Robert E. Lee: A Life

By Allen C Guelzo and Allen C. Guelzo

Book Overview

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.

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1101946229
• ISBN13: 9781101946220
• Release Date: September 2021
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 608 Pages
• Weight: 2.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.8" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

A gifted man who made all the wrong choices. No "Lost Cause" stuff here.

For those of us who grew up in the American South, RE Lee is a figure of reverence...and intense embarrassment. How could a person who was blessed with such gifts and opportunity be a traitor? Believers in the "Lost Cause" won't like this book. People who view Lee as a traitor will chortle. As Guelzo presents him, Lee is an intensely unhappy man who was dogged by the massive failures of his infamous father. In fact, he seems to have spent a lot of his energy cleaning up other people's messes. He seems to have been happiest when on his own...away from his family, as an engineer with the US Army. He flowered during the Mexican War, when a craving for distinction blended with a seemingly innate bloodlust. Despite his gentility, Lee liked violence. He viewed it as an appropriate means to an end. He had enslaved people whipped...or he whipped them himself. He sent soldiers to their deaths in battle without much regret. He approved harsh punishments for soldiers who didn't live up to his standards. In the Ken Burns' documentary, THE CIVIL WAR, Shelby Foote paints a picture of RE Lee that is warm and avuncular, willing to take time to talk to individual soldiers, taking an interest in their struggles...but Guelzo disputes that. RE Lee, at the top of the Confederate Army, was short-tempered and harsh. He disliked detail and delegated as much of the mundane stuff as he possibly could. The idea that a common soldier could approach Lee for a friendly chat is absurd. Guelzo is a fluid writer. This book doesn't quite have the flow of a novel, but it moves well and holds the attention...at least of this minor-league Civil War buff.