Allen C. Guelzo. Robert E. Lee: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2021. Pg 588. $ 35.00

In August of 2017, white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the impending removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park. The statue was placed in the park in 1924, during the high water mark of white supremacy and Lost Cause sympathies. But the riots in Charlottesville reveal that the public image of R. E. Lee remains controversial. On the one hand, Lee is seen by many as a heroic figure and military genius who staved off Northern aggression against impossible odds in a audacious defense of States Rights and Southern heritage. Yet, on the other, Lee is seen as a defender of slavery, a symbol of white privilege and racism, a man whose legacy has become a glaring offense to progressive sensitivities. Although there are a number of capable biographies of General Lee already in print (Emory Thomas’ 1995 volume, Robert E. Lee: A Biography stands out), it is time for a thorough re-assessment of R. L. Lee and his legacy. Allen C. Guelzo is the ideal historian to write such a volume.

Guelzo is an award-winning Civil War era historian, who previously taught at Gettysburg College. Currently, Dr. Guelzo is Senior Research Scholar in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. He is a three time Lincoln Prize recipient, and in 2013 was awarded the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize for Military History for his 2013 book, Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, in which Robert E. Lee plays a major role. Guelzo is uniquely suited to take a fresh look at a man who is far more complicated than his hagiographers (i.e., Douglas Southall Freeman’s four volume, R. E. Lee) or his critics (Thomas L. Connelly’s 1977, The Marble Man), have indicated.

In the prologue (3-9), Guelzo explains the need for a new Lee biography, one faithful to the received historical record (without embracing the revisionist analyses now rampant), yet which carefully reconsiders Lee’s place in both current historiography and contemporary political and cultural discourse. Was R. E. Lee a hero or a villain? Guelzo contends that Lee’s biography is too complicated and contradictory to offer such simplistic analyses. The critical mysteries associated with Lee’s biography identified by Guelzo include the trauma inflicted by his father (famed Revolutionary War hero Light Horse Harry Lee, abbreviated as LHHL), the Lee family’s high standing in the American republic, his marriage into the Custis family, the burden of Arlington House, the impact of his chosen career in the Army, and his longing for personal independence from both the legacy of his father, and his father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis, who was George Washington’s stepson.

Although the facts of R. E. Lee’s life are well-known and tightly summarized in this volume, Guelzo explores how Lee’s difficult childhood did much to set the course of the future general’s life and inner struggles. As the youngest son of LHHL, Guelzo describes the blessing/curse Lee faced as son of an American legend, whose post war private life did not match his public reputation as War Hero and one of General Washington’s favorites (5-7, 19-26).

LHHL’s debts forced him into bankruptcy leading to the sale of Stratford Hall (the Lee estate in Westmoreland County, VA, 44) and a year-long stint in debtor’s prison when Robert was but two years of age (26). Facing the loss of the Lee family estate and the stigma of LHHL’s post-war failures, the family moved into a modest home in Arlington, VA (28). After a disfiguring injury suffered in rioting in Baltimore, LHHL fled to the West Indies in 1812, dying there in March of 1818. LHHL abandoned six children and their mother (29-30). Guelzo recounts R. E. Lee’s visits to his father’s grave later in his life (8, 217, 409), raising the question, how did Lee truly feel about the famous father in whose shadow he lived for most his own life and military career, but who abandoned him, his beloved mother, and his siblings? It was not until Robert took command of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1861 and established a war record of his own that R. E. Lee was finally freed from being known primarily as Light Horse Harry’s son (276).

In June of 1831, Lee married Mary Anne Custis, the great grand-daughter of Martha Washington on her maternal side, and the step great-granddaughter of George Washington on her paternal. A newly-wed couple with such a pedigree comes as close to nobility as the American republic will allow. With Lee’s marriage into the Custis family came Arlington House, the magnificent home and estate now the center of Arlington National Cemetery (44-45). Along with Arlington House came the Custis family’s evangelical piety, in contrast to Lee’s own staid brand of Anglicanism. Lee was baptized, and identified with the evangelical wing of the Anglican church. He was throughly opposed to the Anglo-Catholicism then spreading throughout American Episcopal Churches (which Lee identified as “Pussyism,” 81-82) but was not confirmed until 1846 (129). Guelzo points out that Lee frequently spoke of God, but not of the Trinity, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. Nor did Lee speak of the necessity of union with Christ, and he referred to sin as essentially “omission” rather than “commission” (315).

The Custis family also possessed a large number of slaves, along with extensive debt from poor management and risky land speculation. When Lee’s father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis died in 1857, it was apparent that managing such an operation was no small thing (151-155). When Lee could not find a suitable manager to oversee Arlington, he took the managerial duties upon himself, resulting in the strange paradox of Lee managing an estate which was his wife’s, and yet which created a burden of debt, as well as weighty responsibilities, which he neither sought nor created. The Custis will called for the emancipation of his slaves five years after his death, a legal mandate which Lee dutifully fulfilled at the end of 1862, as the Civil War was well underway (269).

Once the war broke out, Union forces occupied Arlington and confiscated the Lee-Custis property (189). As the Federals made the strategic move across the Potomac into Northern Virginia, Lee was freed from the burden of his in-law’s estate (216). Yet, he and Mary felt the sting of losing such a magnificent property to an opposing army. When Federal officials refused to return the Lee’s personal property, insult was added to injury (203, 274).

As a consequence of Lee’s difficult upbringing and his managerial duties at Arlington, Lee’s personal correspondence reveals an obsession with his personal and family’s finances. Lee saw his own meager Army salary as a bulwark against the reckless land speculation which produced so much worry for his father, his older brother (Carter), and the Custis family. Yet, Lee’s government paycheck provided insufficient funds to cover the debts which he inherited, and which he struggled to repay (148). In fact, Lee fretted about money throughout his army career (76-77).

As for Lee’s views on slavery (the subject of continuing controversy), Guelzo makes a compelling case that Lee, like many white Southerners, would have preferred that the institution would just go away (144-146). The popular belief was that if slavery was left alone, over time the slave population would gradually be emancipated and either remove themselves to places like Liberia, or when sufficiently prepared, provide the free labor force needed in the agricultural South (394). However Lee felt about slavery, he embraced the view that blacks were not yet ready to handle the responsibilities of citizenship (144-146 ).

Lee’s views about chattel slavery are contradictory and difficult to untangle. Lee did not like slavery, felt pity for the enslaved, worried about what owning slaves would do to the morality of their white owners. He sincerely hoped that one day slavery would end. Lee did not fight for the Confederacy in order to preserve the institution of slavery. Yet, his refusal to lead the Federal Army and instead take command of the Army of Virginia was nothing less than an act taken in defense of the Southern way of life, including slavery. However much Lee disliked slavery, he did nothing to end it. In fact, Lee valiantly fought for a government which, by and large, supported and depended upon the institution’s continuance (392).

Perhaps, the biggest stain on Lee’s legacy is the Norris affair. Three of the Arlington slaves escaped, fled north, were soon recovered, and returned to Arlington. Lee, in a pique of anger (Lee struggled with his temper throughout his life), ordered the three Norris family members flogged by the constable. Supposedly, Lee urged the constable to “lay it on well” (157). When the flogging was reported in northern newspapers, Lee admitted to his son, “the N. Y. Tribune has attacked me for my treatment of your grandfather’s slaves, but I shall not reply. He has left me an unpleasant legacy” (157-158). Lee’s inconsistent views on the matter surface again when, in December of 1862, Lee completed the emancipation of all the Custis slaves, including the Norris family.

Lee and Virginia Governor Pickens, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis locked horns over slavery on numerous occasions (217, 270 ). After Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, Lee appealed to Davis to do the same. The Confederate Army desperately needed the man power of emancipated slaves to move freight, build defenses, and perform other non-combatant duties, freeing up white soldiers for combat duty. Davis refused as many times as Lee made the request. Yet, as Guelzo notes, throughout his career, Lee studiously avoiding the political implications of decisions and actions taken by his superiors. He did so with General Scott (104-105). While Lee challenged Davis about freeing slaves for military service, he did little to pressure Davis to take the steps necessary to fix the chronic shortages of men and supplies faced by the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee’s avoidance of such confrontations bordered on passivity.

Guelzo’s treatment of R. E. Lee, as soldier, general, and strategist is concise, but insightful. In 1825, Lee family connections opened the door for Robert to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point (35). At the time, West Point was overseen by the Army Corps of Engineers and the superintendent, himself an engineer, ensured that engineering was the essence of a West Point education (37-39). Lee graduated second in his class, received no demerits, and entered the US Army as a second Lieutenant in the engineering corps (48).

Prior to the Civil War, Lee’s army career was that of a working civil engineer, helping design and build forts Pulaski (GA), Monroe (VA), and Carroll (in Baltimore). Lee was later tasked with mapping and diverting the Mississippi River above St. Louis, to prevent the city’s harbor from silting in. After the Mexican War, Lee mapped portions of Florida, served a short-stint as superintendent of West Point (he did not see himself as the right man for the job), and then second in command of the 2nd Texas Calvary, serving under future Confederate General, Albert Sidney Johnston, who was later killed at the battle of Shiloh. Lee’s duties took him away from his wife for extended periods of time. Mary Lee became increasingly incapacitated with an aggressive form of arthritis. Her husband was often separated from his children, (whom he adored), and from Arlington, which, as Guelzo notes, was almost a relief (173).

A model soldier throughout his career, Lee’s military successes prior to the Civil War are significant and provide much of the rationale as to why Lee was approached through intermediaries at the behest of his mentor General Winfield Scott, to head the Union Army in the impending Civil War (181-192). When serving under Scott’s command, Lee’s bravery under fire and efficiency in surveying avenues of advance for American forces invading Mexico (during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848) contributed greatly to America’s victory over a much larger Mexican army. When the infamous John Brown attempted to foment a slave insurrection in October of 1859, by capturing the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, it was Lee (along with a young cavalry officer who later became one of Lee’s chief Lieutenants–J. E. B. Stuart) who was summoned to facilitate Brown’s capture and put an end to his mischief. Brown’s raid caused fear and dread throughout the South, with Lee quickly putting an end to it, greatly enhanced his public image as the army’s most capable soldier (167).

If Lee’s self-contradictory views regarding slavery remain unresolved, perhaps the greatest contradiction in Lee’s life and character is his resignation from the US Army to serve the Confederate cause (193-197). From the time Lee entered the Army in June of 1829, until he resigned in April of 1861, Lee served under his solemn oath to defend the United Stares of America. When Southern states began seceding after Lincoln’s election, Lee refused several offers to join the Confederate Army. In letters to his sons, Custis and Rooney, written in January of 1861, Lee stated that succession was “nothing but revolution” (178).

Yet, when approached by General Scott’s intermediary, Francis Blair, with an offer to take command of the Federal Army, Lee told Blair, “Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?” (183-188 ) Lee then went to Scott, explained his decision, before returning to his home in Virginia. Scott reportedly told Lee, “you are making the biggest mistake of your life,” (which Lee later acknowledged as true, 382) and then wept over Lee’s decision as though his own son had died (188). Once Virginia had officially seceded, Lee was appointed by Virginia’s governor to lead the provisional Army of Virginia, later incorporated into the Army of the Confederacy (193-197). It was gut-wrenching for the Lees, but it was a decision made on misguided principle. Lee could not bring himself to fight against his Virginia home.

Guelzo’s treatment of Lee’s Civil War accolades is pedestrian. Lee’s record as a battlefield commander is well-documented and capably discussed elsewhere. But several of Guelzo’s observations are worth noting. As for field command, Guelzo describes Lee’s bravery under fire, “leading from the front,” which created great anguish among his staff and fellow officers (275, 317). Although Lee is usually remembered for his calm demeanor in battle, Lee did have a volcanic temper, which grieved many a subordinate (281). Lee was greatly frustrated that the people of the South did not seem to understand what the war of secession demanded of them. The General expected the same level of performance and commitment to duty from his fellow citizens and his soldiers to which he rigorously held himself. He had made a huge sacrifice for the cause and he expected others to be willing to do the same.

Guelzo makes a number of important points about Lee as both a strategist and a field commander. Guelzo endorses several criticisms raised by others in regard to Lee as a field general. First, in expecting his corps commanders to take initiative to accomplish Lee’s strategic plan, some, such as Stonewall Jackson, thrived on this operational freedom, while others such as General Ewell, did not (294). Second, Lee went easy on pet officers who did not perform well (A. P. Hill, for example) while others received Lee’s ire (431). As his more capable generals were killed in battle (i.e., Jackson and Stuart), Lee’s general corps declined greatly in command ability. This had serious consequences for the future course of the war. Guelzo also mentions (without endorsing) the criticism of Lee from several British military historians, who saw Lee as a marginal military mind, capable, but not the Napoleonic genius of the Lee legend (424) .

Lee knew that the war would be long and difficult for the South, and had slight chance of winning. From a strategic perspective, the only avenue of victory over the vastly superior manpower and industrial resources of the North, was to achieve a victory over the Union army on Northern soil which would greatly fuel the political divisions Lee knew were present in the North (430). Lee saw the Western Campaign (the area west of the Appalachians and along the Mississippi, under the command of Braxton Bragg) as important, but he was unwilling to send troops when requested to do so by Davis (283-284). Both the 1862 Antietam campaign in Maryland and the 1863 invasion of Pennsylvania and the Battle of Gettysburg, were intended to defeat the responding Union Army seriatim, threaten Washington DC with invasion, and force the Lincoln administration to sue for peace. In both campaigns, Lee was not victorious, but he did manage to keep his retreating army from being destroyed by his discombobulated opponents (McClellan and Meade).

It was not until US Grant took command of the Army of the Potomac that the successive hammer blows of Grant’s spring 1864 invasion of Virginia and his relentless march on Richmond had bled dry the Army of Virginia of men and resources, that the South lost all chance of winning. All Lee could do was fight a delaying action. Ever the capable engineer, Lee (nicknamed the “king of spades” by his men) arranged a well-designed series of entrenchments and fortifications which staved off the final defeat of the Army of Northern Virginia, and the occupation of the Confederate capitol at Richmond, VA. But in the Spring of 1865, Grant’s army finally pushed Lee’s debilitated rag-tag troops out of their defensive positions at Petersburg, forcing them to flee into the interior of Virginia. Grant soon caught the remnants of Lee’s army at Appomattox, forcing Lee’s surrender at the Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1861. As an aside, when asked who Lee thought was his most capable opponent, he did not mention Ulysses S. Grant, but George McClellan, whom Lee described as greater than all the Union generals he faced “by all odds” (397).

Lee’s postwar career is that of an emotionally drained and physically wrecked man seeking to return to the quiet life of a Virginia gentlemen farmer. But fiscal realities led Lee to accept the presidency of Washington College in Lexington, VA, (now Washington and Lee University), where, as a competent administrator, Lee greatly increased the college’s endowment but steered the curriculum away from a classical education toward more practical courses (386-387). This is not surprising, since Lee was trained as an engineer, not an academic (381). He dealt sternly with student misconduct (389-391), and while participating in marshal pomp with the students of the nearby Virginia Military Academy (VMI), Lee made a point of marching out of step in protest of what the war had done to him and his family, and to the nation as a whole (382). Meanwhile, as Lee embraced his duties as a college president, he went quietly about his life, finding solace in the Virginia hills riding his beloved steed, Traveller (405).

Lee was in declining health even during the war, suffering several heart attacks of increasing severity, eventually dying of a stroke on October 12, 1870 (407-415). Although Mary Lee was virtually disabled by her arthritis, she worked to preserve her husband’s place in history, but died in November of 1873 (419). The South mourned greatly for its fallen General, even as the controversy surrounding Lee and his legacy was getting underway. The seeds of the “lost Cause” legacy had already germinated and were breaking through the depleted southern soil. As Guelzo puts it, Lee “was a celebrity across the white south and even some parts of the north. Buoyed up on the popularity of Lost Cause, Lee became the symbol of the South’s nobility in the face of ignoble defeat” (406-407).

Guelzo concludes his reconsideration of R. E. Lee’s biography by wrestling with the critical question surrounding the Lee legacy. Was R. E. Lee a traitor? Lee himself feared being tried as such at the war’s end, and several in Congress sought to bring Lee to trial (369). But the desire to punish Lee was slowly buried by other pressing issues associated with ending the cataclysmic conflict. Yet, Lee did take a solemn oath to defend the United States, resigned his commission on noble principle, but then took up arms against the country he had sworn to defend. Guelzo speaks of this as “the overriding fact of Lee’s crime.” Lee may have been personally indifferent to slavery, but by doing nothing to stop it, he came very close to enabling the abominable institution. Yet, what is overlooked in much current discussion is any mention of Lee’s greater offense–treason (432-433). Lee broke his vow to his county, and gave aid and comfort to the enemy in support of a fledgling nation which championed slavery. It was, as Guelzo argues, an indefensible moral failure.

Guelzo offers the reader a wise and compassionate reply. “Self-pity played a far larger role than compassion in Lee’s character, and his pursuit of perfection froze compassion into obligation. But that need not be the case in us. Mercy . . . may, perhaps, be the most appropriate conclusion to the crime–and the glory of Robert E. Lee after all” (434).

After putting the book down, a nagging question arose in my mind. If a man of Robert E. Lee’s standing and character was blind to his own glaring moral failures, and I am as flawed as he was, what, if anything, am I missing of a similar moral failure in my life and thought? Perhaps provoking this question was the author’s hope for his reader all along.

This is a compelling and important biography of a remarkable man, by a first rate historian. What more could a reader ask?