DUTY FAITHFULLY PERFORMED

A new study that defends the South’s greatest icon against the negative assessment promulgated by such revisionist biographies as Thomas Connelly’s The Marble Man (1977). Taylor (William Henry Seward, 1991, etc.) depicts Robert E. Lee as a quiet, dignified, courteous figure. The son of George Washington’s general “Light Horse Harry” Lee, he performed brilliantly as a young West Point—trained officer in the Mexican War. He learned under General Winfield Scott that a well-led small force could defeat a larger foe, that planning, reconnaissance, audacity, seizing the initiative, and acting decisively were vitally important. Lee deplored slavery and said he had no respect for those who would destroy the Union, yet he sided with the secessionists as a loyal citizen of Virginia. He was a man of contradictions: modest, thoughtful, and realistic in many ways, yet dangerously romantic about the “glory” of dying in battle. Lee was criticized for achieving victories at very high cost and continuing a hopeless struggle largely to vindicate his own honor at the expense of thousands of lives. Taylor blames Lee’s subordinates for not following his often vague orders. The South suffered decisive defeats at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and New Orleans at the hands of more powerful Federal forces. Lee appears to have lost control of the battle of Gettysburg, where Taylor finds the general over-confident after Confederate success on the first day, making decisions that resulted in the loss of one-third of his army. Lincoln’s reelection in 1864 signaled the end of the rebellion, although Lee’s diehard fight continued the carnage in service to the Lost Cause as his army melted away from casualties and desertions. Useful and easy reading, this evaluation of Lee as a gifted soldier and a Christian gentleman of character and humility does not provide many new insights nor convincingly refute the claims of Lee’s critics.