Customer Reviews

Robert E. Lee's Civil War

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

This book is a mixed bag of stuff that's largely not worth bothering with.

First, Alexander points out that Lee made far too many frontal assaults, from his first battle to his last. This is quite true, and we can justly point out that what Nathan Bedford Forrest figured out in his first action ('Never make a frontal attack if there's a half-way decent alternative'), R. E. Lee may still not quite grasped in '65. But a one-sentence idea does not make a book.

Second, Alexander rehashes his 1996 volume "Lost Victories: The Military Genius of Stonewall Jackson." If only Davis and Lee and _listened_ to Jackson, we're told, and implemented his strategies, the South would have won in 1862 or '63. But war is the realm of uncertainty: the one time Jackson's ideas were followed to the letter, Chancellorsville, things didn't go as planned, Jackson died, and it's arguable that Hooker would have won the battle if he hadn't been wounded.

Thirdly, there's fantasy masquerading as analysis. For instance, during the Gettysburg campaign, Lee should have attacked Philadelphia! That would have taken the Army of Northern Virginia 80 or so miles further into Northern territory, cut Lee's line of retreat, and enabled Lincoln to move troops there first via Philadelphia's concentration of rail lines, the thickest in the United States, but what the heck, it was certain to work because . . . well, that's where I lose the thread.

And then there's random inconsistency. Lee was a menace to the Confederacy because he constantly made frontal assaults on superior numbers in strong positions. Braxton Bragg, otoh, invaded KY in the summer of '62, and had a chance to take Lexington -- by making a frontal assault against superior numbers in a strong position. Ah, but Bragg also had an entire separate Union force on his tail, one that ALSO outnumbered him. Besides, Bragg's troops were badly worn out by marching and short rations, and Bragg's subordinates frequently disobeyed orders without even telling Bragg what they were doing. So obviously Bragg's failure to attack Lexington reflects a loss of nerve, because a Confederate attack would have inevitably won. "RIGHT!", as Noah said to the Lord.

There are many good books on the Civil War. This isn't one of them. Skip it.

Mr. Alexander work is a heterogenous mass of bombast, egotism, vulgarity and nonsense... One can conceive of no better reward than the lash for such a violation of decency.

As a reader of scores of Civil War Hisorical accounts, I would rate this book at the bottom. Mr. Alexander less than detailed accounts of Robert E. Lee's command of the Army of Northern Virginia were easy enough to digest. But his opinions of the results of Lee's battles and maneuvers were lacking sufficient credence. In addition, Mr. Alexander's alternatives to Lee's decisions lacked any substantial proof of greater success. Mr. Alexander proves that it's easy to criticize after the fact.

Bevin Alexander's "study" of Robert E. Lee is so bad, that it is impossible to do full justice in ripping it to shreds within this forum. The author has no grasp of the strategic realities facing the South, and as a result of that complete lack of understanding, Alexander totally fails to understand Lee and his objectives. It is regretable that the author, whose self-styled claim is that of a "military strategist," fell so short in this study.

Poor excuse for history. Not only is the research often lacking, but Mr. Alexander refuses to judge Lee in his own time. He prefers to use hindsight to attempt to harm Lee's legacy. Lee was not a perfect General, but at least he didn't write garbage like Mr. Alexander's book. The only reason this gets one star is because I have to give him one.

I believe that much of General Lee's feelings and motives were taken out of the correct context. The introduction in particular is very poorly researched.

This is the only Civil War book that I have started and not finished. I was looking forward to reading this book and the introduction only served to get me more interested. The author claims that Robert E. Lee was not a perfect general (true enough) and sets out to point out where he could have done better and show times where wrong-headed thinking hurt the Confederate cause (Pickett's charge would be a great example). However, this book does not stick to this premise. It becomes a blow-by-blow character assassination. I got tired of him saying that nearly everything Lee did was wrong. If he was wrong ALL OF THE TIME how could he have fought so long with so few supplies so effectively? Don't waste your time - read James McPherson or Bruce Catton or Shelby Foote. They are much more even-handed in their appraisal of Lee and they are much more interesting writers.

I am not a military historian nor a civil war specialist, but am an avid reader, have read Foote's books recently and have read many more books on the Civil War ove the years. This book goes into great detail discussing the military and strategy mistakes Lee made, crucial to the war's final outcome. It is not a Lee-bashing book, but puts him in perspective, contradicting the traditional "he can do no wrong" or "he can do no right" viewpoints, in my opinion. It is dry in tone and style in many parts--it is, after all, not a fictional novel but a scholarly, well researched and well-written nonfiction book.

But, through letters and personal reminiscences, Lee becomes human. He is not deified or vilified. He was after all, just a man--educated, well trained, with great courage and dignity, but still--just a man. We should remember that and judge him and his place in history accordingly.

There have been several books published within the past 20 years that have a revisionist take on the Civil War career of Robert E. Lee, questioning the widely held belief that he was the greatest commander of the American Civil War (if not all American history). By and large, nearly all of them overstate their case and some are downright ridiculous. While this book is one of the better ones, it is not without many of the same flaws common to all the others.

Bevin's biggest virtues are that he usually gives Lee credit when it is due and also makes a good case for many of the alternate decisions and maneuvers that he suggests would have won bigger results for the Confederacy. I found the chapters on the Seven Days battles and the 1864 Overland campaign to be especially good. He points out many cases where Lee should have backed away instead of wasting his strength with costly frontal assaults (though combativeness was the trademark of the whole Confederate Army, not just its most famous general). Also, Bevin does not indulge in any shameful character assassination that other critics of Lee have employed. Lee's final decision to reject guerrilla warfare in favor of national reconciliation is justly praised, as well.

Unfortunately, Bevin does not remain completely objective throughout and many of his proposals were simply not realistic at the time or would have depended too much on the North reacting exactly as he predicted. I think that the argument that the South should have fought purely a defensive war overestimates the Southern population's morale while underestimating the resolve of the Federal Government. The North, too, could have adopted a strategy of avoiding large-scale offensive battles, opting instead to rely on the "Anaconda" plan to run its course. The South became more and more isolated by the Union blockade as time went on, and the war against the Southern population would have grown in intensity, as well (conceivably extending to arming and encouraging slave revolts, which would have been inevitable as economic conditions continued to deteriorate). I believe that Lee had it right, more or less, in trying to win Southern independence by taking the fight to the enemy and inflicting successive defeats on the Union Army. Just waiting it out played into the North's economic and maritime strength and would not have worked in the long run.

To sum it up, this is a very readable and often well-reasoned critique of Lee's battlefield decisions. However, it often fails to sufficiently take into account many of the harsh realities faced by the Confederacy in general and its armies in particular.

In ROBERT E. LEE'S CIVIL WAR, Bevin Alexander disputes the notion that Robert E. Lee was a great general by asserting that Lee did not fully grasp the implications of a recent advance in ammunition, the Minie-ball which expanded as it was fired allowing the rifle to impart a greater spin and range to the shot. With all the authority of a couch potato quarterback, Alexander argues that Lee shouldn't have gone on the offensive so much because the South could not make up the losses of men that resulted.

Well, duh. Unfortunately for his own argument, he doesn't show us any other general on either side who had figured out what this technical advance meant to the old-style tactic of the direct frontal assault. The author rather ignores Grant's campaign in the West, for example. Costly frontal assaults were the fashion in the Civil War. Why? One reason was because everybody at West Point studied the campaigns and tactics of Napoleon, when the guns used didn't have the same range and accuracy. And ahem, who was West Point's leading authority on the campaigns of Napoleon? Um, some guy named Lee.

However, it's clear from Alexander's own narrative that Lee's offensive strategy cowed the Union Generals who faced him, inspired the soldiers who followed him and probably postponed Southern defeat by two and a half years. Alexander's problem lies in trying to ignore all those other things about Lee that make him a great American icon, and not just for the South.

There's actually a lot that I like about this book: clear maps and additional details about the battlefields. What the author is saying about Lee might have some validity. Where he falls down is by taking too narrow a focus. He doesn't look at all the battlefields and all the generals in the light of his own analysis. By Bevin Alexander's measure, George McClellan would have to be regarded as the most brilliant general of the American Civil War because he was reluctant to send his troops into the mincing machine...