Robert E. Lee

¶ … Lee: The Last Years by Charles Bracelen Flood. Specifically, it will review and discuss the book. Flood's book looks at the final five years of Lee's life after the Civil War. It is a moving look at a man who gave so much to his people, and yet always felt that he had given so little. The author's thesis in this book is quite clear. He wants to show the last years of General Lee's life, and the effect the Civil War had on him and his fellow Southerners.

The book reads partly like a historical documentary, and partly like a novel, and keeps the reader's interest throughout the book by interspersing personal information on Lee with general accounts of his life and times after the war. He also seems quite determined to show Lee the man, rather than Lee the General and leader.

His portrayal is of a man at the end of his life, who never really has felt that his life has amounted to much, and faces his last year's ill, without a home, and without a purpose now that his command days are done. Flood portrays Lee as a hero, but never as a haughty or full of himself, man. He seems modest and unassuming, which makes him all the more sympathetic and likeable.

Lee was well respected, even by the Union troops, who he had once fought with before he resigned his commission and joined the Confederacy. Author Flood writes of a moving time just after the surrender at Appomattox, "When he realized that this was Lee leaving, he stopped and took off his hat. So did every other Union soldier in the yard" (Flood 13).

Flood fills his book with emotional scenes like these, pulling the reader into the action and giving them a fuller idea of what Lee was really like, underneath the command and the power. Even more, Flood fills his book with stories of Lee's family, which gives a more well rounded picture of the General's personal life, and what he has waiting for him after losing the war. Lee's family was close, and this was an all-important part of his life before the war, and even more so after the war.

Portraying Lee's family with detail actually helps give more detail about the General, in the end, and makes the reader feel more like a friend of the family than an outsider looking back on the lives of some of the most influential people in the South. The author illustrates his thesis by following Lee through the years after the war to his deathbed, with his daughter Mildred at his side.

The Notes and Bibliography section are extensive, showing the author did quite a bit of extensive research before completing the book. He uses personal remembrances as a major portion of the book, as well as secondary research sources and other published biographies. The detail all adds up to a very detailed biography that is both interesting and difficult to put down. The book also includes an extensive selection of photographs of Lee from a young man to just before he died.

Included are photographs of the family, their home, and Lee's last employment, his office at Washington and Lee University. The photographs complete the details the author is so careful about in the book, because they give the reader an even closer feeling to the family that Lee loved so much. They also show how war changes a man.

His final photos show a war-weary man who looks much older than his years, and it is clear from the photos he has suffered much, and could never be the same young man shown in the painting when he was just beginning his long military career. In conclusion, Flood's book is an intimate look at the last days of the Confederacy's greatest and most enduring General.

The picture Flood paints is of a man determined to find peace in his own life, and build peace in a country still divided by a war. He is a man who only longs for a simple life in the country, and some way to take care of his family. Another man could have seemed pathetic in these conditions, but somehow Lee holds on to his dignity just as he holds his family together and puts back the pieces of his life after the war is over.

References Flood, Charles Bracelen. Lee: The Last Years. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981. Gray Fox: Robert E. Lee This paper analyzes the book "Gray Fox: Robert E. Lee and The Civil War" by Burke Davis. Specifically, it will review and discuss the book. Robert E. Lee is one of the best-known figures of the Civil War, and perhaps one of the most misunderstood.

This book attempts to make his Civil War years more understandable and real to the reader, while portraying the man as a genuine person with real problems, emotions, and failings. This book follows Robert E. Lee's career through the Civil War, giving just enough background on his life to make him more real to the reader.

The author's thesis appears early in the book, he wants to show Lee's performance during the Civil War, but he also wants to show that Lee's loyalties were severely torn before the war, and that he did not want the country to split. Lee wrote in a letter before the war " I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind.

If the Union is to be dissolved and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people, and save in defense will draw my sword on none" (Davis 9). At the beginning of war, Lee was pessimistic, but he chose to remain with the South, even though he felt secession was a poor idea. Yet, he took the post of commander of the Southern Army, and then later took command in the field.

His prophesies of Southern defeat came true, but not without a long, hard fight on his part. The author proves his thesis by concentrating on the long years of war, when Lee faithfully served the Confederacy. The author uses extensive research, including Lee's personal letters to his family, to show the man as he was behind the strict face of command. The extensive Notes and Bibliography sections indicate the depth of research the writer used, and how extensive his knowledge is of Lee and his actions during the war.

The book shows Lee was a brilliant commander-in-chief, but a modest man who could not see his own strengths, but often lingered on his own weaknesses, which he felt were many. The book is well illustrated with maps of the key battles, and with some excellent photographs of Lee, and of the devastation of just a few of the many battles of the war. The book also goes into great detail about life in camp between battles, and shows General Lee was an officer and a gentleman.

He did not believe in having more than his ragged men, and the book notes, "His usual dinner in this camp was a head of cabbage boiled in salt water, with a piece of cornbread" (Davis 266). The General was not a primadonna; he was a man who served his men and his Confederacy to the best of his ability, even when he was in ill health and poor spirits. The book makes him out to be a hero, and that is what he still is to the Southern people.

If there is anything to criticize in the book, it is the author's common practice of mixing his research with fictionalized conversations and meetings during the book. It is clear the author knows Lee well, but he creates fictionalized scenes among the research and commentary, creating dialogue for General Lee and many of his peers and soldiers.

While many of these scenes may be well documented, they read more like fiction than fact, and the reader is torn between believing them and wondering just how the author knew exactly what words were spoken on the battlefield. In conclusion, this is a valuable book to the student of history, the researcher, and to anyone who wants to know more about General Lee, his motivations, and his performance throughout the Civil War.

Though it is not a complete account of his life, it is a very thorough account of the war itself, and Lee's incredibly important part in the war. The Confederacy was doomed from the time they succeeded from the Union, and Lee saw that. Yet, he performed his duty with courage and with skill. If Lee had not been in command, the war might have ended sooner, because he was a great commander and leader, and he inspired his men greatly. References Davis, Burke. Gray Fox: Robert E.

Lee and the Civil War. New Jersey: Burford Books, 1998. Robert E. Lee in Two Works The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the books "Gray Fox: Robert E. Lee and The Civil War" by Burke Davis, and "Lee: The Last Years" By Charles Bracelen Flood. Specifically, it will compare and contrast the two books with the discussion on how the two different authors describe/portray Lee as a person and as a leader. Both these books portray Lee in very specific times during his life.

One covers the time throughout the Civil War, and the other follows his life after the war until his death. Both books portray Lee vividly as a hero, a leader, and a real, live, person with all the frailties and faults that add up to a true human being. The author's use different styles to portray the General, and so, the reader gets two pictures of the man that combine to make a fuller whole. Both of these books go to great lengths to portray Robert E.

Lee in both his public and private life. Both books show he was a powerful man. Flood notes, "The wrong word from Lee -- even a word that could be misconstrued -- and his veterans would come pouring out of the hills with anything they could get their hands on -- pistols, squirrel guns, scythes, axes" (Flood 34). Yet, he did not abuse or misuse his power, and he was not so drunk with power that he because an arrogant and unapproachable leader.

He was a man who loved his troops, and the military life, and whose troops love him, and this is quite clear in both of these books. Davis writes of the emotion Lee felt when he lost General Stuart. Davis states Lee, "covered his face with a hand. 'I can scarcely think of him without weeping,' he said" (Davis 307). Thus, he shows Lee's human side in the face of tragedy, and in the middle of a battle.

It is scenes like these that make Lee a human and vulnerable figures, and indicate that a great leader can also be compassionate and caring -- in fact, these may be just the qualities that caused Lee's men to love him so much, and to follow him into battles that should have been impossible, but were not. Davis' book follows Lee from the beginning of the Civil War when he accepted the commission to lead the Confederate Army, to the day after the surrender at Appomattox Court House.

Flood takes up at the surrender, and follows Lee to his deathbed. Both show a man who is determined and strong, but has reached a point in his life where he is older, and knows he only has so much time left. During battle, Lee is brave and daring, but he suffers just like his soldiers when he lies alone in his tent and worries about the future. He does not believe in sending his men to do what he will not.

For example, Davis notes, "Lee, amid the grumbling of his staff, was up at three A.M. And riding in weather so cold that ice formed in the beards of the officers" (Davis 268). Lee was a leader, but he was also just a "regular" soldier, who did not put himself above his men or their suffering. Thus, the two writers both show Lee as a person and a leader, which is a difficult task. It is clear that he was both.

He loved the military life, and spent over thirty years in it, but he still loved his family, and could be as real and emotional as the next person. He was an interesting combination of leader and common man, and both authors seem to capture both sides of him quite well, and pass that characterization on to the reader so they glimpse both sides of the man, too.

Flood writes "Lee was not bankrupt -- a few of his small investments had survived the war -- but waiting for him in Richmond was a wife who was an invalid, and their three unmarried daughters" (Flood 31). It is startling to note that the man who came so close to leading the South to victory was nearly destitute after the war, and had his home and livelihood taken over by Union forces and never returned. In fact, Arlington National Cemetery in Washington lies on some of what was Lee's estate.

Flood depicts him as a man who had few choices, but he does not seem pathetic at all, he still seems like a strong man who commands respect, and still has life in him. The two men's accounts of Lee are different, but they still are a portrait of the same man, no matter how difficult that is to remember when reading the two books. Both books also give some small hints of Lee's earlier life, Flood's more so than Davis' does.

Flood gives an account of Lee's early military career, while the Davis book uses Lee's Civil War command to give most of the account of his military history. Both books give a decent, if very brief account of his early years, but their purpose is to show Lee's latter years, and his personality, as well as his well-known history. The books both maintain their theses and keep the reader's interest by creating sections in the books that read more like novels than historical texts.

This keeps the reader turning the pages, but sometimes it is not clear where conjecture begins, and research leaves off. Even so, these sections, which are present in both books, are not so disturbing that they take the reader away from the story. Rather, they draw the reader further in, and make them feel as if they have a more intimate portrait of Lee and the people who worked for him.

It is also quite clear that both authors did an immense amount of research, and understood Lee intimately before they wrote their books. That is indicated by the great amounts of historic documents they cite in their Notes and Bibliography, but also by the great amount of historic data they include in their books. Both books tell of Lee's part in history, but also illustrate the history going on around Lee during his life.

Davis' book is an excellent account of the battles of the Civil War, and the strategy both sides used to win or lose. Flood's book is more than a look at Lee's last years, it shows the turmoil the South still faced after the war was over, including poverty, dealing with the freed blacks, and rebuilding after a costly and devastating war.

Lee is not just a character in this history, he is an active participant, and both books are good accounts of his life, but also excellent accounts of what was happening while Lee first attempted to win the war, and then had to return home after losing the war. Therefore, both of these books would be valuable not only to readers interested in learning more about Lee's later life, but also students of general history, who wanted to see what was happening during these turbulent times in American history.

Perhaps one of the greatest differences in the two books, besides the time period they.