Robert E. Lee: The Story Of The Great Confederate General, by Terry Collins, illustrated by Christian Mallea

If you were constructing a minimal book of Robert E. Lee, in which you included only the smallest amount of material you could while still making it clear why one thought that the man was a great general, this book approaches the lower limit that one could conceive of. It is striking that this book is part of a short series of very minimal historical biographies, all of them illustrated, which include such historical figures as Houdini, Malcom X, Elvis, Babe Ruth, and Chief Joseph of the Nez Pierce. This is a strange collection of people, to be sure, but perhaps one thing that all of them share is that their fame can be condensed into a small presentation and they were most notable for their behavior during a short period of time, so that one does not need to worry about such tedious elements as backstory or coming to the end of the life of one’s figure. Conventional biographers have a tough task when they are faced by someone who lived a long life but whose period of fame was fleeting, but the authors in this series have it easy, they can just illustrate the exciting bits and leave the rest for others to struggle about.

This particular book is a short one, barely reaching 30 pages of illustrated material, which is hardly enough to get any sort of context about a man who lived more than 60 years, most of that as a career engineer of low officer rank in a not particularly exciting peacetime American army. This book contains only six incidents from the entire life of Robert E. Lee, and all of them occur between 1861 and 1865. The book begins with Lee’s decision to surrender at Appomattox Court House, predictably enough, and then flashes back through his time as an adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and only four of his battles, Seven Days, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. It is not as if the author and illustrator are ignorant of his larger life story–there is a decent if abbreviated chronology at the end of the book that gives at least some of the many details that are not included in this work–it is just that they choose to deliver the bare minimum of what one can deliver for a life as long as that of Robert E. Lee, and it is telling that they choose battles in which Lee could be considered most an underdog and not the victories at Second Bull Run where he had a manpower advantage or Fredericksburg where he held a nearly impregnable position behind Marye’s Heights, or the brutal fighting of the Overland and Petersburg campaigns where Lee was unable to maneuver.

I must admit that this book is aimed at a vastly lower level of reader than I am, but I was surprised at just how basic the dialogue included in this book is. The illustrations are certainly good, though, and capture Lee in a sense where one can understand his popularity as well as his enduring value as a general. It would be interesting to see if the authors could do a companion volume about Grant, but the material may be too long for what they would intend, as it would be hard to include only four Grant battles and get a sense of his superiority as a General even if he largely beat the inferior Confederate generals in the West for most of the war. Indeed, if Grant and Lee appear to be natural as a contrast in military approaches as well as being joined by their most famous moments that have allowed them to endure in history, Grant appears nowhere in this book except briefly at Appomattox, and there as a generous if rather unkempt victor. It must be admitted, though, that few people end up appearing in this book other than Lee, most notably Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart, along with a brief cameo by Joseph Johnston, Lee’s retreat-minded predecessor as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. If that doesn’t show how bare the cupboard of higher leadership was in the Confederacy, it is hard to imagine what would.