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Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: His Military and Personal History

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Long knew Lee in the pre-war army and was with him in notth-west Va. and the sea coast defenses in '61 through Appotamox. As his milt. secretary, Long drew on his own resources as well as those of Taylor and Venable also on Lee's staff, in addition to corrospondance with Lee's family members after the war. When one wonders why Lee resigned his commission to offer service to his Virginia, one can readily find the answers in this text....As a professional soldier being above politics, Lee merely was"doing his duty" to Vriginia and his family. Who won was not as important as duty, in the life and times of Lee. One can readily understand the resolve displayed by Kempe, Gordon, Armistead and others after reviewing the text. A recommended reading for any serious student of history studying the period

One time when Lee was on his travels, a woman ran from her house, grabbing his arm and dragging him into her front arm. She told of how her grandfather had plant the tree in the front yard, how it had grown so tall and perfect. The tree was now nothing but dead limbs. She told how the dreadful Yankees came and stayed in her home, and they destroy the tree for fun and target practise. To her the tree was her 'red badge of courage', and she was proud to show Lee how terrible the in justice the Yankees visited up her, how she suffered. Lee quietly told her to cut it down. Not the reaction the woman hoped for, but so like Lee. When the war ended, it ended. He made sure there the war did not devolve from armies fighting armies, into a situation similar to Northern Ireland, local resistance prolonging the fighting, likely bringing down swift retribution from the Northern Reformations.

Lee started his memoirs, but never finished, and at his death, the part of history was never really addressed by Lee. There have been many like Longstreet who wrote about the war, but not Lee.

His father had been Lighthorse Harry Lee, a friend of George Washington and a Revolutionary War Hero - a role that would have been Lee's had the Confederacy won. Instead of helping to forge a new nation of independence as his father had, by the simple act of the South losing, he was on the 'wrong side'. Instead of hero, he was a rebel. Lee was troubled deeply by his decision to leave the Union Army and take up leadership for the Army of Northern Virginia. He was the husband of Mary Ann Randolph Custis, great-granddaughter of Washington. Arlington, our national cemetery that is so honoured, was her plantation, and the dead originally put there was done so as an insult to the Lee family.

Lee was a brilliant tactician, did what so few did before him, divide his army in the face of superior forces, and succeeded until the fiasco at Gettysburg in Pickett's Charge.

Since Lee could not or would not complete his memoirs, A.L. Long, with backing of Lee and later his family, took up the role, an amazing chore since most of his work was done when he was losing his sight, and the writings accomplished with a slate used for the blind. Long was military secretary to Lee and the vast amount of information was unpublished before this work. The papers were collected with the assistance of Marcus J. Wright, formerly Brig. General of the Army of Tennessee and Agent for the Collections of Confederate Records.

This books provides a wealth of information on a gentleman, a husband, a father, a lady's man, but first and foremost a soldier and leader.

I highly recommend this for anyone wanting a clear pictures of Robert E. Lee.

Great read! All good as ordered. Only issue was a stain on the edge of pages otherwise the book was just as ordered. Thanks for a good experience.

Twenty or so years ago, there was a man who was unanimously popular with & respected by his employees.

No, this isn't a fairy tale. Tomonori Sato, an executive in a Japanese overseas bank branch located in the World Trade Center, had an almost unlimited number of admirers. As incredible as it may seem, in the two years that I worked for him, not one disparaging word was ever heard about his work, his person, or his character. Even-tempered, congenial, thoughtful & pleasantly intelligent, when he returned home in 1991, the sadness that his departure created took seemingly forever to dispel.

Robert E. Lee exhibited the same stellar qualities of character, not only during the American Civil War, but also throughout his life. And one of Lee's staff officers & the actual author of Memoirs, Armistead Long, in the aftermath of the conflict created a splendid history of Lee's leadership during the war.

Memoirs is a testament almost entirely devoted to Lee's binary qualities of ability & compassion. What Long did not do - & probably would have been ill-advised to attempt - is provide the details found in more objectively written ACW histories: The hardships & disgrace created by the decisions & actions of incompetent commanders & politicians of both the North & the South.

Long's antiquated but quaint & attractive style of writing does take some getting used to, but soon afterwards, his cadence & tone is appreciated as being perfectly suited for his undertaking.

Military leaders seldom if ever write well, but Long did - & that he could persevere, achieving what he did with Memoirs - despite having gone blind in 1870 - is all the more remarkable.

Not knowing what editor Stan Schindler cut from the original manuscript (published in 1886), it's impossible to know whether the abridged version is superior to the original. But judging solely by the pleasure derived from reading Memoirs, he definitely gets the benefit of the doubt & a vote of appreciation for his work.

However, it is possible that the reason why Long went into such detail about an overextended 25-mile long Confederate military defensive line may have been to prepare the reader for a ridiculously endless, 14-line sentence (describing Hooker's recovery & retreat during the battle of Chancellorsville, pp. 90-1). One wishes that Stan had stepped in & transformed this neo-War & Peacette mini-saga - grammatically correct as it may be - into two or more manageable sentences.

Likewise, a few necessary edits were overlooked:

The book's original year of publication went unmentioned in the Editor's Preface (weirdly, it is offered on the rear inside dust cover);

Long's aversion to stating exact dates in their entirety generally isn't a problem. But occasionally insuring that the context of time is provided in reasonable proportion to the book's higher priorities would have been advisable (& explicitly stating "April 29, 1863" on p. 81 is essential);

"In June [1861]...Lee was made one of five full generals...after a short tour of the coastal defenses...[he] was selected by Confederate President Jefferson Davis to be his chief military advisor" (p. 15). However, on the next page: "In the winter of 1862, the Confederate Congress created the office of 'military adviser to the President'...Lee was selected to fill this position, & about the 13th of March, 1862, he entered into his duties." Which date is correct?

"...and among the wounded was General Hooker" should be "(among them, General Hooker)," which eliminates the unintended fiction that Hooker had been wounded while situated during the battle "besides a large number of prisoners" (p. 92);

Without the insertion of "afterwards," the incomplete sentence, "A few days after the sad intelligence of the death of...[Stonewall] Jackson..." remains in need of repair (p. 93);

Probably not repairable was Long's love of "wont," "wont of," & "yet." His anticipatory adverbs, in particular, appear so often, they resemble a line of railroad ties laid down at such specific intervals that the dreaded narrative no-no, the "sing-song cadence," is created (likewise, "gallant" & "gallantry" are promiscuously employed; the intended effect - to honor bravery & self-sacrifice - is diluted).

"Spottissylvania"- ?! (p. 129) & "Spottsylvania" (index, p. 191) - s/be
"Spotsylvania" (or if legitimate, an editor's note should note the various spellings);

His "editor's note" succeeded in providing the context of time, as requested above, but failed to address an incorrect statement: "[By the first of June, the] old battlefield of Cold Harbor was again occupied..." There was only one battle fought at Cold Harbor, Virginia; & at the point in the book where "[By the first of June" appears, it had not yet been fought (p. 138);

The campaign & battle maps stink. But this is a wholly insignificant consideration when compared to the dozens of expertly assembled, superb illustrations & photographs.

Three of them, however, raised eyebrows:

The mortal wounding of Stonewall Jackson did not happen during an actual battle in late afternoon, as depicted, & the painting's tableau is contradicted by Long's own testimony on the opposing page: "It was "after nine o'clock at night. The moon faintly illuminated the scene, but floating clouds dimmed its light. The battle had ceased & deep silence reigned" (p. 88).

Also outré is an elaborate ink depiction of Manassas, Virginia in which the railroad tracks - not drawn to scale - render the soldiers, horses, cannons, & wagons to a comically distorted, miniature size (The Wizard of Oz Corps, Munchkin Brigade, on p. 96);

And the artist's painting of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg (p. 115), employing colors more appropriate for southwestern U.S. sunsets than rural Pennsylvania, renders the battle as if it had been fought in New Mexico!

Long's summation of Lee as a man (p. 180-on) is brilliant:

"He was singularly free from the faults which so often mar the character of great men. He was without envy, jealousy, or suspicion, self-seeking, or covetousness...his character was perfectly simple; there were in it no folds or sinuosities...

"He was influenced by no unworthy motive. What he did [in resigning his commission in the U.S. Army in 1861] involved sacrifice of feeling, or position, & of interest...in all my association with him I saw no...feeling of personal ambition...[&] as he appeared to me, he appeared to others...it was his constant feeling that he was living & working to an end that constituted [his] magnanimity...

"He looked at everything as unrelated to himself & only as it affected the cause he was serving. This was shown in the treatment of his subordinates. He had no favorites, no unworthy partialities...[&] frequently consulted others that his own judgement be informed, not that he might lean on their judgement or advice..."

But we're inured, completely, to this sort of stuff. We're cynical. Public relations writers are numerous. Worse, they are able. So we are always reading & hearing (paid) "testimony" today that too often becomes discredited tomorrow. Why should we believe this man, Armistead Long?

Because if Lee could have touched someone this deeply - that Long, after Lee's passing, could thus have been inspired to write so artlessly, so candidly & convincingly - this suggests proof that the virtues attributed to Lee had not been exaggerated.

As for myself, I have met someone so described in my own lifetime. In reading about Lee, I am reminded of how enjoyable & rewarding it had been to work & to simply be in the company of Tomonori Sato.

The time that has traveled past since he returned to his home, to Japan, is now almost exactly the same as the distance between 1865, when Lee surrendered to Grant, & 1886, the year in which Memoirs was published.

What a coincidence.