ROBERT E. LEE

A profile of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

With a short focus on Lee’s early life, Miller (Women of Colonial America, 2016, etc.) paints a picture of a hardworking soldier—determined to escape the stains of his disreputable family—who marries well, then becomes the South’s champion in the Civil War. The reading can be uneven, sometimes slowing to a glacial pace with exhaustive descriptions, sometimes engrossing readers with imagery that stems from the heat of war. Though the text attempts to convey a begrudging respect for Lee’s military prowess, the weight shifts more toward outright admiration of the man and soldier, which contradicts later notes that briefly discuss Robert E. Lee, the myth. The book makes some mention of the Comanche people "displaced" following Lee’s appointment to cavalry regiments in Texas in 1855, although they are described as "marauding bands," and American Indians are entirely excluded from the index. The treatment of slavery is more expansive, making clear that Lee enslaved people, but confusingly dithers between his disdain for slavery as “a greater evil to the white than to the black race” and his outright advocacy of it as a Confederate.

A mostly approachable text that strives for, but doesn’t achieve, historical balance.