Download or read book Robert E Lee and the Fall of the Confederacy 1863 1865 written by Ethan S. Rafuse and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2009-10-16 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this reexamination of the last two years of Lee's storied military career, Ethan S. Rafuse offers a clear, informative, and insightful account of Lee's ultimately unsuccessful struggle to defend the Confederacy against a relentless and determined foe. This book provides a comprehensive, yet concise and entertaining narrative of the battles and campaigns that highlighted this phase of the war and analyzes the battles and Lee's generalship in the context of the steady deterioration of the Confederacy's prospects for victory.
Download or read book How Robert E Lee Lost the Civil War written by Edward H. Bonekemper and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges the general view that Robert E. Lee was a military genius who staved off inevitable Confederate defeat against insurmountable odds. Instead, the author contends that Lee was responsible for the South's loss in a war it could have won.Instead, as this book demonstrates, Lee unnecessarily went for the win, squandered his irreplaceable troops, and weakened his army so badly that military defeat became inevitable. It describes how Lee's army took 80,000 casualties in Lees first fourteen months of command-while imposing 73,000 casualties on his opponents. With the Confederacy outnumbered four to one, Lee's aggressive strategy and tactics proved to be suicidal. Also described arc Lee's failure to take charge of the battlefield (such as on the second day of Gettysburg), his overly complex and ineffective battle plans (such as those at Antietam and during the Seven Days' campaign), and his vague and ambiguous orders (such as those that deprived him of Jeb Stuart's services for most of Gettysburg).Bonekemper looks beyond Lee's battles in the East and describes how Lee's Virginia-first myopia played a major role in crucial Confederate failures in the West. He itemizes Lee's refusals to provide reinforcements for Vicksburg or Tennessee in mid-1863, his causing James Longstreet to arrive at Chickamauga with only a third of his troops, his idea to move Longstreet away from Chattanooga just before Grant's troops broke through the undeemanned Confederates there, and his failure to reinforce Atlanta in the critical months before the 1864 presidential election.Bonekemper argues that Lee's ultimate failure was his prolonging of the hopeless and bloody slaughter even afterUnion victory had been ensured by a series of events: the fall of Atlanta, the re-election of Lincoln, and the fall of Petersburg and Richmond.Finally, the author explores historians' treatment of Lee, including the deification of him by failed Confederate generals attempting to resurrect their own reputations. Readers will not fred themselves feeling neutral about this stinging critique of the hero of The Lost Cause.
Download or read book Confederate General R S Ewell written by Paul D. Casdorph and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Stoddert Ewell is best known as the Confederate General selected by Robert E. Lee to replace "Stonewall" Jackson as chief of the Second Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. Ewell is also remembered as the general who failed to drive Federal troops from the high ground of Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill during the Battle of Gettysburg. Many historians believe that Ewell's inaction cost the Confederates a victory in this seminal battle and, ultimately, cost the Civil War. During his long military career, Ewell was never an aggressive warrior. He graduated from West Point and served in the Indian wars in Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In 1861 he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and rushed to the Confederate standard. Ewell saw action at First Manassas and took up divisional command under Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign and in the Seven Days' Battles around Richmond. A crippling wound and a leg amputation soon compounded the persistent manic-depressive disorder that had hindered his ability to make difficult decisions on the battlefield. When Lee reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia in May of 1863, Ewell was promoted to lieutenant general. At the same time he married a widowed first cousin who came to dominate his life -- often to the disgust of his subordinate officers -- and he became heavily influenced by the wave of religious fervor that was then sweeping through the Confederate Army. In Confederate General R.S. Ewell, Paul D. Casdorph offers a fresh portrait of a major -- but deeply flawed -- figure in the Confederate war effort, examining the pattern of hesitancy and indecisiveness that characterized Ewell's entire military career. This definitive biography probes the crucial question of why Lee selected such an obviously inconsistent and unreliable commander to lead one-third of his army on the eve of the Gettysburg Campaign. Casdorph describes Ewell's intriguing life and career with penetrating insights into his loyalty to the Confederate cause and the Virginia ties that kept him in Lee's favor for much of the war. Complete with riveting descriptions of key battles, Ewell's biography is essential reading for Civil War historians.
Download or read book Robert E Lee In Texas written by Carl Coke Rister and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert E. Lee In Texas introduces a little known phase of the great General’s career—his service in Texas during the four turbulent years just preceding the Civil War—at Camp Cooper, watching the federal government’s “humanizing” experiment with the wild Comanches; at San Antonio, commanding the Department of Texas; and at Fort Mason, headquarters of the Second United States Cavalry. In this account Carl Coke Rister, a leading historian of the West, takes us with Lee to his lonely posts on the border, and we share with him the hazardous and often fruitless chases after renegade Indians and Mexican bandits. We see through the eyes of the “Academy man” the raw life on the frontier and hear from his lips his impressions of the country and people. These were critical years for the nation and for the future military leader of the Confederacy. When Lieutenant Colonel Robert Edward Lee was transferred from the superintendency of West Point to Camp Cooper on an Indian frontier, where isolation, rawness, inconvenience, deprivation, and even death were commonplace, it seemed to him and to some of his friends that his military career was coming to a dead end. Nevertheless, while he was “lost on the frontier,” he gained strength, wisdom, and maturity. He worked with, and for the most part commanded, the famous Second Cavalry, many of the officers of which became either Northern or Southern field commanders in the Civil War. To know these officers, their points of strength and weakness, their whims and caprices, and their likes and dislikes served him well later in military crises. When in 1861 Lee came from the Texas wilderness to report to General Winfield Scott in Washington, he was prepared to assume the role of the South’s peerless leader—to justify General Scott’s Mexican War characterization of him as “America’s very best soldier.”
Download or read book Lee Considered written by Alan T. Nolan and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2000-11-09 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 and the war through a rigorous reexamination of familiar and long-available historical sources, including Lee's personal and official correspondence and the large body of writings about Lee. Looking at this evidence in a critical way, Nolan concludes that there is little truth to the dogmas traditionally set forth about Lee and the war.
Download or read book Robert E Lee Brave Leader written by Rae Bains and published by Troll Communications. This book was released on 1986 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the life of the highly respected Confederate general, with an emphasis on his difficult boyhood in Virginia.
Download or read book Robert E Lee written by Allen C. Guelzo and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning historian and best-selling author of Gettysburg comes the definitive biography of Robert E. Lee. An intimate look at the Confederate general in all his complexity—his hypocrisy and courage, his inner turmoil and outward calm, his disloyalty and his honor. "An important contribution to reconciling the myths with the facts." —New York Times Book Review Robert E. Lee is one of the most confounding figures in American history. Lee betrayed his nation in order to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose. He was a traitor to the country he swore to serve as an Army officer, and yet he was admired even by his enemies for his composure and leadership. He considered slavery immoral, but benefited from inherited slaves and fought to defend the institution. And behind his genteel demeanor and perfectionism lurked the insecurities of a man haunted by the legacy of a father who stained the family name by declaring bankruptcy and who disappeared when Robert was just six years old. In Robert E. Lee, the award-winning historian Allen Guelzo has written the definitive biography of the general, following him from his refined upbringing in Virginia high society, to his long career in the U.S. Army, his agonized decision to side with Virginia when it seceded from the Union, and his leadership during the Civil War. Above all, Guelzo captures Robert E. Lee in all his complexity--his hypocrisy and courage, his outward calm and inner turmoil, his honor and his disloyalty.
Download or read book The Lost Indictment of Robert E Lee written by John Reeves and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-07-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History has been kind to Robert E. Lee. Woodrow Wilson believed General Lee was a “model to men who would be morally great.” Douglas Southall Freeman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his four-volume biography of Lee, described his subject as “one of a small company of great men in whom there is no inconsistency to be explained, no enigma to be solved.” Winston Churchill called him “one of the noblest Americans who ever lived.” Until recently, there was even a stained glass window devoted to Lee's life at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Immediately after the Civil War, however, many northerners believed Lee should be hanged for treason and war crimes. Americans will be surprised to learn that in June of 1865 Robert E. Lee was indicted for treason by a Norfolk, Virginia grand jury. In his instructions to the grand jury, Judge John C. Underwood described treason as “wholesale murder,” and declared that the instigators of the rebellion had “hands dripping with the blood of slaughtered innocents.” In early 1866, Lee decided against visiting friends while in Washington, D.C. for a congressional hearing, because he was conscious of being perceived as a “monster” by citizens of the nation’s capital. Yet somehow, roughly fifty years after his trip to Washington, Lee had been transformed into a venerable American hero, who was highly regarded by southerners and northerners alike. Almost a century after Appomattox, Dwight D. Eisenhower had Lee’s portrait on the wall of his White House office. The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee tells the story of the forgotten legal and moral case that was made against the Confederate general after the Civil War. The actual indictment went missing for 72 years. Over the past 150 years, the indictment against Lee after the war has both literally and figuratively disappeared from our national consciousness. In this book, Civil War historian John Reeves illuminates the incredible turnaround in attitudes towards the defeated general by examining the evolving case against him from 1865 to 1870 and beyond.
Download or read book General Lee s Army written by Joseph Glatthaar and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-03-24 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the Confederate troops under Robert E. Lee presents portraits of soldiers from all walks of life, offers insight into how the Confederacy conducted key operations, and reveals how closely the South came to winning the war.
Download or read book Strike Them a Blow written by Chris Mackowski and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War historian and author of A Season of Slaughter continues his engaging account of the Overland Campaign in this vivid chronicle. By May of 1864, Federal commander Ulysses S. Grant had resolved to destroy his Confederate adversaries through attrition if by no other means. Meanwhile, his Confederate counterpart, Robert E. Lee, looked for an opportunity to regain the offensive initiative. “We must strike them a blow,” he told his lieutenants. But Grant’s war of attrition began to take its toll in a more insidious way. Both army commanders—exhausted and fighting off illness—began to feel the continuous, merciless grind of combat in very personal ways. Punch-drunk tired, they began to second-guess themselves, missing opportunities and making mistakes. As a result, along the banks of the North Anna River, commanders on both sides brought their armies to the brink of destruction without even knowing it.
Download or read book Why the Confederacy Lost written by Gabor S. Boritt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1993-10-07 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the Civil War, someone asked General Pickett why the Battle of Gettysburg had been lost: Was it Lee's error in taking the offensive, the tardiness of Ewell and Early, or Longstreet's hesitation in attacking? Pickett scratched his head and replied, "I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it." This simple fact, writes James McPherson, has escaped a generation of historians who have looked to faulty morale, population, economics, and dissent as the causes of Confederate failure. These were all factors, he writes, but the Civil War was still a war--won by the Union army through key victories at key moments. With this brilliant review of how historians have explained the Southern defeat, McPherson opens a fascinating account by several leading historians of how the Union broke the Confederate rebellion. In every chapter, the military struggle takes center stage, as the authors reveal how battlefield decisions shaped the very forces that many scholars (putting the cart before the horse) claim determined the outcome of the war. Archer Jones examines the strategy of the two sides, showing how each had to match its military planning to political necessity. Lee raided north of the Potomac with one eye on European recognition and the other on Northern public opinion--but his inevitable retreats looked like failure to the Southern public. The North, however, developed a strategy of deep raids that was extremely effective because it served a valuable political as well as military purpose, shattering Southern morale by tearing up the interior. Gary Gallagher takes a hard look at the role of generals, narrowing his focus to the crucial triumvirate of Lee, Grant, and Sherman, who towered above the others. Lee's aggressiveness may have been costly, but he well knew the political impact of his spectacular victories; Grant and Sherman, meanwhile, were the first Union generals to fully harness Northern resources and carry out coordinated campaigns. Reid Mitchell shows how the Union's advantage in numbers was enhanced by a dedication and perseverance of federal troops that was not matched by the Confederates after their home front began to collapse. And Joseph Glatthaar examines black troops, whose role is entering the realm of national myth. In 1960, there appeared a collection of essays by major historians, entitled Why the North Won the Civil War, edited by David Donald; it is now in its twenty-sixth printing, having sold well over 100,000 copies. Why the Confederacy Lost provides a parallel volume, written by today's leading authorities. Provocatively argued and engagingly written, this work reminds us that the hard-won triumph of the North was far from inevitable.
Download or read book Recollections and Letters of General Robert E Lee written by Robert Edward Lee and published by . This book was released on 1924 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ...But Captain Lee's Recollections have a peculiar and personal value which can hardly be replaced or superseded by any other book, and those who have been led by historical study to have a personal affection for the great soldier will find in these pages an intimate access to his heart which they can obtain in no other way. -- Introduction.
Download or read book Sex and the Civil War written by Judith Giesberg and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Civil War soldiers enjoyed unprecedented access to obscene materials of all sorts, including mass-produced erotic fiction, cartes de visite, playing cards, and stereographs. A perfect storm of antebellum legal, technological, and commercial developments, coupled with the concentration of men fed into armies, created a demand for, and a deluge of, pornography in the military camps. Illicit materials entered in haversacks, through the mail, or from sutlers; soldiers found pornography discarded on the ground, and civilians discovered it in abandoned camps. Though few examples survived the war, these materials raised sharp concerns among reformers and lawmakers, who launched campaigns to combat it. By the war's end, a victorious, resurgent American nation-state sought to assert its moral authority by redefining human relations of the most intimate sort, including the regulation of sex and reproduction—most evident in the Comstock laws, a federal law and a series of state measures outlawing pornography, contraception, and abortion. With this book, Judith Giesberg has written the first serious study of the erotica and pornography that nineteenth-century American soldiers read and shared and links them to the postwar reaction to pornography and to debates about the future of sex and marriage.
Download or read book The Story of Robert E Lee written by Robert Edward Lee and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book General Lee His Campaigns in Virginia 1861 1865 written by Walter Herron Taylor and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The crucial Civil War battles in the East?from First Manassas to Antietam to Gettysburg?are described from the point of view of General Robert E. Lee?s staff officer, Walter Taylor. Originally published in 1906, General Lee: His Campaigns in Virginia, 1861?1865 is rich in reminiscences. Working closely with Lee, Taylor prepared reports, delivered messages, and saw the general every day. As postwar controversies swirled, he was often called on to set the record straight. This book is important not only for Taylor?s military knowledge but also for his perception of the character of Lee. Others shown under the stress of fire are Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, Jeb Stuart, and A. P. Hill. But the true heroes are the Confederate soldiers who fought doggedly, though outnumbered and often poorly provisioned. Well documented and carrying valuable maps of major battlefields, Taylor?s book reveals how participants in the Lost Cause chose to remember it.
Download or read book One Continuous Fight written by Eric J. Wittenberg and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The titanic three-day battle of Gettysburg left 50,000 casualties in its wake, a battered Southern army far from its base of supplies, and a rich historiographic legacy. Thousands of books and articles cover nearly every aspect of the battle, but not a single volume focuses on the military aspects of the monumentally important movements of the armies to and across the Potomac River. One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863 is the first detailed military history of Lee's retreat and the Union effort to catch and destroy the wounded Army of Northern Virginia. Against steep odds and encumbered with thousands of casualties, Confederate commander Robert E. Lee's post-battle task was to successfully withdraw his army across the Potomac River. Union commander George G. Meade's equally difficult assignment was to intercept the effort and destroy his enemy. The responsibility for defending the exposed Southern columns belonged to cavalry chieftain James Ewell Brown (Jeb) Stuart. If Stuart fumbled his famous ride north to Gettysburg, his generalship during the retreat more than redeemed his flagging reputation. The ten days of retreat triggered nearly two dozen skirmishes and major engagements, including fighting at Granite Hill, Monterey Pass, Hagerstown, Williamsport, Funkstown, Boonsboro, and Falling Waters. President Abraham Lincoln was thankful for the early July battlefield victory, but disappointed that General Meade was unable to surround and crush the Confederates before they found safety on the far side of the Potomac. Exactly what Meade did to try to intercept the fleeing Confederates, and how the Southerners managed to defend their army and ponderous 17-mile long wagon train of wounded until crossing into western Virginia on the early morning of July 14, is the subject of this study One Continuous Fight draws upon a massive array of documents, letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, and published primary and secondary sources. These long-ignored foundational sources allow the authors, each widely known for their expertise in Civil War cavalry operations, to describe carefully each engagement. The result is a rich and comprehensive study loaded with incisive tactical commentary, new perspectives on the strategic role of the Southern and Northern cavalry, and fresh insights on every engagement, large and small, fought during the retreat. The retreat from Gettysburg was so punctuated with fighting that a soldier felt compelled to describe it as "One Continuous Fight." Until now, few students fully realized the accuracy of that description. Complimented with 18 original maps, dozens of photos, and a complete driving tour with GPS coordinates of the entire retreat, One Continuous Fight is an essential book for every student of the American Civil War in general, and for the student of Gettysburg in particular. About the Authors: Eric J. Wittenberg has written widely on Civil War cavalry operations. His books include Glory Enough for All (2002), The Union Cavalry Comes of Age (2003), and The Battle of Monroe's Crossroads and the Civil War's Final Campaign (2005). He lives in Columbus, Ohio. J. David Petruzzi is the author of several magazine articles on Eastern Theater cavalry operations, conducts tours of cavalry sites of the Gettysburg Campaign, and is the author of the popular "Buford's Boys" website at www.bufordsboys.com. Petruzzi lives in Brockway, Pennsylvania. A long time student of the Gettysburg Campaign, Michael Nugent is a retired US Army Armored Cavalry Officer and the descendant of a Civil War Cavalry soldier. He has previously written for several military publications. Nugent lives in Wells, Maine.
Download or read book The Man Who Would Not Be Washington written by Jonathan Horn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in hardcover in 2015 by Scribner.
