's an epilogue in which Guelzo reckons with Lee's shifting place in civil war memory, the toppling of monuments dedicated to him and, finally, his erring on the side of treason. This being Guelzo's own perspective, the epilogue makes for fascinating, challenging reading.

With this book, Guelzo has accomplished the difficult task of broadening one's understanding of both Lee the man and the war that made (or broke?) him. I still think there's room for new, multi-volume portraits of the fascinating lives of Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Until such works arrive, however, Guelzo's book and Ron Chernow's Grant shall remain an essential pairing for readers looking to learn more about these giants of the U.S. Civil War.



* I should note that I write this having not read Emory Thomas's Robert E. Lee: A Biography, which Guelzo states is the best Lee biography, so take my comment with a pinch of salt.

[Sud666 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert E. Lee is a most confounding man. At once considered the epitome of gentlemanly manners and courtesy, and yet the General in charge of a boisterous and oft fractious group of traitors attempting to destroy the Union. A man who personally disdained slavery became embroiled in the fight for its preservation. A man who wished for the stability and continuity of the Union and the United States, who ended up fighting for its dissolution. A man who fought for a cause he didn't think the Confederacy could win and for ideas (slavery, secession, etc.) he did not endorse.

Allen C. Gueizo's masterful, and balanced, account of this conundrum of a man is not what I'd call a "fun read". The parts about Lee's domestic issues with Arlington and his dealings with his family were rather tedious to read. However, Gueizo shines when he gets into Lee's thoughts and his rationale for joining the Confederacy (primarily centered around not wanting to fight against his home state of Virginia), as well as the military history segments where Lee's battlefield success and failures are superbly explained. I enjoyed his analysis of Lee's overall strategy and his tendency to play favorites with Generals who, perhaps i hindsight, should have been removed.

While the domestic parts are rather dull, this is still an excellent biography of General Lee. If you wanted a fair and balanced look at a most honorable man embroiled in a dishonorable cause then you will appreciate this book.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fair, carefully researched biography, clearly told.

General Robert E. Lee was always an enigma to me, staring out from the pages of history with that sad, faraway look in his eyes. He was a federalist, i.e., he supported the federal system of government, had graduated West Point and had served in the U.S. Army, including exemplary service in the war against Mexico in 1848. At the start of secession, Lee was asked by the U.S. government to lead the Union armed forces. But when push came to shove, he joined the Confederacy.

The book starts slowly, describing Lee’s ancestor’s houses and farms, but after the American Revolution a picture emerges of rampant real estate speculation and an American-like struggle for that extra dollar. Lee’s father, a hero of the Revolutionary War, Light Horse Harry, despite being elected governor of Virginia, could not control his avariciousness, and it eventually killed him.

The effort to overcome the legacy of his father’s frenetic greed was a decisive factor in Lee’s calm and steady nature. Following his graduation from West Point with top marks, Lee began an unexciting career as an army engineer, tasked with building various coastal forts, but the outbreak of the war with Mexico changed Lee’s career trajectory. General Winfield Scott, the leader of the invasion of Mexico, recognized Lee’s knack for understanding terrain, and tasked him with overcoming a variety of geographical obstacles utilized by the Mexican army on the road to Mexico City. After returning to the U.S., Lee served with the cavalry in Texas and was put in charge of West Point. And then Lincoln was elected, prompting South Carolina to secede.

This book provides no ultimate clarity about Lee’s decision to side with the South, but does enumerate the known factors, including his family and property ties to Virginia (he had inherited his father-in-law’s estate of Arlington, which later became the national cemetery), the state to which he decided to harness his fate.

From the start of the war, the reader feels Lee’s frustration at the Southern States’s unwillingness to commit 100% of their resources to the struggle. The Southern leaders seemed to think that if they could just break away, the North would be shocked into letting them go their own way—and the average Southerner was convinced that this was what would happen. Why? Because they were sold a bill of goods by the media and talking heads of the day. Sound familiar?

(I was reminded of William T. Sherman’s rage against the Southern press as the essential cause of secession by convincing the Southern population that the North was out to get them.)

As the war dragged on with no sign of victory, the South started to get desperate for a savior—there was even a movement to appoint Lee as dictator in order to get out of the mess of their own making. Lee, knowing better, i.e., that they would never change, declined.

Lee was so frustrated by the South’s lack of seriousness about prosecuting the war that he often referred the matter to the Will of the Divine. Unfortunately, it appears that the Divine is not a supporter of slavery or the plantation system, because Lee was certainly not blessed with good luck: lost orders captured by the North on his first incursion of the North, and missing cavalry during Gettysburg (the second incursion). Nor was Lee blessed with strong subordinates. Apart from Stonewall Jackson, who despite his reputation, was often late to the scene, according to this history, only Longstreet was reliable. A.P. Hill and Early were average generals, who could move too slowly or sometimes used poor tactics and judgement.

At the end of the war, the scene at Appomattox was telling. Both Lee’s retinue and the Union officers understood the solemnity of the occasion. And when the rank and file of the Union side started to whoop it up, they were immediately quieted by their commanding officers.

Porter Alexander’s artillerymen were the first Lee would encounter himself, and Alexander had drawn them up “in a line along the road, with instructions to uncover in silence as he rode by.” William Mahone’s division had likewise “strung ourselves along both sides of the road.” …

Lee, in his turn, had chosen to surrender rather than break up the Army of Northern Virginia because he wanted to prevent a nasty guerilla conflict. (Which is not to say that did not start happening later in the guise of the Night Riders/KKK).

Lee just wanted everyone to return to normal life, obey the laws and live their lives as good citizens. He spent his last years avoiding charges of treason and then serving, very well, as a president of the college of Washington and Lee. He died peacefully at home of a stroke, six years after the end of the Civil War.

Note on the “Lost Cause”:

The most frustrating part of this history was the fact that following Lee’s solemn surrender at Appomattox, apologists for the South (but not Lee) lost no time in recharacterizing the war as the semi-divine “Lost Cause.”

According to this myth, the poor Southern States had no chance from the get-go, because the North overwhelmed those brave and God-fearing people of the land with production from the North’s dirty profit-making factories and polyglot population. The slave-owning Southerners were victims of Northern trickery; and slavery was a Bible-ordained system better for African-Americans than freedom. Please also note, the war was not about slavery, it was about the rights of States … to have slavery.

This reminded me of the myth that the German military and political leaders started spinning at the end of World War I, how Germany had not been defeated; instead, it had been “stabbed in the back” by Bolsheviks and Jews. This myth was later weaponized by Hitler and the Nazi Party. Republicans take note: Big lies have consequences and can destroy a country.

One can see these types of myths being used by conservatives today to distract a plurality of Americans from cut-throat reality:

“It’s not the bosses who refuse to pay a living wage or cut your pension and benefits who are the cause of your distress. It’s those lousy immigrants.”

“It’s not because of the refusal of the billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes that the federal deficit is increasing, it’s because of all those slackers on Medicaid and Medicare.”

And, most dangerously:

“We are trying to protect you by deporting all those lousy immigrants (regardless of their citizenship, or rights), but the scum-bag courts and the Constitution (and even citizens) keep getting in our way.”

Come on, America. Wake up!

[Porter Broyles · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you write a biography about a man who, by the view of most Americans, was a traitor to the country? How do you do so, explicitly when the statues towards that man were being torn down?

Guelzo does a great job. The bulk of this book focuses on periods that other books gloss over. He glosses over periods that other books delve into.

Guelzo's book is not an attempt to exhonorate Lee, but does try to explain Who Lee was.

As a child Lee saw his father and uncle's careers come to and end because they were entwined with politics. When his military career started, he ended up aligning himself with a general. That general's career was ended because he found himself on the wrong end of a political issue.

Because of this, Lee didn't believe that the role of the soldier was to get involved in politics. He has a job to do, it wasn't his job to assess the politics.

When the Civil War began, there are numerous stories about the Union trying to get him to commit to the Union. Numerous Confederate forces wanted him to align with him.

Guelzo points out that Lee found himself in a no win situation. He didn't want to fight against the country he had sworn to protect, but couldn't go against the will of his state. Guelzo points out that his family lived in the South and owned property in the south. If he didn't align himself with the South, then his possessions would be forfeit and his family would be left with nothing (just like he was when his father blew it!)

[Larry Merkle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nuanced portrait of a flawed man

I started this book knowing little about Robert E. Lee other than the facts that he was a Confederate general officer and that his mention evokes great admiration from some and quite the opposite reaction from others. I now know a great deal more about him, including his admirable qualities as a gifted engineer and strategist, as well as a devoted husband and father. On the other hand, while he was not the devil incarnate that some would have us believe, Guelzo paints a lucid picture of a man who was remarkably willing to set aside his moral compass in the pursuit of social status and financial security.

[Ben Denison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this biography of Lee.

I didn't know much about the confederate commander prior to this reading and was always curious why he is held in so high esteem. And even more curious now as I'm still a little bewildered why he was so universally well liked and respected.

Guelzo does a great job showing Lee's upbringing, and controversial father Lighthouse Harry Lee (Revolutionary War). Going into his choice of a career in the Army, into the Engineering tract at West Point, etc. I was very surprised and fascinated to find his army career included work on the southeastern coast, Mississippi River, New York and even Texas. I didn't realize he'd spent time in all those places. Then his time at West Point, where i believe he gained much of the respect from the rest of the Army Officers. Then his time in the Mexican-American War is pretty well documented.

Fascinating segment of his decision to lead the South instead of the North of which he was offered. And a loyalty to his state rather than his country. I thought the Civil War Campaigns were well handled, organized and described. I came away knowing a lot more of the war in the East than i did before. His strengths of Strategy, and weakness of tactics handed down to his underlings expecting them to figure out the details. Seemed to have little problem taking the praise, but always seemed to blame his officers if the south lost.

I think they would have probably always lost, but eerily seeing God's hand involved with lost/found orders, timely weather intervention that stalled southern advance, and friendly fire death of Jackson.

I really enjoyed seeing Guelzo's treatment of Lee the man. A fair treatment, but by no means a flatteringly one. His relationships with family, his concern with money, his concern over career, his concern over his in-laws wealth during probate. Seemed like very human and very UNextraodinary man.

I've been particularly curious of how these southern leaders were so well liked and respected could still justify and support slavery and how that stance contradicted the disciplined, men of integrity front the put up. I am particularly bothered with Lee and Washington (previous book) of plans to set their slaves free AFTER their own death. How despicable to KNOW they should be free, but "we'll wait till I die so I don't have to do without them." - despicable. This diminished both men in my eyes. I could understand (not condone) the “that’s the way it’s always been, we didn’t know different” defense. But to know it’s wrong and say I’ll rectify once I can no longer benefit bothers me to no end.

Lee's popularity a the time and after the war should count for something, he was beloved in the south and respected in north, AND they knew best whether he deserved trial for sedition/treason but the fact that most of the statues and glory we see today was put up in the 20's-30's for a push by southern whites to exert their cultural pride/power makes me lose all desire for any present or future honorifics.

Overall a very informative book. My view of Lee was curtailed on his “greatness” but I enjoyed reading it as it kept my attention.

[Devon · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5. A wonderful book. Guelzo manages to give detail without feeling as though you are slogging through. I believe the way he handles the epilogue of the legacy of Lee is fantastic and one of the best parts of the book. Lee is a complex historical figure to say the least and much has been said about him in both directions. I feel as though Guelzo does a wonderful job of fairness and honesty in writing and appraisal. Lee was certainly no hero to be worshipped but not a spawn of the devil either. One would begin to wonder what it may have been like if Lee would have been on the side of the Union instead. However revisionist or idealist histories always seem to dispense with the reality of complexity. An enjoyable book for anyone interested in the Civil War or Lee himself.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert E. Lee: A Life, by Allen C. Guelzo

This book does not really have a good enough reason to exist, at least if its introduction is to be believed. The author claims, at the outset of this book, that the question which motivated this entire book--which comes in at 440 pages or so of text, it should be noted--was "how do you write the biography of someone who commits treason?" Except, it should be noted, by the definition of treason that the United States Constitution holds, its subject was not, technically, guilty of treason, because he had not given aid and succor to foreign enemies, regardless of what anyone has said since then. Without a doubt, Robert E. Lee was a high-ranking rebel and an able, if not perfect, general for the Confederacy, but rebellion is not treason. Rebellion, for a nation founded on the principle, is an exercise of one's natural rights, and may be justified by the anarchical or tyrannical behavior (or both) of a government which has lost its legitimacy to rule. Under what conditions that right may be exercised and whether specific circumstances justify it is a question that has always been subject to debate, and whatever my feelings are on the cause of the Confederacy, I agree with people like Grant and Lincoln who were disposed to deal gently with rebels in the knowledge that in a republic based on the consent of the govern that it is better to practice mercy than to initiate mass slaughter of those who fall short of moral or political perfection. Unfortunately, as even the author himself seems to recognize, we live in times that are short on mercy, and at the end of this book, the author belatedly figures (correctly) that mercy is how we ought to approach the life and career of Robert E. Lee.

This book is a sprawling one which, perhaps unsurprisingly, focuses on Robert E. Lee's wartime career, as seems unavoidable in any book I have read about the man. The book itself contains 20 chapters along with a bookending prologue and epilogue. The prologue of the book sets up the author's feeling of mystery about the inscrutable Robert E. Lee that presents itself to the world, a man full of dark corners whom no one has ever claimed to know intimately but who presented himself to the world as a marble statue of pure rectitude. The first chapter of the book then discusses the family situation of Lee in the area of Northern Virginia and his troubled immediate family background (1). This is followed by a discussion of Lee's education at West Point as an engineer (2) as well as his marriage and work in designing fortresses throughout the East Coast (3) and his mission to help save St. Louis from the problems of the Mississippi (4). This is followed by a chapter that examines Lee's generally exemplary behavior in Mexico (5), and another one that discusses Lee's immediate post-Mexico service in the army (6), including as superintendent for West Point. The author focuses a chapter on Lee's unpleasant role in enforcing the legacy of his eccentric father-in-law (7), as well as his behavior in the immediate period just before the Civil War (8), which included a cameo role in helping to quash John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. This is followed by a look at Lee's decision to resign from the army rather than lead an army against Virginia and his family's beloved patrimony (9), as well as his initial efforts to aid the efforts of the Confederacy that were met by derision by many people (10). The author's account picks up with a discussion of Lee's fateful taking charge of the Army of Northern Virginia (11), his efforts to save Richmond from assault and defeat Pope's army (12), his efforts at Antietam and Fredericksburg (13), his actions at Chancellorsville and the Gettysburg campaign (14), as well as his refusal to go West to save the struggling Confederate efforts there (15). From there the author discusses Lee's desire to destroy Grant's army before Lee had to face Richmond besieged (16), and Lee's own conduct from Petersburg through Appomattox (17). The author then discusses Lee's postwar problems of facing overzealous and overcharging prosecution for treason (18), his successful efforts as the president of Washington & Lee College (19), and his declining health and then death (20), after which the author weighs in on the thorny issue of the historiography of Lee in the epilogue. This is followed by acknowledgements, notes, a bibliography, and an index.

What does this book do that many other books do not? Guelzo, although a statist (and one whose devotion to America's government makes him unwise on constitutional limitations on prosecution for political offenses, a particular problem and a major reason for the decline of America's government at present), is certainly an able biographer. Lee's behavior, in his letters and as a military officer, are by no means private and many people have written ably about him before. If many early accounts of Lee were hagiographical, the contemporary tendency of most writers seems to be to savage the man, which only reveals the savagery in the heart of those who do so. Most books tell more about the author than about the subject, and this author finds himself thoroughly confused about Lee's interior motivations and with nothing to offer other than psychological observations of the struggles of those who grow up without their fathers and his own efforts to paint Lee as a strategic genius, moderately successful tactician, and mediocre manager, to say nothing of his skills in logistics. None of these judgments are new, and it appears that this book seeks to be the most positive sort of book that a contemporary mainstream historian with a fondness for the "anti-racist" (in reality, anti-white racist) rioting going on in the United States over the past decade or so could write about so prominent a rebel as Lee. If this book's grudging praise and even more grudging mercy towards its subject is anything to go by, the standards of writing we can expect in the future from the academy about the Civil War or any of its figures is not a bright one.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps after Washington, there are few military figures in American history who have commanded the debates, attention, adoration, and loathing that Robert E. Lee has in the hundred plus years since his death. If a nation's history is a great story, it needs a compelling cast of characters, and if Washington was the original hero, and Benedict Arnold the original anti-hero, the Civil War and its leading actors are the next great characters in the story. Lee, perhaps, is the anti-hero who, by force of his personality, his dignity, the image he carefully portrayed and maintained, we perhaps wished was the hero instead - or is at least the anti-hero America can't bring itself to hate.

It's hard to separate the man from the myth and the marble; still harder to separate him from the century of adulation and hagiography of authors of the Lost Cause, Freeman most particularly. But Guelzo, a practiced military writer (his Gettysburg is a worthwhile read), is almost the perfect man to do so. He is a talented writer with a great sense of pace, and while he shines in detailing Lee's military achievements, he doesn't give Lee's personal life the short shrift, either.

We follow Lee through his somewhat peripatetic and certainly financially insecure upbringing, and learn that he chose West Point and a continual career with the military because it provided the security he had always lacked as a boy; we follow him through his courtship of Mary Custis and his uneasy relationship with Arlington, through the Mexican War, and then through the tumultuous weeks and months following South Carolina's secession and Virginia's decision to follow the South. Guelzo, for all his military acumen, does a brilliant job of sharing enough battlefield details but staying high-level, as suits this biography: I thought this part really shone, and his mastery was very clear in how well and easily he moved the narrative forward. Full marks here.

Finally, we follow Lee through the conclusion of the war, through his surprise Presidency at the college of Washington (now W & L) to his death. The last chapters deal with Lee's legacy and a quick summary of the Lee historiography, including an overview of the analyses of Lee as a general and military tactician.

This is not a perfect book. Guelzo's analysis of Lee's emotional life is both oversimplified and absent at times. He does not shed much light on his marriage, or even on Lee's emotional turmoils once the war began. He does an excellent job of pointing out that Lee had really very little experience commanding large groups of men before the Civil War - how, exactly, did he become such a formidable strategist and general? Guelzo spends a great deal of time analyzing the emotions that had prompted Lee into secession and then into generalship, but there is little corresponding treatment elsewhere. He repeats, again and again to the point of redundancy, that Lee had always sought security and independence, which seems absolutely true, but I would have liked more analysis in other parts of his life. Was his marriage happy? At what point did he feel comfortable commanding large armies in the battlefield?

Perhaps this would be too much to be contained in a single volume; perhaps, also, emotional speculation is not the role of a biographer - although one would hope there would be sufficient evidence for it be shared without speculation. A couple other reviews have mentioned curious detail in some sections accompanied by a lack of detail in others, and I found this to be true. All that said, this was a great single-volume biography, and Guelzo allows us to truly get to know the man, from his love for his children, fear of insecurity, relationship with his father, his frustration with his stalled and glacial military promotions, his bursts of anger, especially during the war.

There is one final complaint, and that is Guelzo's treatment of Lee historiography in the final chapter. Guelzo, throughout the book, is very careful to condemn Lee's attitude towards slavery, and very notably highlights Lee's failings in race relations. I really appreciated this, and felt, if anything, that he waxed a little too lyrical about Lee's serious shortfalls when it came to being a slave owner and white man vis-a-vis Black men and women. But points for Guelzo for making his attitude perfectly clear; in the narrative, he was no sentimental apologist for old Marse Robert. His approach here is nuanced and factual.

But speaking of Charlottesville and the pulling down of Lee status, Guelzo sounds befuddled and irked that people wish to no longer have Lee, an old Confederate master, lording over them. He sounds almost offended that people have requested the removal of the name "Lee" from Washington & Lee. I am not quite sure where I stand on this either, for while Lee deserves to be remembered, does his mythology need to reign on as it does? It is, I think, the Lee mythology which is so dangerous: the marble and virtuous man - some paragon of perfection that encapsulates a past aristocracy that we wish to glamorize. Guelzo makes noise about Lee's complexity being an important part of the American character, which it is, but he fails to understand that perhaps we must lose Lee as a myth to have a true understanding of our history. His biography has treated Lee as a man, with all his flaws and imperfections; the story we believe about him has yet to do the same, and for a long time, that story has loomed out at us from the statues now going down across the country. He ought to be remembered, but perhaps he need not loom over us.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid one-volume biography that is fairly evenhanded in identifying his strengths (he was a competent strategist and engineer, and had a certain nobility of bearing) while also not shying away from his weaknesses (he was a traitor, and a moral coward who thought by pretending not to notice the horrors of slavery that it would somehow just go away on its own eventually, and not actually that great of a tactician).

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A meticulously researched, well-written, and mostly fair examination of a man Guelzo nevertheless can't not regard as a "traitor." Full, entirely too long review at my blog.

[Bookreporter.com Biography & Memoir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Distinguished and scholarly author Allen C. Guelzo has written several works centered on the American Civil War and its aftermath, including RECONSTRUCTION: A Very Short Introduction, GETTYSBURG: The Last Invasion, and ABRAHAM LINCOLN: Redeemer President. This time, he focuses on the controversial figure of General Robert E. Lee, who recently has come under the spotlight as someone whose statues should be removed, perhaps along with our memories of the man himself.

Throughout this lengthy treatise, Guelzo seems not to miss a significant moment in the life of this tall, handsome, well-groomed man who led armies and ran a university that still bears his name. Lee grew up with an errant wastrel father whom he last saw at age six. Major-General Henry Lee II later spent time in a debtor’s prison but nonetheless had inspired an earlier generation with his wartime exploits, gaining the sobriquet “Lighthorse Harry.”

Lee was perhaps more motivated than most children to prove himself and excelled in his studies at the United States Military Academy, where he concentrated on his fascination with, and talent for, engineering. He worked as an engineer for the army until the rumblings of Southern secession began to be heard. He followed the leanings of his home state of Virginia and was soon embroiled in the fray, taking command of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Lee’s military accomplishments and some of his failures are well known, and Guelzo describes them in deep detail. Much of this notable chronicle explores the inner character of the man who claimed to despise the institution of slavery but fought with and for those who wished to maintain it, freed some of his family’s slaves while encouraging them to repatriate to Africa, and did nothing to aid in the initiatives of Reconstruction. After his early military experience, Lee did not believe that the South could win an outright war against the Union forces. However, he hoped that a conditional surrender, which he accepted at Appomattox from a rather admiring General Grant (who noted his former foe’s impeccable uniform and undeniable dignity), would provide the satisfaction sought on both sides.

Lee was glad that his troops would go home “to farm,” and many were grateful to him for just that reason. And when invited in his postwar years to give his name and face to what would become Washington and Lee University, he surprised those who had selected him as a figurehead by acting the role of president in all regards. Perhaps not surprisingly, the former engineer spurned the classics in favor of practical, career-oriented studies. Lee and his Confederate cohort were never tried for treason, though the idea was sounded and set aside by the postwar US government on the legal grounds that he, like others, had simply obeyed the laws of his state.

In his astute epilogue, Guelzo gives fair voice to those who now would gladly see all images and reminders of Lee and his Southern comrades unceremoniously obliterated. At the same time, though, he questions the practicality of such measures --- his crypt must surely remain in the chapel of Washington and Lee, and other efforts to merely change the name of an institution have proven too costly to be completely carried through.

Guelzo also reminds readers that Lee ironically was always opposed to the crude tactics of organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and “would have been the first to have condemned the rioters, having punished lesser outrages by students at Washington College…”

Still, the specter of treason will necessarily mar Lee’s image. Guelzo opines that mercy may be the only remedy for that perception.

Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott

[Paul Womack · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than a biography, which it is, but a history of the history of Robert E Lee. The author does not engage in eirher hero worship or Lee bashing, but I think places Lee pretty much in the context of his time wirh flaws and failures shared by many. I think even Lee might appreciate Guelzo’s conclusion than his culture be rendered harmless and therein Lee find the peace he sought.

[Drtaxsacto · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had one relative in the Civil War, a minor confederate general prominent in Chancellorsville. But in the library of my parents, there was a large section of works on the Civil War. Lee has always been an enigma for me. What I grew up with a notion that he was a brilliant military tactician (Guelzo pokes holes in that thesis); and a gentleman (Guelzo confirms that but points out some flaws in his character which were significant). SO the book is, IMHO, an even handed discussion of his life. He came from a distinguished family and chose a military career in part because his father (and revolutionary war hero) was a very good general for Washington. He distinguished himself in the 1846 Mexican American war with tactics which helped to close down Santa Ana. He often complained about the necessary linkage between politicians and generals - but in Guelzo's writing he was not much to try to rock the boat. But he recognized that the only way the South would have a chance was to get the civilians in the North to capitulate. Yet he did not press that point effectively. I believe he made some just plain dumb decisions in Gettysburg - which from my view comes as a summation of his career.

Guelzo added two areas which were very helpful to me. For the years after his surrender at Appomattox Court House until his death in 1870, he became president of Washington College (Now Washington and Lee). In those short years he put the college on sound financial footing and in attracting students in a remarkable way. He turned out to be a gifted educator.

The second part is an extended discussion at the end of the book on a range of Lee apologia and on the contrast between the determined efforts for the first couple of decades after the Civil War to lionize the General and the more recent efforts to defame his record. Guelzo presents Lee in the light of being a person worthy of biography but without the blinders of either admiration nor defamation. This is a long book but worth the read.

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Guelzo’s definitive biography of Robert E. Lee never drifts into the author expressing personal contempt for Lee, Guelzo makes clear his conscience forever sides with abolitionism. What Guelzo’s research does exceptionally well is expose Lee’s glaring hypocrisies and contradictions, which reveal the “cracks” in the dignified and agreeable manner of himself that Lee presented to the world.

Lee had no qualms about whipping three slaves who ran away after Lee’s father-in-law passed and his will declared them emancipated. Lee, however, believed that before the former slaves could exercise their freedom, they had to remain loyal to the Lee family and work for free to assure the estate was again profitable in order for Lee to pay off inheritances to family members as the will required. When the newly-emancipated slaves disagreed with Lee’s assumption that they were still enslaved, they fled to seek their freedom. When they were captured and brought back to Lee, he decided to teach them a lesson by whipping them.

Lee complained that abolitionists incited “violence” and that abolitionism was “unlawful” and would ruin the country, but he never considered the violence and unlawfulness of slavery. Moreover, it is impossible to take Lee at his word when he claimed slavery was “a moral and political evil” because he also believed enslavement was a “positive good” and Africans were “better off” as slaves. To top off his hypocrisy and contradictory beliefs, he thought that the institution of slavery made for a “greater evil” of burden and suffering on whites than Blacks, and that only God could end slavery in some distant future, which did not concern him or his generation.

After thirty years of loyal service in the U.S. Army, Lee resigned his duties and agonized over whether or not to remain neutral in the war. In the end, he chose to defend what he said was his family’s legacy and their homes and wealth, all of which were tied to Virginia. However, Lee never considered the hypocrisy of how his home and wealth were inextricably tied to slavery, and so any support of the Confederacy was a defense of slavery, whether he claimed it wasn’t his motive or not.

Another baffling and obvious example of Lee’s hypocrisy is when he condemned and sought revenge against the Union armies for their “barbarity” of plundering and burning Southern towns and cities, yet Lee never considered how he chose to fight for preserving the barbarity of slavery.

I have always opposed any notion that Lee deserves honor or reverence. He was a traitor, racist, and white supremacist/nationalist. Rather than expressing contempt for Lee, Guelzo does what any good biographer should do: he presents the facts of Lee’s hypocrisies and contradictions. Although Guelzo’s study of Lee is unbiased, his research enables me to reconfirm my disdain for Lee and my dismay over his lack of humanity.

Guelzo’s book offers tremendous detail and insight, but his decision to quote at such incredible lengths from voluminous sources made many passages choppy and awkward. The excessive quoting impaired the overall narrative flow throughout much of the book. Goodwin’s epic Team of Rivals and Chernow’s comprehensive bio Grant also quote widely, but they produce more gripping narratives about similar historical subject matter. Nonetheless, I appreciate Guelzo’s labor and scholarship to expose Lee for his glaring racism and white supremacy, which seem to me major reasons why he chose to be treasonous in defending the Confederacy.

[Seth Ingram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert E. Lee is one of the most polarizing figures in our nation’s history. I read this book hoping to understand the man without any spin, and I felt Guelzo made a serious effort to focus on what Lee did and believed without telling me what to think. Lee was not the model Christian gentleman celebrated by Lost Cause mythology nor was he the completely evil man some portray today.

I can understand why Lee chose the path he did, and I’m sure he thought he was acting honorably. Nonetheless, he was wrong to betray his country, and he paid a great personal price for that decision.

I learned a lot that I didn’t know before, both about Lee and about the Civil War in general. I was surprised by how inexperienced Lee was prior to the Civil War and gained a much clearer understanding of why Gettysburg was the war’s true turning point and why Stonewall Jackson’s death mattered so much.

[Mark Seeley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guelzo's account of Robert E. Lee is rich, detailed, painstakingly researched. Filled with great quotes, His account is balanced and charitable. This is not a "puff account" of a man's life which I appreciated. Often placed on a pedestal, Guelzo's Lee is a complex figure (as we all are), a product of his upbringing as a neat and tidy Episcopalian, a Whig and dedicated loyal Virginian. I was fascinated by his pain-staking decision-making process to eventually side with the Confederacy and commit treason. And yet the stark realism Lee possessed, even after Gettysburg, about the eventual outcome of the war. Until I read this account, I was also unaware of Lee's engineering prowess, his heart-health and the events leading up to his appointment at Washington College. This biography is a much-needed foil to Thomas Connolly's 'The Marble Man.'

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a biography of Robert E. Lee and delves more into what appears to be the conflict within Lee over secession and slavery. The book covers a lot of ground already covered in other biographies of Lee, but does spend more time on the apparent conflicts within the man himself over loyalty to the union versus state and slavery versus emancipation. As an example, he thought slavery inhuman, but kept slaves as an economic necessity to make the farm work. My take from this book is that Lee was conflicted, but chose to take the path of least resistance in each case.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog.

[Joshua Madl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an absolutely fascinating book. Lee was a very relatable man in many ways, admirable in a few ways, and truly impactful in one way.

This was especially enlightening to hear about the civil war from the confederate side.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great biography of Lee. I have been hesitant to read too much about Lee over the years, for fear of falling into a hagiographic Lost Cause apologetic, but Guelzo delivered the much more even handed biography I expected of him.

Guelzo did well to not overwhelm the book with the Civil War, and instead gave due coverage to his pre and post war life. He did well addressing Lee's family life, the influence he felt from his father Light Horse Harry (especially the bad, by creating a shadow and lack of security), etc. Guelzo did well with showing how his family ties played into his decision to join the Confederacy, despite his long military career and lack of love for the institution of slavery.

That said, Guelzo does not shy away from showing that while Lee did not love slavery, he also did not hate it, an apathy which is its own sin. He is similarly even handed in addressing Lee's faults and virtues of various sorts, whether it be as military commander, his family relations, his temper, and his racial attitudes.

Overall top notch, especially as a single volume biography.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guelzo is a renowned historian of the Civil War era and his biography of Robert E. Lee did not disappoint. I think it was a fair treatment of Lee, examining and judging him fairly through the lens of history. The first half of the book dealt with Lee's life before the Civil War and while much of it was not very exciting, it was there I learned the most about Lee the individual. His later years as President of the college were also interesting, but I think the author does a good job explaining the fact that Lee's most admirable actions were how he did not give in to any temptation to keep the war going after Appomattox.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

In our current political climate, we need a nuanced and balanced approach to history more than ever. Guelzo's biography of Lee, one of the best biographies I've read in a long time, is a fine example of this measured approach. Within its pages, Lee is a human, with all of the good and the bad laid out for observation. Guelzo walks a fine line between vilifying Lee as racist monster and lauding him as a Southern savior, which are both extremes unhinged from historical context and thrown around without compassion. Guelzo is compassionate toward his subject, but does not treat him with kid gloves.

To remember:
-Lee had three needs that guided his actions and decisions: independence, security, and perfectionism. At times these values made him look like a great man; at others, they led him to act out of self-pity.
-The chapter "The Decisions" is the strongest and most fascinating of the book. I could read a whole book-length discussion of this topic alone. At the beginning of the 1860s, Lee was apolitical, anti-secessionist, and a moderate on his views toward slavery (which he viewed as a blemish on the southern character that could gradually be dismantled). Lee was perhaps deluded by others, or delusional himself, in thinking that there would be no war and that he could play a helpful role in negotiating a peaceful resolution. With this in mind, he defaulted to allegiance to his home state of Virginia, where all of his family history and family assets lay. I've never been much interested in alternate history, but here is an instance where I cannot help but be fascinated by what could have happened if Lee had leaned the other way when he stood on the knife-edge of these momentous decisions.
-Lee was one of very few in either the North or the South to recognize the importance of striking a blow to the US psyche by concentrating military effort around the US capitol. This strategic vision is truly the only thing that made him a great general and perhaps the only thing that allowed the Confederacy to survive as long as it did. Once he could no longer achieve this object and Grant came along with a reciprocal idea about Richmond, the end (which he had predicted from the beginning) was in sight.
-The truth that Lee acted wisely at the end of the war has long been buried under the cult of the "Lost Cause" and more recently by attempts to remove anything "racist" from our history. It was his decision alone to end the war at Appomattox, and he prevented a nasty guerrilla war from occurring as the Confederacy lost its ability to maintain a regular army. From that moment he made a stand for renewed brotherhood and unity within the United States. Did he hold racist beliefs that prevented him from taking a stronger stand? Yes. Was that unusual for his time? No.

I felt that the strong analysis of Lee's decision-making and character, so evident in some chapters, waned a few times in the book, and that is all that is keeping this book from a 5-star rating.

[Urey Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scrupulously fair, objective, exhaustively researched and wonderfully written - Guelzo is a brilliant historian and gifted writer. Lee the man was neither saint nor sinner - fluctuating on the scale between the two conventional extremes. He was a technician, not a thinker. The longest document he ever wrote was 79 pages. A keen and perceptive strategist, but a mediocre tactician, manager and logician. His hands-off management style worked when he had subordinates that were superbly competent in their own rights (Jackson and Longstreet) but when they were gone his erratic personnel selection and battle management became unavoidable. He was a man of considerable contradiction, accepting blame in the moment such as in the immediate aftermath of Gettysburg, but then spending months and years afterwards deflecting blame onto his subordinates, his troops and his southern brethren. He was mildly opposed to slavery, and saw it as something that should and would eventually end - but he never thought beyond that, nor acted to promote that, nor seemed bothered by the institution of slavery manifested about him. He declined to join the Union and followed Virginia into secession (an act he considered unconstitutional at the time, although that position too shifted in time) largely because he thought it the best way to preserve his family's financial and social future... if he stayed with the Union then independent Virginia would confiscate his properties and holdings. Plus he, and other Confederate leaders (notably Davis) simply did not believe that actual war would ensue. That motivation also shifted over time, until post-war he favored the "noble cause" myth that subsumed Southern culture and lore until it became conventional wisdom only recently dispelled (within the past 20-25 years). Guelzo has a gift for making historical figures come alive in your mind, and immersing you in the cultures, the events and the times surrounding them. His is an open, fair and reasoned presentation of Lee, of his extended family and their influences upon him, of the people who interacted and influenced him. His evaluations of Civil War personalities and performances along the way is reason enough to read this book - besides the primary subject Lee, you of course have Davis, Jackson, Longfellow, Hill, Ewell, Stuart, Early, McClellan, Hooker, Meade, Burnside and to a somewhat lesser than expected degree, Grant and Lincoln - plus many many more. The book is a pleasure and a revelation.

[David Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early biographers attempted to deify Robert E. Lee. More recent authors have demonized him. In contrast, noted historian Allen Guelzo presents a thorough, even-handed, measured view of the complexities of the man who led Confederate forces in Northern Virginia during the Civil War.

Guelzo acknowledges up front, mentions occasionally throughout, and reiterates in the end that Robert E. Lee, as Vermont Senator George Edmunds noted upon Lee's death, "it is safe to say" that no one "has committed the crime of treason" more than Lee. Guelzo also documents that Lee was a white supremacist who believed African Americans were inferior, incapable of self-government or political enfranchisement. Lee, Guelzo notes, was not a particularly good man in these regards.

He was, however, a very good civil engineer. In tracking Lee's rise into the Corps of Engineers and projects in the Mississippi, the east coast, and elsewhere, it becomes clear that Lee's forte was identifying engineering problems and fixing them. He brings this same engineering mindset to command of the Army of Northern Virginia during the war. Perhaps surprisingly to some, Lee was perhaps (it's still hotly debated) a good macro-strategist on the warfront but believed in leaving the details to the field generals who reported to him. While initially carrying the burden of blame for early failures, Lee more and more over time blamed the field generals and the Confederate government for the failure of the Army. His sometimes-fierce temper would arise periodically, a problem that became more acute as the Confederate positions became more untenable. He also had at least two probable heart attacks during the war. Following the war, he became president of Washington College (renamed Washington and Lee after his death), which he rebuilt like one of his engineering projects.

More complicated than either end of the biographical spectrum, the Robert E. Lee that Guelzo brings out is more complete, more nuanced, more complex. He could be a whiner, but also a dependable manager. He was half-hearted about slavery, but a clear white supremacist. Guelzo brings all of this out along with his relationships with his family, his field commanders, and his influence of development of the Lost Cause. This is a book well worth reading.

[Ben Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guelzo's biography of Lee is a great jumping off point for anyone interested in the much maligned and much praised general, or for anyone who is interested in a getting a basic understanding of the US Civil War as well.

I appreciated Guelzo's biography for it's conciseness (compared to the other works on the man) and for giving as equal weight as it can to all periods of of Robert E. Lee's life. Lee was already past 50 when he took the Confederate generalship, and you cannot understand the man just by looking at his military campaigns.

However, I did have to take a star off for Guelzo's tendency to insert his own psychoanalysis onto Lee. Guelzo made much of the absence of Lee's father and how this influenced Lee's own feelings about financial security, property, and personal independence. While I could see that was indeed marked in these things by his father's absence, Guelzo seems to me to overemphasize them throughout all of Lee's life in a bluntly Freudian fashion, not quite letting Lee's actions and letters speak for themselves. Reading this book after recently finishing Andrew Roberts' biography of Napoleon, it was particularly noticeable, as Roberts conveys events, quotations, and letters while letting the reader draw conclusions about the subject's personality. Guelzo's approach was more active, explicitly drawing connections between past influences and how they supposedly influenced Lee's psyche.

On a tangential note, it was quite amusing to see the inferior stock of the American and Confederate troops compared to the European armies of the Napoleonic Wars. The lack of discipline in Confederate ranks especially was incredibly frustrating when read through the eyes of a battlefield commander, and one can't help but agree with Lee's low opinion of the their discipline and the Confederacy's lack of realistic expectations for the war.

As my first foray into American Civil War history, I found this book to be of high quality and a great introduction. I would recommend to anyone with an interest in biographies or history.