Emory M. Thomas, Robert E. Lee, A Biography, New York: W.W. Norton, 1995.

            According to biographer Emory M. Thomas, Robert E. Lee was a tragic hero in the grand Shakespearian tradition. While a hard life developed in him the ability to cope in the face of frustration, Lee’s own desire for personal freedom led him to entrust his Confederate subordinates with too free a hand in planning and executing their assaults during key battles of the Civil War. Thomas believes this accounted for Lee’s greatest failures on the battlefield. Yet, like the tragic heroes of Shakespeare, Lee’s deeds proved him a great, honorable man even – and perhaps especially – “in his response to his tribulations and to his life in general” (14).

            Lee’s early years instilled in him many traits that imbued his character for the rest of his life. His father was a rogue, to be kind, and Lee knew little of him. To counter this infamy, the younger Lee ordered his life according to a consistent morality. This rigid righteousness helped him excel at West Point, which had its own strict moral code and where Lee earned the nickname “The Marble Model.” After graduation and marriage, Lee was forced to (temporarily) leave his own son at the same age his father had left him; yet, “Flight in his case was fine, even noble, because Lee found escape in doing his duty” (85). In stark contrast to his father, Lee maintained constant contact with his family. Indeed, this pattern continued well into the Civil War, wherein Lee sought out his son – an artilleryman – during the heat of the Battle of Gaines Mill.

            His early Army career similarly influenced his later decisions as a leader. As an engineer along the Mississippi River (in 1836), Lee learned the value of adapting his plan to his circumstances; he also, interestingly, learned that Congress rarely appropriated funds enough for him to fulfill their own demands. Such knowledge served Lee well in the Confederacy. Similarly, Lee’s experiences in the Mexican War – specifically, learning from General Winfield Scott – taught him lessons about tactics and strategy that he later employed to the frustration of Scott’s Union. Lee learned that through boldness, maneuverability and surprise a smaller army might overwhelm a numerically superior force; more importantly, he learned to trust his instincts as a soldier.

            After the war, Lee served as Superintendent of West Point, transferred to the cavalry (earning more experience in maneuvering few soldiers across a wide defense perimeter), and then led the expedition that decisively crushed the insurrection at Harper’s Ferry (1859). As the sectional conflict became full-fledged crisis, Lee – who “may not have felt comfortable as a slaveholder” (72) but definitely believed blacks were an inferior race incapable of freedom – Lee believed the North purposely threatened Southern vitality. Although his mentor – Winfield Scott – pleaded for Lee to command Lincoln’s army, Lee proved himself distinctly, decidedly Southern, and cast his lot with the Confederacy. Caught in an ambiguous role with no truly defined command, Lee remained capable of coping. In the mountains of western Virginia in 1861, Lee acquired two of his most recognizable symbols – his heavy beard, and his famous mount, Traveller. There, he also “discovered the deflation when an army poised to attack did not attack” (210). By the time he assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee put all these lessons to practice.

            Time and again, from the Seven Days to Second Bull Run and on to Chancellorsville, Lee used surprise (splitting his smaller force) and maneuverability to frustrate various Union generals. Initially his lieutenants – especially Longstreet (who represented Lee’s steady calm) and Stonewall Jackson (who represented Lee’s impetuous boldness) – won him great acclaim for their ability to produce battlefield victories through the personal freedom to act that Lee’s command afforded them. But by 1864, Thomas argues, this was a “questionable crew” (320), and it was this failing that ultimately doomed Lee’s plans for defending the Confederacy. Yet, after the war Lee quickly became the “Southern symbol” (384) of the Lost Cause – he was honorable, capable, and righteous, even in defeat. Thomas borrows the estimation of Lee’s daughter to describe his life – Lee was Hero and Human, equally each and inextricably both.

            Thomas labels his work “post-revisionist,” and centers his analysis between the ebullient praise of the Douglas Southall Freeman school and the stinging contrarian critique of the revisionist school (as epitomized by Thomas Lawrence Connelly). It provides a thorough and reasonably objective accounting of Lee’s words, motivations, and deeds. Through this, one may admit that Robert E. Lee was an honorable – and in many ways admirable – man without subscribing either to hagiography or the Lost Cause myth. Thomas’s work should not be missed in the historiography of Robert E. Lee.

Matthew A. McNiece