Robert E. Lee: Icon for a Nation (review)

A strain of negative revisionism currently infects American biography. Carping studies have appeared of late on even George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. How ironic it is that an English historian now comes to the defense of another of our maligned heroes: Robert E. Lee.

Brian Holden Reid is Professor of American History and Military Institutions and Head of the Department of War Studies at King's College, London. Four previous books have established him as one of England's most quoted scholars. This newest work will make Holden Reid a host of new friends among fair-minded "cousins" across the Atlantic Ocean.

Holden Reid's narrative is a straightforward, incisive, and clear story of Lee the man and the general. Repeatedly taking issue with such Lee naysayers as Thomas Connelly and Alan Nolan, Holden Reid argues convincingly that Lee belongs to the select company of great generals. His "vision and technical excellence" (p. 42) were extraordinary. "Lee's dynamic and audacious style of warfare left only a small margin for error. . . . He therefore made strenuous demands on his own resources and stamina . . . but he proved that he had the physical and mental strength of a much younger man; he carried a colossal weight of responsibility lightly" (p. 87).

This is no whitewashing study. Holden Reid never hesitates to offer negative as well as positive judgments of Lee. Of the 1862 Seven Days Campaign, he asserts: "His plan was brilliant, but due to inexperience far from brilliantly executed. . . . Lee, moreover, had given little thought as to what McClellan might do once he had abandoned his entrenchments" (p. 92). Malvern Hill "was quite the most botched engagement Lee ever directed" (p. 102).

Gettysburg, Holden Reid concludes, "was a battle that Lee could and should have won." The central reason for the defeat "lay in Lee's devolved system of command. To work well, Lee needed positive responses from his subordinates, for without them he became aloof and uncommunicative" (p. 191).

Some surprises emerge here. Holden Reid defends Longstreet's attitude at Second Manassas; he insists that the Confederacy could only win the war by triumphing in the East. After 12 May 1864, with Jeb Stuart dead, Longstreet wounded, and A. P. Hill sick, "Lee appeared to be commanding his army single-handedly, with only his moral authority to keep it functioning" (p. 211). From a number of viewpoints, Lee demonstrated that he was not an old-fashioned general but "a sophisticated and modern-minded" (p. 250) field commander who knew the value of public opinion and working with politicians.

Lack of footnotes and full bibliographical listing are weak elements here. The sprinkling of a dozen factual errors in the text should have been caught by manuscript readers. However, these impairments distract from, rather than do damage to, a powerful, highly quotable narrative that is a solid analysis of a Virginian who never wavered either in his devotion to duty or his love of his birthright.

Holden Reid's final conclusion merits repeating. "Lee did fail. He was defeated, for all his fine qualities and skills. He did not succeed in gaining his strategic aims. Thus the nature of his achievement will always remain controversial. . . . The encomiums lavished on Lee's genius have rendered any evaluation of his generalship difficult. The only alternative seems to be criticism, and much of this has proved shallow, unfair and indiscriminating" (p. 249).