Clouds of glory The life and legend of Robert E. Lee

Robert E. lee occupies a remarkable place in the pantheon of American history, combining in the minds of many, Michael Korda writes in this admiring and briskly written biography, "a strange combination of martyr, secular saint, Southern gentleman and perfect warrior." Indeed, Korda aptly adds, "It is hard to think of any other general who had fought against his own country being so completely reintegrated into national life." Lee has been a popular subject of biography virtually from his death in 1870, at the age of 63, through the four magisterial volumes of Douglas Southall Freeman in the 1930s to Elizabeth Brown Pryor's intimate 2007 study of Lee and his letters, "Reading the Man." Korda, the author of earlier biographies of Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower, aspires to pry the marble lid off the Lee legend to reveal the human being beneath. He draws a generally sympathetic portrait of a master strategist who was as physically fearless on the battlefield as he was reserved in personal relations. He was, Korda writes, "a perfectionist, obsessed by duty," but also "charming, funny and flirtatious," an animal lover, a talented cartographer and a devoted parent, as well as "a noble, tragic figure, indeed one whose bearing and dignity conferred nobility on the cause for which he fought and still does confer it in the minds of many people." Graduating second in his class at West Point, Lee was commissioned into the engineers, then the most prestigious branch of the Army. He spent several unremarkable decades directing the construction of coastal fortifications, including Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, and somewhat more memorably, diverting the course of the Mississippi River at St. Louis. The Lee legend was born during the Mexican War, when he won the highest praise from the commander of the invading American army, Winfield Scott, for his bold reconnaissance behind enemy lines, during which he participated in three battles and crossed enemy territory three separate times in 36 hours - "the greatest feat of physical and moral courage" of the campaign, in Scott's words. In 1859, when Scott was the overall commander of the United States Army, Lee was tapped to lead the company of Marines that captured John Brown at Harpers Ferry. Two years later, as state after state seceded from the Union, Lincoln offered Lee the command of the federal forces. He of course declined, and took his talents south. Korda portrays the Lee of 1861 as a man tragically torn between loyalty to his nation and his native state. That Lee agonized over his decision is certainly true. However, Korda does not consider the fact that Lee was also heir to an antifederalist tradition embedded deep in the political circuitry of the Virginia elite, and of his own family: 70 years earlier, in 1790, Robert's father, the Revolutionary War hero Henry Lee, declared in response to what he considered a slighting of Southern interests, "I had rather myself submit to all the hazards of war and risk the loss of everything dear to me in life, than to live under the rule of a fixed insolent Northern majority." Many other Southern-born officers remained unshaken in their loyalty to the Union. Korda provides crisp and concise, if conventional, accounts of Lee's major engagements. We rarely hear from ordinary soldiers or feel the terror of battle amid the fog of war, but Korda is good at explaining Lee's strategic thinking, the maneuvering of armies and the sometimes crippling limitations imposed by logistics, bad maps and worse roads. Lee was not infallible. Although Korda generally gives him the benefit of the doubt, he admits that Lee was "not always an effective commander," too often leaving it to his subordinates to guess at what he intended. He is too generous in his assessment of Lee's disastrous frontal attacks at the Battle of Malvern Hill that capped the Seven Days campaign, and his equally futile assault - now famous as Pickett's Charge - on another impregnable federal position at Gettysburg, in 1863. To Lee's credit, as Pickett's shattered survivors straggled back to their lines, Lee leaned from his horse to shake their hands, telling them, "All this has been my fault." Yet without Lee, the Army of Northern Virginia would most likely have been defeated long before Appomattox. Korda acknowledges that it is impossible to consider Lee without facing the problem of slavery. Lee owned slaves himself, and he arguably did more than any other man to try to create a country founded on slavery. Korda asserts that Lee was at least "moderate" on slavery, writing that he "was never, by any stretch of the imagination, an enthusiast for slavery." That said, Lee did nothing to bring slavery to an end, and regarded abolitionists as troublemakers and revolutionaries. Korda quotes a revealing letter that Lee wrote to his wife, Mary, in which he described slavery as "a moral and political evil," but went on to say, "I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race.... The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially and physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their instruction as a race." How long their "subjugation" would be necessary, Lee complacently concluded, "is known and ordered by a wise and Merciful Providence." As Allen Guelzo noted in "Gettysburg: The Last Invasion," Lee's army systematically kidnapped both former fugitive slaves and free blacks in Pennsylvania, dragging scores, perhaps hundreds, of them back to slavery in Virginia. Lee may not have approved of this atrocity, but he did little or nothing to stop it. "Clouds of Glory" is unfortunately marred by more than a few annoying errors of fact. Northern politicians with Southern leanings were called "doughfaces," not "doughboys" - a 20th-century term for American soldiers in World War I. At the time of the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831, the enslaved population of the United States was about two million, not four million. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854, not 1845. More troubling is a footnote in which Korda likens the burning of Atlanta in "1865" (actually 1864) and William T. Sherman's March to the Sea to the firebombing of Dresden in 1945. "Britain's bomber command ... simply had more sophisticated technology than Sherman did, but the intention was the same," Korda writes. He uncritically asserts that "Sherman introduced what a later generation would call total war, involving the burning of cities, homes and farms on a wide scale." Although Sherman's march was destructive of property, it was far less extensive than Lost Cause mythology claims, and was carried out with remarkably little loss of life: Perhaps fewer than 2,500 Confederate soldiers were killed in open battle, and very few civilians died. The bombing of Dresden took tens of thousands of lives, virtually all civilians. The worst war crimes of the Civil War were perpetrated by Confederates, in the savage massacres of black federal soldiers at Fort Pillow, Tenn., and by Lee's own troops at the Crater at Petersburg, in 1864. "Clouds of Glory" will satisfy readers who wish to be reassured that Lee was a splendid and courageous soldier, as well as the fine-mannered epitome of antebellum aristocracy. Those who might regard him as a reactionary who betrayed his country, and whose skillful generalship prolonged an unwinnable war on behalf of a cause that Grant called "one of the worst for which a people ever fought," may find Korda's enthusiasm less persuasive. Arguably, Lee did more than any other man to try to create a country founded on slavery. FERGUS M. BORDEWICH'S most recent book is "America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union."

*Starred Review* Our Civil War anointed at least one secular saint in Abraham Lincoln. Another strong candidate, despite fighting for the losing and morally questionable cause, is Robert E. Lee. One hundred and forty-four years after his death, Lee is still widely revered in both North and South for his tactical military brilliance and his personal qualities of courage, honor, and kindness. Korda, the former editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster and an acclaimed biographer, has no intention of knocking Lee off his pedestal in this excellent and generally laudatory biography. Korda stresses Lee's accomplishments even before the Civil War as a brilliant, visionary engineer and an expert at military maneuvers. His personal characteristics endeared him to his subordinates, both officers and those of lesser ranks. Despite a hot temper, he exercised patience, courtesy, and honesty. Yet Korda does not shrink from noting Lee's flaws and failures. His orders to his officers during the Civil War were often vague and open to misinterpretation, especially during the Gettysburg campaign. Despite his tactical brilliance, he lacked an overall, effective strategic vision for victory once he faced a relentless opponent in Grant. Still, this masterful and comprehensive single-volume biography is a worthy tribute to an icon whose greatness still shines brightly.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist

In this exhaustive study, former Simon & Schuster editor-in-chief Korda (Ulysses S. Grant) examines the life of Robert E. Lee from start to finish, illuminating not just the man, but his extended family and the society which produced him. While Korda's treatment verges on hero worship, he explores Lee's qualities and contradictions thoroughly, approaching him first and foremost as a state patriot, loyal to Virginia before any other cause. He further presents Lee as a military genius, a brilliant engineer (Lee re-channeled the Mississippi River near St. Louis), a spiritual descendant of George Washington, an embodiment of Napoleonic tactics, and a living legend in his own time. History has supported most of these claims; Korda backs up the rest with an accessible and authoritative account of Lee's career. Naturally, while Lee's schooling and early service are covered, the bulk of this book is reserved for the events of the Civil War. The size of this tome is intimidating but fitting, given its subject: Lee, the famed American general whose legend still looms long after the end of the Civil War. If not the gold standard for Lee biographies, this is a superbly engaging offering. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.