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Robert E. Lee by Jefferson Davis, and: Robert E. Lee: A Portrait, 1807-1861 (review)
- Civil War History
- The Kent State University Press
- Volume 13, Number 4, December 1967
- pp. 363-365
- 10.1353/cwh.1967.0049
- Review
- Additional Information
BOOK REVIEWS363 from a brief military career he returned to his plantation and mended his financial position by smuggling cotton. He made peace with his state, with ex-Confederates, and with die Union after Appomattox, and moved toward the Republican party. Elected governor on the Republican ticket in 1869, he proceeded to ". . . form die Republican party into a neo-Whig party which would work ... to rebuild die kind of Mississippi in which he believed." Failing to mold Republicanism to old ideas, he accepted a term in the Senate but soon lost control of the state party to Ames, the Radical Republican. As senator, Alcorn supported the Republican party, worked for Federal aid in building levees along the Mississippi, refused to show an interest in the Libéral Republican movement of 1872, and gave his support to Hayes during the disputed election. He retired from public life in 1877, but emerged briefly in die state constitutional convention of 1890 to support old Whig ideas. Professor Pereyra convincingly portrays Alcorn's political decisions in terms of Whig doctrine. Even when Alcorn saw his Whig position as untenable and decided to run widi die "maddened steed" of practical politics , the author manages to find underlying Whig attitudes. Such oversimplification of Alcorn's political decisions m terms of Whig doctrine to die exclusion of otiier motives occasionally weakens her case. Nevertheless, she must be congratulated on tracing at least one recurring Üieme diroughout a turbulent political career. This biography is well written with a minimum of factual errors, although several generalizations need additional study. The inclusion of more background material, further explanation of the Mississippi and national political scene, as well as additional insight into Alcorn's personal and family life would have been helpful. The scarcity of Alcorn's surviving papers presented a problem which the author overcame by resorting to secondary sources. It is regrettable that she did not make better use of newspapers or monographs on Mississippi history. She also made no mention of several unpublished dieses and dissertations. A more thorough documentation would have been valuable for the serious student of history. Regardless of diese criticisms, Professor Pereyra's study is a welcome addition to the bibliography of southern history. She has found a central theme to Alcorn's political career. He was, indeed, a persistent Whig. Harry Owens University of Mississippi Robert E. Lee by Jefferson Davis. Edited by Harold B. Simpson. (Hillsboro, Tex.: Hill Junior College Press, 1966. Pp. xiii, 81. $5.00.) Robert E. Lee: A Portrait, 1807-1861. By Margaret Sanborn. (Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott, 1966. Pp. xii, 353. $6.95.) The portrait of Robert E. Lee which comes to die mind of most Ameri- 364civil war history cans is that of a man of great dignity, integrity, and reserve. It is a picture of a military genius who earned the respect of the North and the adulation of die Soudi. It is also a profile of a man who appeared to be just a bit remote, one whom no person could readily imagine addressed as "Robert" let alone "Bob." That is the picture of Lee which emerges from Colonel Simpson's edited study. It is essentially Jefferson Davis' recollection as it appeared in the January, 1890, issue of The North American Review. Robert E. Lee, "gendeman, scholar, gallant soldier, great general, and true Christian . . . unassuming . . . rigidly temperate . . . knighdy . . . descended from a long une of illustrious warriors. . . ." Those are but some of the words which Davis used in his estimate of die man who carried out his instructions during die long bitter years of the Civil War. His twelve-page study of die "noble" Lee in no way detracts from the singular strength of character and the ability which Robert E. Lee displayed with such modesty. Biographers, over the years since Lee's death, have said it with many more words but I doubt that any summed up the life of Lee better or more succincdy. While Davis was the Commander-in-Chief of the Confederacy , and a man with pride in his own competence as a soldier, a certain tinge of awe can almost be detected in his short study of Lee. However, in the...