Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History

by Alan T. Nolan

Book Overview

Of all the heroes produced by the Civil War, Robert E. Lee is the most revered and perhaps the most misunderstood. Lee is widely portrayed as an ardent antisecessionist who left the United States Army only because he would not draw his sword against his native Virginia, a Southern aristocrat who opposed slavery, and a brilliant military leader whose exploits sustained the Confederate cause. Alan Nolan explodes these and other assumptions about Lee...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807819565
• ISBN13: 9780807819562
• Release Date: May 1991
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 243 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History

Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History by Alan T. Nolan is a book that brings us the human man and not he icon of the Civil War.Lee is a paradox of sorts, while owning slaves he was opposed to the institution of slavery. Lee left the United States Army so as not to take his sword and use it against his native Virginia. A most revered but misunderstood man, Lee was a brilliant military leader who was tactically effective in bringing the exploits of the Confederacy to those of Northern aggression.This book brings out a more human man, complete with all of the frailties and fallacies. A man or moral character, but a man whos job is that of a soldier. This book gives us a more honest view of Lee... a Lee not on his terms, but a Lee in the eye of history. No assumptions, just a rigorous reexamination through correspondence and historical sources.Everyone knows the larger than life Lee, but knowing Lee is to know that he is a man... a man who happens to be the Commanding General of the Confederate Forces, a native Virginian, and a Southern aristocrat who opposed slavery.

At Last, An Iconoclast Stands Up

It is so good to see someone stand up to this false idol of the neo-confederates. It's high time someone took him down and analyzed him as the very fallable human being he was and the repulsive cause he and his armies fought for. Don't listen to these neo-confederates reviews, his book is stacked with evidence, mostly stuff from LEE'S OWN MOUTH.I'd encourage anyone to get this book. It's far more enlightening than anything you'll read that comes from the rationalizations of Southern revisionists.

No facts? This book is chocked full of them...

I found this book very interesting and in the precise tone that a serious historical review should take. Namely, present the facts and draw your conclusions from them, not anything else. I'm amazed at the comments from other reviewers that Nolan doesn't present facts. This book is FULL of facts, many drawn directly from Lee's own writings or the writings of those who spoke or corresponded directly with him.The picture of Lee that emerges from this book is that he was fallible...his ideas of honor and his own ego were inseparably intertwined..he was a man of his times and culture in his feelings about race...and that while a brilliant campaign general, his grasp of grand strategy was sorely lacking.The bottomline, this book humanizes Lee, and in many ways this makes his tactical genius even more impressive...while exploding the fallacy that he was some "uber-noble" tragic hero of mythic proportions, forced to fight when he would rather not. The man was a soldier...it was what he did. And he almost destroyed the United States pursuing that profession. I for one am glad he didn't succeed.

An important contribution

No-one fought harder to destroy the Union than Robert E. Lee, so it's about time someone took him down a few pegs. Nolan puts Lee's reputation under a microscope and, point by point, convincingly refutes the myth created by Freeman and others. As Nolan shows, Lee's strategic blunders seriously weakened the Army of Virginia even as his tactical pyrotechnics dazzled such lightweight opponents as McClellan and Burnside. One wonders whether he would have been so successful against Grant (oh, that's right-he wasn't). This book, along with J.W. Cash's "The Mind of the South", is a welcome balance to the usual romantic folderol about Southern honor.

Challenging and iconoclastic

Of all the civil war figures, Robert E. Lee has been the most idealized. In this book Nolan deconstructs the idol, examining and challenging accepted wisdom on every point. The result is a much deflated image of a strategic blunderer. Not a book for lovers of Lee, but compelling and convincing.