Audacity Personified: The Generalship of Robert E. Lee (review)

Peter Carmichael had a good idea when assembling this volume. He reviewed the recent controversy over the ramifications of Lee's command, much of it superficial and tendentious, and decided to ask the contributors "to break down the interpretive edifices" built around Lee "and rediscover the building blocks that earlier scholars have assembled" (p. xv). The result, though hardly a comprehensive reassessment, is thoughtful and suggestive, and a number of chapters make genuinely original contributions to our understanding of Lee's generalship. William J. Miller's discussion of Lee's intentions during the Seven Days' Battles is a brilliant essay. He argues convincingly that Lee's thoughts were governed primarily by concern for the security of Richmond. He sought to manoeuvre into the Union rear and drive McClellan back from the city. He did not plan to "destroy" the Army of the Potomac. But he succeeded beyond his expectations, and thereafter struggled to gain a greater victory as McClellan withdrew. Gordon C. Rhea reinforces this view of Lee as an inspired improviser with a shrewd reevaluation of Lee's much vaunted ability to foresee the schemes of Grant and Meade in 1864. Rhea does not seek to denigrate Lee, only to suggest that his true greatness lay in a marvellous ability to recover from his errors.

Three essays focussing on the managerial dimension of command offer important insights. Robert E. L. Krick reassesses Lee's use of the staff. He awards him high marks for adapting its methods to the expanding needs of administering his army, but low marks for his use of it on campaign. Max R. Williams places renewed emphasis on Lee's political skills in an illuminating treatment of his relationship with Governor Zebulon B. Vance of North Carolina. Finally, Mark L. Bradley demonstrates Lee's under-rated abilities as Confederate general-in-chief in motivating "Johnston to fight" (p. 166) before Bentonville, helping him to overcome his pathological suspicion of his superiors.

The only disappointing feature of this book is the framework that the editor erects. His historiographical observations are frequently shrewd, and he notes the penchant of historians to parade "scholarly assumptions" that "sometimes masquerade as standard 'truths' in need of scrutiny" (p. xxi). A pinch more of the audacity shown by his subject might have prompted Carmichael to move the subject on, but his contribution on "Lee's Search for the Battle of Annihilation" falls back too readily on "revisionist" assumptions that are badly in need of further scrutiny. He has been too scrupulous in attempting to employ aspects of the views of Thomas L. Connelly and others, instead of concentrating on developing new perspectives. I share Miller's view that Lee participated in no such "search," but rather exploited the opportunities offered to him by the errors of his opponents. Carmichael relies on two key assumptions that underpinned the writings of "revisionists," namely, that a truly shattering offensive victory was "an impossible goal" and that Civil War armies were "virtually indestructible" (p. 1). He counsels a "holding operation" and the avoidance of offensive activity. Carmichael's most challenging assertion is that by 1864 Southern opinion preferred defensive measures. Lee no longer remained "perfectly in tune with his constituency" (p. 25). I am not convinced, otherwise the clamour before Atlanta in that June and July would have supported Joseph E. Johnston rather than called for his dismissal. Perhaps the main task that lies before Civil War historians is to shake off the vestiges of the Victorian Syndrome and its simplistic faith in the defensive as a cure-all.