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.