Robert E. Lee is one of the most famous and decorated American generals in history. The son of Revolutionary War hero Henry 'Light Horse Harry' Lee III, General Lee was a native of Virginia and a top graduate at West Point. So distinguished was Lee, that President Abraham Lincoln offered him command of the entire Union army before the onset of the Civil War. Lee famously declined the offer, and instead served his home state of Virginia after it seceded. His closeness with his soldiers as well as his leadership came to personify the South. Here, in a collection of personal correspondence compiled by his son, Captain Robert E. Lee, the man behind the uniform is revealed.
General Robert E. Lee was the most heroic figure of the Civil War, but to many, he is a solitary figure. This book fleshes out the man and reveals the workings of a great military mind and a warm, understanding, and generous human being. It shows all the facets of the general during the war; at the conclusion, when he was an outspoken proponent of a reasonable peace which would allow the South to rejoin the Union; and after the war, when he served as president of Washington College, and became a driving force for the creation of a viable educational system. This anthology shows all these facets of the general, through his correspondence and through the revealing insight supplied by his son. No other collection of source materials gives such a whole and rewarding picture of one of the South's greatest sons and heroes.
