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Loading... Robert E. Lee: A Life (2021)182 | 1 | 150,239 |
(3.77) | 1 | "From the acclaimed author of Gettysburg: The Last Invasion--a sweeping, singularly immediate, and intimate biography of the Confederate general and his fateful decision to betray his nation in order to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose"-- |
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Epigraph |
With the best of the young men dead, the country ruined, And the sourness of Military District No. 1, The War was an after-image, a dominant lightning To dazzle the stunned eyes of a generation. But Lee in his college office in Lexington, The man beyond criticism, spoke reconciliation. Slavery at last was gone. Over yet one more century As the wounds heal up, the flaws start slowly to fade. - Robert Conquest, "The Idea of Virginia," Collected Poems (2020) | |
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To the memory of the grandmother I scarcely knew, Ruth Bloomenthal (1902-1961), but who blessed me exceedingly | |
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(Prologue) This book began in 2014, in what now seems like almost another world, with a single question: How do you write the biography of someone who commits treason? Leave the sprawl of the national metropolis behind and drive south into Virginia on the crowded superhighway that leads to Fredericksburg. | |
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An old man's wit may wander ere he die. Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow on the lea! . . . Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom blows: Sun, rain, and sun! and where is he who knows? From the great deep to the great deep he goes. (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.) | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources. Wikipedia in EnglishNone ▾Book descriptions "From the acclaimed author of Gettysburg: The Last Invasion--a sweeping, singularly immediate, and intimate biography of the Confederate general and his fateful decision to betray his nation in order to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose"-- ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description
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Lee was and remains to me enigmatic, polarizing, and intriguing but having read the book I now know why I feel that way. It brings out so much in what this man not only stood for but the character that drove his stand and his haunting childhood tied to his famous but very wayward father, "Lighthorse Harry. From start to finish the one thing that becomes very evident about Robert E. Lee is that he stuck to his principles of his interpretation of right, honor, and duty. Unfortunately to a very misguided and lost cause.
The great tragedy of this man is that had he stayed on the Federal side to head off the break up of the country which he said he was for how different that war and the duration might have been. His brilliance or perceived brilliance should have been decisive considering the military leadership we as a country were saddled with from the start.
I was intrigued my his extensive family and how important that was to him despite his prolonged absences. His steadfastness to what he saw as honor and duty to his native Virginia never wavered even after the war and I saw that he never did seem to learn how wrong he was. The recent movements to remove his monuments seem justified to me as there is little to respect or honor on what he represented. ( )