The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee has become an iconic figure in American history, the beau ideal of a military man: audacious, resourceful, and, above all, victorious. According to the standard myth, Lee, the perfect southern gentleman, reluctantly followed his beloved Virginia out of the Union in 1861 only because he could not fathom fighting against the people of the Old Dominion. He became a general officer in the Confederate army, assumed field command, and, owing to pluck, determination, and natural genius, battled numerically superior Yankees so successfully that he came within a hair's breadth of achieving Southern independence. Finally forced to bow to overwhelming Northern military might, Lee followed an honorable course: he laid down his arms and persuaded his confederates to accept surrender rather than fight a guerilla war. In The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee, the historian John Reeves argues that the veneration of Lee has glossed over

Ancient history · Art · Art history · Independence (probability theory · Indictment · Political science · Surrender · Veneration · American Constitutional Law and Politics · American History and Culture · Classics · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society