In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Lee and His Generals: Essays in Honor of T. Harry Williams ed. by Lawrence Lee Hewitt and Thomas E. Schott
  • Robert W. Sidwell
Lee and His Generals: Essays in Honor of T. Harry Williams. Ed. Lawrence Lee Hewitt and Thomas E. Schott. Knoxville: University ofTennessee Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-57233-850-0, 368 pp., cloth, $45.95.

Robert E. Lee is one of the most written-about people in Civil War history. Writers have examined seemingly every aspect of the general's life and career, from his military prowess to his views on slavery and even business management. Many have admired the "Marble Man," while others have disparaged him. Notwithstanding this voluminous collection, much still remains to be explored about Lee and his close associates.

In Lee and His Generals, ten of T. Harry Williams's former students and one outside scholar examine various aspects of the lives of Lee and his comrades and assess the legacy of their distinguished mentor. The book opens and closes with essays by Frank J. Wetta and Roger Spiller, respectively, regarding Williams's teachings and writings, and they show that despite being a "Union" professor from Wisconsin, Williams fit comfortably at Louisiana State University and earned an enviable reputation as a Civil War, Louisiana, and military historian. The book includes Charles Roland's famous defense of Lee's generalship, first published in the early 1960s, and follows this with an essay by Brian Holden Reid that surveys the general's lengthy historiography and vacillating reputation up to the present. Lawrence Lee Hewitt, Joseph G. Dawson III, and A. Wilson Greene then contribute essays examining some of the wartime endeavors of three of Lee's subordinates: Richard H. Anderson, J. E. B. Stuart, and P. G. T. Beauregard. The next four essays, written by George C. Rable, William L. Richter, Thomas E. Schott, and Ralph L. Eckert, deal with nonmilitary aspects of the lives of four more of Lee's subordinates, examining such diverse topics as the role of religion in wartime Confederate morale and the emergence and somewhat oppositional postbellum southern "Lost Cause" and "Gospel of Reconciliation" movements.

The book's greatest strength lies in the sheer scope of the topics its essays cover. Charles Roland's contribution is indeed a classic, but Reid fills in the Lee historiography and helps place the other writers' essays into a current-day perspective. Hewitt and Greene each examine a little-known personality or case study from Confederate military history, and they do much toward reviving the reputations of Generals Anderson and Beauregard by demonstrating what each man did and did not accomplish. Dawson similarly surveys the much more famous events surrounding Stuart's role in the Gettysburg campaign and carefully concludes [End Page 107] that Stuart and Lee were both at fault but that the cavalryman surely exceeded his orders. Rable shows that Confederates admired "Stonewall" Jackson for his piety as much as for his military skill. In their eyes, he became the "praying general," whose stern Presbyterian lifestyle was supposed to win final victory for the Confederacy and whose death severely tested many southerners' faith. Richter and Schott offer analyses of James Longstreet and Jubal Early, whose rancorous debate did so much to shape Confederate historical memory and ultimately doomed both men to personal obscurity. In contrast to Longstreet and Early, the essay by Ralph Eckert demonstrates that John B. Gordon worked tirelessly for a sectional reconciliation that praised the virtues of all Civil War soldiers and usually avoided controversy. Finally, the essays about T. Harry Williams also help show the changes in the historiography of the Civil War and the effects of the Lost Cause on the South. Each of the work's essays is thoroughly researched and offers a fresh and valuable contribution to the Army of Northern Virginia's extensive historiography.

The book has some minor problems. Most of these are small errors in detail, such as stating that Jackson was a lieutenant general at Second Manassas when that rank had not yet been created and implying that Early rose no higher than major general. The authors are occasionally a little too forgiving toward their subjects, passing over Longstreet...

pdf

Share