Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters

by Elizabeth Brown Pryor

For the 200th anniversary of Robert E. Lee’s birth, a new portrait drawing on previously unpublished correspondence

Robert E. Lee’s war correspondence is well known, and here and there personal letters have found their way into print, but the great majority of his most intimate messages have never been made public. These letters reveal a far more complex and contradictory man than the one who comes most readily to the imagination, for it is with his family and his friends that Lee is at his most candid, most engaging, and most vulnerable. Over the past several years historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor has uncovered a rich trove of unpublished Lee materials that had been held in both private and public collections.

Her new book, a unique blend of analysis, narrative, and historiography, presents dozens of these letters in their entirety, most by Lee but a few by family members. Each letter becomes a departure point for an essay that shows what the letter uniquely reveals about Lee’s time or character. The material covers all aspects of Lee’s life—his early years, West Point, his work as an engineer, his relationships with his children and his slaves, his decision to join the South, his thoughts on military strategy, and his disappointments after defeat in the Civil War. The result is perhaps the most intimate picture to date of Lee, one that deftly analyzes the meaning of his actions within the context of his personality, his relationships, and the social tenor of his times.

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

658 pages, Hardcover

First published May 3, 2007

About the author

Elizabeth Brown Pryor was an American historian and diplomat, in which capacity she served as senior advisor to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe of the U.S. Congress.

Pryor was born Mary Elizabeth Brown in Gary, Indiana. Her father worked for AT&T, and the family moved multiple times for his job. She finished her secondary school education in Summit, New Jersey and attended Northwestern University. Upon her graduation in 1973, Pryor began working for the United States Park Service. She also obtained a second bachelor's degree from the University of London and a masters in history from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1983, Brown joined the Department of State. She formulated the policy, known as the Pryor Paper, that eventually led the United States to rejoin UNESCO in 2003.

In 2008, Pryor was awarded the Lincoln Prize for 'Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee' through his Private Letters. She shared the honor with James Oakes, who won for 'The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics'. Pryor's book is notable for using hundreds of Lee's previously unpublished private letters to create a fresh biography of the Confederate general. Pryor is also the author of the biography 'Clara Barton: Professional Angel' about the founder of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton.

She was married and divorced twice, first to Anthony Pryor, then Frank Parker.

Sadly, Pryor was killed in a rear end vehicle accident caused by a speeding car driven by Robert Stevens Gentil in Richmond, Virginia on April 13, 2015. Gentil's long-term mental health issues led to episodes of manic delusions, including the belief on this occasion that his car was flying.

She was survived by her mother, Mary Brown Hamingson, and two sisters

Reviews

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Brown Pryor's Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters offers an insightful reassessment of the Confederacy's most famous general. As the title suggests, this isn't a straightforward biography; like Joseph Ellis's books on the Founding Fathers, it uses Lee's correspondence and key incidents to illuminate his personality and beliefs, and how he acted on them. If nothing else, it's extremely useful for dynamiting the Marble Man myth from every conceivable angle. We see Lee's acts of rectitude were largely a reaction to his footloose father, whose poor investments bankrupted the family and who abandoned them while Lee was a young boy. We also see Lee the Faithful Husband who was also a shameless flirt, sometimes with in-laws and distant family members (he was more admirable as a father who doted on his children); Lee, whose visions of being A Father to His Men led his subordinates to see him as aloof, cold and often condescending; Lee the Patriot, who claimed to favor country over section until put to the test; and Lee the General, a skilled tactician but often a poor commander with little sense of strategy and difficulty in handling subordinates (not a fatal problem with Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson, more so at Gettysburg and later). Pryor also explodes the defense of Lee as "anti-slavery," showing at great length how he owned slaves, fought to keep slaves, may even have personally abused his slaves, and that his "moral qualms" about slavery were heavily qualified by beliefs that a) it was a greater burden on whites than blacks, b) it was God's will and there was no purpose opposing it. Pryor's book isn't completely negative; this Lee does seem more approachable and occasionally sympathetic, if not necessarily likable, than he did before. Even so, it's impossible to come away from this remarkable book thinking that Lee was anything like the Marble Man of Military Myth; instead he was a deeply flawed man who, faced with the 19th Century's great moral choice, chose poorly.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Students of American History in this country have long been fed the post-bellum mythology of General Robert E. Lee, the man become statue, that was created by both Southerners and Northerners alike. Pryor's book seeks to rediscover the once living man through his personal and family correspondence. Here, she lays bare for us both Lee's numerous strengths and his numerous weaknesses in full exposure.

Each of the book's twenty-six chapters begins with one or several pieces of correspondence which highlights some formative period in Lee's life. Sometimes these points are not in strictly chronological order, requiring some minor mental gymnastics on the part of the reader, but this is an understandable concession to the overall theme.

By the end of the book, we are left with an all too human picture of a member of the Southern Nobility who ultimately resolved any inner conflicted loyalties to fight for his "Country", Virginia, and the CSA, over the Federal government that he had sworn allegiance to for over thirty years. In his story, we are reminded that any nobility has always been built on suppression and exploitation of a portion of a population. Lee was a product and captive of his time and that culture. Even after his military defeat, in many ways Lee refused to recognize a defeat of the antebellum Southern Culture, including its racial inequalities, and he worked to maintain that culture.

[Bryan Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an outstanding biography of Robert E. Lee. This is not a detailed cradle to grave kind of biography, but Pryor uses letters to cue up the chapters on important aspects of his life. We see Lee warts and all, the good and the bad. A human being. She also addresses the issue of his views on slavery and race, which is so important to wrestle with.

Highly recommend, superb.

[Shelby · Rating 2 out of 5]

i liked the extra information i'd not read elsewhere, but the author was intent on taking Lee down a notch & selected her material accordingly. This results in an incomplete and biased picture. better to start with a more objective bio.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book using letters by Lee and his family to gain a complete picture of the man.

[Isidore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pryor's book is neither a formal biography of Lee nor a representative selection of his letters: it is a collection of essays, organized in roughly chronological order, each of which is prefaced by a letter or two intended to introduce a given topic. The text is about 90% Pryor, and 10% correspondence, not all of which is by Lee.

The results are very uneven. At times Pryor is a generous and sympathetic analyst of her subject, and then, seemingly at random, she will assume a harsh and censorious tone. These shifts of attitude come not merely between chapters (and topics) but within them.

Obviously, Lee is as much subject to criticism as any other historical figure. Modern scholarship is accustomed to revisionist perspectives on the man, as is demonstrated by the fact that even so kindly a biographer as Prof. Emory Thomas dedicated his book to arch-revisionist Thomas Connelly.

Pryor, on the other hand, seems at times motivated less by a revisionist impulse than by malice. Regrettably, this leads her to commit various historiographic sins, which I will list as briefly as possible, with a representative example. Bear in mind that each example is purely illustrative, and that many, many more could be added.

The most innocuous of these is her inappropriate use of emotionally-laden language. By this I mean that Pryor chooses words which are intended to elicit a negative response from the reader, even though there is no evident justification for doing so. For example, Lee was much given to offering sententious moral pronouncements and advice in his letters, particularly to members of his family. Although these are scarcely out of line coming from a Victorian pater familias, and appear to have been valued by his children, Pryor chooses to characterize them as "bullying" and "overbearing". She cites no examples to justify the harsh language, and letters published elsewhere do not bear out her characterization.

A related but much more serious sin is her willful distortion of source material. A very striking example is to be found in chapter nine, which opens with an 1841 letter from Lee regarding a domestic controversy about a slave named Robert. It's clear from Pryor's footnotes that our understanding of the affair is murky at best, but that doesn't stop her from massaging the narrative in such a way as to make Lee look like Simon Legree. Pryor's version of the story has her heroine, Mary Lee, trying to "rescue" Robert from a "domineering master", which Lee deplores because such "leniency" would diminish the authority of the master (the quoted words are Pryor's, and are not found in the letter). But the fact is, all we really know about the affair is that Mary wanted to buy a slave from a master about whom we know literally nothing, for reasons that are not clear, but which apparently involved some question of discipline. Lee was against it: the transaction would somehow be unfair to the master, and possibly bad for discipline, but he also thought it would be a source of "trouble & vexation" to his wife, and he doubted that Robert would in the end be any better off. Pryor chooses to suppress Lee's expression of concern for his invalid wife, and his concern for Robert's ultimate well-being, presumably because they would show Lee in a positive light.

The difference between what is actually in the admittedly obscure letter and Pryor's retelling of it is quite remarkable. It is also very troubling, since the only reason we are able to detect her manipulation of the source document in this instance is because she provides it to the reader. Her book is based on thousands of unpublished documents which are unavailable to readers, and we have no way of knowing whether her use of these unavailable materials is reliable.

Equally troubling is sin #3, the misleading use of quotations from primary sources. By this I don't mean her practice of citing sources which support her views and ignoring those which do not (which is too common a practice in scholarship to be noteworthy). I mean those places where she will quote a document and omit sections inconvenient to her argument. A good example of this is her selective use of Lee's famous letter on slavery from 1856; she quotes from it extensively, but omits the section where he says "slavery is a moral & political evil". This is because she knows it would damage her claim that Lee's opposition to slavery was not based on morality but on its inefficiency.

How did all this slipshod scholarship escape the notice of those who showered the book with awards? Part of it, I suppose, is that it is currently fashionable to snipe at Lee, and her book, although scarcely the first revisionist text, is certainly the largest and most thorough of its kind. Another factor would seem to be that the book was heavily promoted, with breathless claims about groundbreaking research and unprecedented access to secret correspondence, and so on. At least one top specialist in the field was annoyed by the ballyhoo: Michael Fellman, himself a "revisionist" biographer of Lee, tartly observed, "Pryor claims to have read a 'huge number of newly discovered papers,' although she does not specify in the text or notes just which material is new. Nothing I noticed was all that earth-shatteringly different, and it is a pity the author failed to be specific about her documentary discoveries."

And yet, here is the perverse thing of it all: the book really is not a hatchet job, and Pryor's "sins" can be readily countered by an abundance of scholarly virtues. She has done a prodigious amount of research, and her voluminous notes are often very helpful and illuminating; the amount of sheer hard work that went into the book is quite astonishing, and I would guess that it is the most ambitious study of Lee since Freeman.

Much of the book's analysis of Lee's personality and career is fair-minded and acute. The section on his fateful decision to leave the US Army and join the Southern cause splendidly unravels the complexities underlying his choice; her chapter on Lee's flirtatious correspondence is completely charming; the chapters recounting his leadership of the Army of Northern Virginia are highly critical, but intelligently argued; her account of his troubled post-war life is judicious and even moving, and she understands why his contemporaries revered him. You just never know where you are at with Pryor: after messing up the 1856 letter, and developing her "inefficiency" theory, she proceeds, only a few pages later, to sum up Lee's "philosophy of slavery" in an exemplary way. The quality of her work is so unpredictable that, if this were the Bible, we'd be assuming multiple authorship, and assigning different sections to "J" or "E" or "P"!

Perhaps I am kidding myself, but maybe the problem with Pryor (who died in a freak car accident a few years ago), was that she wasn't really a professional historian. Although she had the proper university training, she actually made a living as a state department official, apparently one of some importance. And therein lies a final irony: here is a government official who helped implement the foreign policies of George W. Bush and other war criminals, attacking Lee for "founder[ing] in the ignobility of his era's easy assumptions." Really, sometimes all you can do is laugh.

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This biography of Lee sets out not to supplant previous biographies, but to complement and correct them, largely on the basis of more than a thousand letters that somehow survived the ravages of the Civil War and have never been collected and published in full. Along the way, Pryor casts doubt on some enduring myths, for example, the oft-repeated claim that Lee passed up numerous lucrative business offers after the war to take on the presidency of Washington College in Lexington. The evidence for such offers is scanty, as Pryor drily puts it. Yet hers is not a work to be shelved with the debunkers; she comes away from her research with a plain admiration for the formidable qualities of this American hero. Yet it is clear that she feels that it is the hagiographers, not the debunkers, who have done the greater disservice to our memory of Lee.
Her book is carefully-structured. The twenty-six chapters are loosely arranged over a chronological understructure: the first chapter treats the heroic, flawed father Lee barely knew, the last deals with Lee’s post-mortem reputation. Yet the chapters themselves are topical. The occasion of his wedding to Mary Custis, granddaughter of Martha Washington, for instance, is the point of departure for a chapter on the couple’s marriage. Then comes a chapter on Lee as a father, soon followed by a chapter on the place of slaves in Southern households in general, with particular emphasis on the Custis-Lee family. This is entitled, with only a slight hint of irony, The Family Circle. Each chapter opens with one or more letters, cited in full, in keeping with Pryor’s thesis that it is only through his correspondence that we can get beyond the marble facade to the complex human that was Robert E. Lee.
Along the way, Pryor points out many phases in Lee’s life that were less-than-successful. Among them are his stint as superintendent of West Point, his service as cavalry officer on the Texas frontier, and his performance as slavemaster after the death of his father-in-law put him in that position. Most poignant is his decision to resign his army commission and thereby violate his oath of allegiance to the United States. It is a commonplace among Lee biographers that the decision to resign and refuse the offer to lead the Union forces was the “answer he was born to make,” as D.S. Freeman put it. Pryor however maintains that it did not come easily to him. “This poignant moment, when a strong, steadfast man paced and prayed in despair, is a scene worthy of Shakespeare precisely because it so palpably expresses the contradictions in his heart” (p. 291).
Nor does Lee’s post-war career escape Pryor’s criticism, notably for his revision of the reasons for resigning and casting his lot with the South. Lee’s was also one of the most persuasive voices purveying the pernicious sophistry that the South was not defeated, but surrendered to superior force.
Yet Pryor is also quick to praise unreservedly Lee’s successes, such as his service in the Mexican War, which brought him to the attention of his commander, Winfield Scott, who came to view him as the ablest officer in the army. Other actions she lauds are his flawless apprehension of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, the strategical and tactical brilliance of his victory at Chancellorsville, the manner and dignity of his surrender at Appomatox, and his decision to become president of Washington College with the progressive stance toward education. Above all, she clearly admires many traits of his character, for instance his dignity and his diligence, as well as traits less-frequently associated with the man, such as a light-hearted gift for friendship. He even turns out to have been quite the flirt, while remaining faithful to his wife, on the basis of all evidence.
Along the way, there were many insights new to me. For instance, I always knew that Grant had the reputation of a relentless warrior, heedless of casualties, but I wasn't aware that this was Lee's strategy as well, even though in his case, he was using up limited resources of manpower. In a way, it was in Grant that Lee finally was confronted by someone willing to play the game the same way.
There are ample grounds for interpreting Lee’s life from psychological approaches. While Lee’s insistence on honor and duty, for instance, is typical for his class and region, one wonders if there is not also a compensation here for the indignities his family suffered through the scandals of his father and eldest brother. While aware of these possibilities, Pryor shies away from speculation, which I found sensible.
This is a book of many strengths, with only one weakness in my estimation, namely, the author’s failure at times to consider regional and class variations in some of the trends she discusses, such as the treatment of children or the evangelical revival of the early 19th century.
I have mentioned Pryor’s concern to rescue Lee from the hagiographers. Toward the end of her book, she has this to say on Lee’s apotheosis: “The disturbing point about this is not that Lee was portrayed in such an idealized light, but that so much was lost as man was turned into monument. . . . The truth is, Lee lived an all too human existence, fraught with dilemmas and decisions that would challenge the sturdiest soul. He handled some of these situations well, others with disastrous error. Never did he turn away, however, and even his sharpest critics never questioned his steadfastness. . . . The greatest honor we can give Lee is to admire him for who he actually was, rather than as an imaginary creature, which only insults him by implying that the reality was inadequate” (pp. 470–1).
A very good read, highly recommended.

[John Yelverton · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the most prejudicial historical books that I have ever read. The author completely disregards the subjects own statements due to her own preconceived ideas instead of what the historical facts tell us they are. Really pathetic book and not worth your time at all.

[Kathy Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book very much. I have been reading about Lee all year and this was one of the best so far. Unlike Freeman, who obviously was in awe of his subject, Ms. Pryor writes a balanced, dare I say objective, book. She had extraordinary luck in having new original source material to work with, and brings a new light to just what kind of man Lee really was.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Elizabeth Brown Pryor examines the correspondence and papers of Robert E. Lee and his close friends and family to paint a personal portrait of the man. She delves into the documents, both new and previously available, and estimates in the preface that she had read over 10,000 pages written by Lee or his close associates (xii). Perhaps differing from other accounts of Lee, however, is Pryor’s focus on his personal writings as the (sometimes contradictory) authority on his thoughts and actions instead of relying more heavily on the traditional historical narrative. The book is arranged loosely in chronological order, and Pryor repeatedly attempts to contrast the ideas of Lee as a man versus the myth of the General. She does succeed here in portraying Lee as a complex and contradictory human. However, she does not completely manage to discuss the popular construction of Lee as a hero for the Lost Cause in a way that dovetails with the human. Still, this is an absorbing read that gave me new insights into both Robert E. Lee and the use of personal correspondence in the study of war and of nineteenth century America.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...it is hard not to conclude that Lee's inclinations and actions had powerful consequences. The point here is not whether they were right or wrong. Rather, it is to remind us how strong is the potential power of one individual in a truly democratic society, and therefore how great the burden of responsibility."

[Charles Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

FABULOUS IN HIS FALLABILITY
TREASONOUS DICK AMIRITE

This is one of the best US history books that I have ever read. It is AMAZING.
Elizabeth Brown Pryor leads her readers to an understanding of Robert Lee (he never really used the middle initial himself) as a real man, and through his own letters and words, and who emerges as flesh and blood, and a creepy uncle, and not marble or imaginary, but a rather disagreeable man. Come on people, he was a traitorous dick! And the adjectives have outstripped the facts! He was revered not only for his military ability but for his fine personal character—and just as much for his supposed or superimposed qualities.

He is not timeless and true, for it is hard to see such transcendent importance in Robert Lee (weird, touchy, tickling, Uncle Bob) because his actions were tied to questionable mores, which were already largely rejected in his day, and were neither morally defensible nor sustainable over time. I mean he was a white supremacist traitor.

But the real story here is what Pryor accomplishes. Most of Lee's military shit burned down lol when they burned down traitor HQ in Richmond? So he is trying to regather all the correspondence before he dies. Who cares. Even US Grant couldn't be bothered with military history. He considered it a COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME lol. Lee had to repair and salvage his GLANDS.

So Pryor finds every extant word he wrote: from West Point, from Arlington, from Mexico, from the Civil War, from NYC, and more! and people's responses! So we get to know Lee on the page in his own spilled ink! And what an amazing job of archival work and historical revision. For once, we know how the man and not the statue thought! So the reader gets this Sui genesis organization that covers social history (slavery (although some of this representation lacks nuance for Lee was a racist POS in his own words), patriarchy, religion (the ridiculous Evangelical kind), the military, education, gender, family, &tc.) each topic told through Lee's own letters on the subject, or from the time period. And regarding race slavery: he neither abhorred nor condemned it. His actions SUPPORTING slavery speak louder than any seigniorial lip service.

FASCINATING.

The book is elegiac and empathetic; understanding and thorough; MAGISTERIAL
Pryor can write. He analysis is adept, deep, and poetic.

‘O Lucifer son of the morning star how art thou fallen,’”

I cannot recommend this book enough if you like biography, life and times, but with DEEP social history.

[Katherine Addison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have very conflicting feelings about this book.

On the one hand, I love the concept. It's a biography of Robert E. Lee where each chapter's starting point is a letter or letters (mostly written by Lee, some written to him, and a few written about him). And Pryor does a great job of using the letters as launching points to talk about the different phases and aspects of Lee's life. It doesn't feel gimmicky at all. Pryor is an excellent writer and a thorough historian, so the book is a pleasure to read.

On the other hand, while I support and admire her determination to talk about Robert E. Lee as he was, not as he was hagiographied, and while she is persistent in pointing out his flaws, I find some of her philosophy, like the idea that Lee's decision to fight for the Confederacy was a noble decision because he "followed his heart," highly questionable. A bad decision is still a bad decision, even if it's made sincerely, and as some of her other chapters make clear, Lee made that bad decision because he fully bought into his culture's beliefs about the superiority of the white race and the utter inferiority of Black people. She also thinks Lee should get big kudos for surrendering at Appomattox (rather than perpetuating a guerilla war) and persuading his soldiers to follow his example, and I'm like, yes, that was the right decision, but couldn't he have made it six months earlier? HOW many men died because Lee couldn't admit the defeat staring him in the face? And she makes statements in discussing Appomattox and the end of the war like "The dignified relinquishment of command is among the most ennobling of American traditions" (441) which I think blurs the line between relinquishment of command, like a president stepping down after his term is up (and she uses John Quincy Adams and Harry Truman as examples, so she really is thinking of presidents), and the surrender of an army. Lee's not relinquishing command; he's accepting defeat. Totally different.

Basically, I think she rejects hagiography and then circles back around to it anyway.

I think Lee is a fascinating figure. I think he had a year where he (and Stonewall Jackson) was a great general. I think Pryor does a really excellent job of showing why he made the decisions he did. I also think he was wrong, wrong, wrong, and I DON'T think you can ignore the ideology he supported when you are deciding whether he is a heroic figure or not.

So this is an excellent book, but I disagree with it a lot.

[Stephen Morrissey · Rating 5 out of 5]

At long last, a book on Robert E. Lee that cuts right through the mythology and marble, revealing at least a sliver of the man's humanity, failings, successes and, most importantly, the context for his actions. Elizabeth Pryor's "Reading the Man" is an unconventional, though extraordinarily revealing, biography, teasing out the life history of Robert E. Lee through letters written by him, to him, about him, and about the times he lived in.

Pryor is no mere wrecking ball come to tear down Lee. Rather, the process is one of surgical cuts around the shrouds and layers that have embalmed Lee in Lost Cause mythology. The letters reveal a man intemperate at times, yearning for order, and committed to a certain worldview. Here is Lee, the great inspirer of men in the Army of Northern Virginia; but also Lee the tyrant, lashing at slaves that have runaway and preventing those of his father-in-law from attaining freedom even after strict instructions are set forth in the dead man's will.

Pryor weaves Lee the man and Lee the warrior into a fascinating tale. Yes, he inspired his men to feats unimaginable. But did he also sacrifice their lives needlessly at Antietam and Gettysburg? Did Lee really have the proper strategy for defeating the North and winning Souther independence, or was he a brilliant tactician and a lousy strategist? Pryor pulls at these threads, showing how Lee was not some invincible warrior, but a fallible man who walked this earth.

[Hugh Beyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I struggle with reviewing this book mostly because it's not the book I thought I was getting, which isn't really fair to the author. But I expected the bulk of the book to be Lee's letters, so it was his voice that mainly came through. Instead, each chapter has a few letters, not always by Lee himself, and that acts as a jumping-off point for a discussion about some aspect of Lee's personality and life. Which is fine, and as a biography it's a pretty good one--but I still want to read that other book.

Also I've read absolutely nothing by Lee and haven't read other biographies. It may be that Pryor expects that you have because we don't get a lot of his battlefield correspondence. She may be thinkign that you could have that elsewhere.

While I'm bitching, I'll also complain about the audiobook, which is how I read this. It is read by Pryor and though she's not a bad reader, she's not a good reader either. And the material is not well organized for an audiobook. Each letter is headed with an indication of who it's too but not who wrote it, and it's often not until the end of the letter that you find out who you've been reading. That would be irritating on paper and it's much worse in audio, where you can't flip ahead to see who the writer is.

All that said, it's still a very good good read and gives very good insight into who Lee was and how he lived his life.

[Mark Luongo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally began reading this book as part of the Saturday reading program at Gettysburg NMP but thanks to the government shutdown it kind of broke my stride. It was helpful to discuss the letters, when we did meet, that are the focus of this book and it was the intention of the author to use them to illustrate and "humanize" the man who was Robert Edward Lee.
The late author succeeds in showing that this man was just that, a man of his era who "simply harnessed his fine points - notably persistence and self-control - to overcome failings within and around him." (471)
She opens each chapter with a series of letters that characterize an aspect of his life, i.e. family, religion, West Point and the his work as an engineer among others. The letters can be difficult and you find yourself going back to them which I'm sure was the author's intention. He wrote many. many letters throughout his life.
All in all, the reader comes away with a better understanding of the man himself rather than the embellishments that have come down to us over the years since his death.

[Joseph J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE BEST about lee in that it is not bronzed, marbelized or a canonization. The late Elizabeth Pryor places Lee firmly in his time of the pre-Civil War slavery South, and the post-war defeated land to which a defeated and saddened Lee still defended as President of Washington (&Lee University later on) College in Lexington, Va. This is not a collection of letters alone, but a skillfully integrated series of letter opening chapters followed by the author's absorbing writing. As we now see in biographies of George Washington, the Madisons and certainly Thomas Jefferson. the stain and disgrace of slavery is not ignored but rather brought to the forefront-it is in the world of slavery Lee grew, lived and fought. His story is our country's story. While commemorative holidays and statues can, will and probably should be removed as contemporary shrines, the story must be told as history ignored will be repeated.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are looking for a traditional biography of Lee, this is not it. If you are looking for a battle by battle description of the American Civil War, this is not it. If you are looking for a collection of Robert E. Lee's letters, guess what? This is also not it.

So what is it? It's more like a series of essays, generally following Lee's life, using his letters (or letters to/about him) as a jumping off point to discuss Lee's family, his service in the U.S. Army, his feelings about slavery, racial supremacy, duty to country and state, his own legacy. Never having lived in a state that borders Canada, I have never felt any kind of awe for Robert E Lee and have been woefully uneducated about his life. This book helped me put him into some perspective, warts and all.

[Judy Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smart and evenhanded supplement to the biographical canon of Robert E. Lee. Each chapter begins with a letter from Lee, and through these letters the reader gains a nuanced sense of this great and flawed man. Pryor says it best in her conclusion: The greatest honor we can give Lee is to admire him for who he actually was, rather than as an imaginary creature, which only insults him by implying that the reality was inadequate.

[Andrew Pratley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was Robert E. Lee a saint or a sinner. The truth is that he was neither. In this book the author examines & reveals the complexity of the man & his times. Each chapter is prefaced by a series of letters which set the scene. The book follows the chronology of Lee's life. They are also themed examining different facets of his life & personality. If you want to gain a greater understanding of the man & his times without getting too bogged down in military matters then this the book.

[Tom Mobley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been on a journey to read a biography on every president. As I am doing this I get side tracked on reading about other major players during the time line. Thus as I am in the Civil War period I found myself wanting to understand more about the rebels.

This book uses many letters from and to Lee which gives unique insights. Reading about the past gives me better insights into the present.

[EJ Daniels · Rating 2 out of 5]

An unusual conundrum as regards reviewing - on the one hand, Dr. Elizabeth Pryor has edited an excellent collection of General Robert E. Lee's letters, and she has expertly selected as exemplars letters which present a full picture of Lee the man. Her analytical essays on several of those letters, however, which constitute the bulk of the book, are illogically and poorly argued.

[Katharine Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very important book for the times we live in. Was recommended reading by Ta-nehisi Coates (Five Books to Make you Less Stupid About the Civil War: https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/201...). Really excellent book with hundreds of notes and references.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting build on the story of Robert E. Lee's life based on snippets of letters from or about him that remain and centering them in the history of the times in which they were written. As his life progresses it is sometimes a bit of a struggle to understand the character element being portrayed - but, in all, does a nice job of rounding out the life of a leader.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book which covers Lee with all his faults, and is very well written. It is not an apology for the man, and for this it is often criticised by Lost Cause apologists (The Amazon reviews are hilarious in their impotent fury). There are some great flashes of description which are unconnected to Lee too, like the description of Meade's genius at Gettysburg.

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-researched, thorough objective biography providing keen insight on the life and character of RE Lee, his wife and family, and others. Other biographies I have read about Gen Lee are not this good.

[Todd Kincaid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, complex rendering of Lee.

Fully cognizant of his many talents and work ethic, but doesn't shy away from his flawed thinking on race or the self-serving contradictions in his evolving views on secession, states' rights, and the institution of slavery.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had always had a reverence for Lee, common to many Americans and based on I'm not sure what. This book rectified my faulty impression of him to provide a well-rounded picture of a human, not a god.

[Charly · Rating 4 out of 5]

awesome.

[Susie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learn about the real Lee