Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters
by Elizabeth Brown Pryor
List Price:
Our Price: $0.01
You Save: $19.99 (100%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Elizabeth Brown PryorEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-29
ISBN: 0143113909
Number of pages: 688
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters
Book Review: A careful examination of the life of Southern Marble Man Robert E Lee portrays his humanity
Summary: 4 Stars
Robert Edward Lee (1807-1870) has won immortal fame among the great military captains of all time. Thousands of articles and books have been written about him. His most notable biographer is Douglas Southall Freeman's adulatory multivolumed work by a Lee worshipper. In recent years several revisionary works have appeared by the likes of Alan Nolan
who have castigated Lee for his white supremacist views Now it is the turn of Elizabeth Brown Pryor.
Pryor has sifted through over 10,000 pages of letters from Lee, his wife Mary and the Lee family. She has almost 200 densely written pages in her book listing first and secondary sources. She has done her homework!
Pryor has produced what is, in my opinion, a great book on the great Virginian. We see Lee as a great and good man but one who was not perfect. Pryor begins each chapter with a letter from Lee or family memory and then illuminates how that letter became an important mirror into the life of the Confederate hero.
We see Lee as a brave man who defended his beloved South against the North. Among salient points we learn:
a. Lee was a white supremecist who had trouble controlling the slaves on the Arlington estate he inherited from Washington Park Custis (Custis was the father of Lee's wife Mary and the grandson of George Washington_).
b. Lee could harsh in his treatment of slaves. Several slaves ran away from Arlington. He was not adverse to having them whipped for infractions
of his strict rules. There are reports that Lee was also kind to slaves.
He was a racist and believed the white race was superior to the African-Americans with whom he interacted. In this belief he was consistent with the widely held belief of the vast majority of nineteenth century Americans.
c. Lee was a great general as manifest in the brilliant Chancellorsville campaign but had trouble in supervision of his subordinates. Lee also kept inadequate leaders in positions of leadership in the Army of Northern Virginia who should have been replaced.
d. Lee was Virginia-centric. Lee believed in states rights.
e. Lee was an elitist who thought upper class white males should be the leaders of society.
f. Lee was frustrated by his antebellum army career as a member of the engineering corp. He suffered from depression and had a violent temper.
g. Lee was a good and faithful husband to his invalid wife Mary. The Lees had several children. He was an absentee father due to his military career.
h. Lee hated the years he spent as supt. of West Point. Following the Civil War he became President of Washington College in Lexington Va. bust disliked the work
i. Lee was often perceived as aloof and cold. Lee was able to unwind with famiily and close friends.
j. Lee's ideas on religion varied throughout his life from a mild Deism to evangelical belief in his later years. He was an Episcopalian.
Not everyone will like this biography of a Southern icon without peer who has been elevated to the ranks of Dixie sainthood along with Elvis!
As one who has read all the important biographies of Lee I consider this book an essential in understanding the great but enigmatic man. Pryor's book will engender controversy but is a vital read for anyone wanting a good understanding of Lee that does not portray him as a Lost Cause saint.
Essential and excellent!
Civil War Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Civil War Books
Four Years With General Leeby Walter H. Taylor, James I. Robertson
Indiana Univ Pr; Published: 1996-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $44.00
Devil's Game: The Civil War Intrigues of Charles A. Dunhamby Carman Cumming
University of Illinois Press; Published: 2008-03-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.34
Price in other shops:
Lincoln's Legacy: Ethics and PoliticsUniversity of Illinois Press; Published: 2007-11-21; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $27.00
Price in other shops:
Devil's Game: The Civil War Intrigues of Charles A. Dunhamby Carman Cumming
University of Illinois Press; Published: 2004-03-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops:
The Best American History Essays on Lincolnby Organization of American Historians
Palgrave Macmillan; Published: 2008-12-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $63.93
Price in other shops:
The Making of a Confederate: Walter Lenoir's Civil War (New Narratives in American History)by William L. Barney
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2008-07-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.70
Price in other shops:
Walt Whitman's Memoranda During the Warby Walt Whitman
Oxford University Press; Published: 2006-07-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.05
Price in other shops:
Lamson of the Gettysburg: The Civil War Letters of Lieutenant Roswell H. Lamson, U.S. NavyOxford University Press, USA; Published: 1997-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.50
Price in other shops:
A Gentleman and an Officer: A Military and Social History of James B. Griffin's Civil Warby Judith N. McArthur, Orville Vernon Burton
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1996-12-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.62
Price in other shops:
A Gentleman and an Officer: A Military and Social History of James B. Griffin's Civil Warby Judith N. McArthur, Orville Vernon Burton
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1996-12-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $98.97
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
1861: The Civil War Awakeningby Adam Goodheart
Knopf; Published: 2011-04-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.49
Price in other shops:
A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil Warby Amanda Foreman
Random House; Published: 2011-06-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.25
Price in other shops:
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slaveryby Eric Foner
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2010-10-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.86
Price in other shops:
The Lincoln Assassination Encyclopediaby Edward Steers
Harper Perennial; Published: 2010-05-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.28
Price in other shops:
Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War Historyby Alan T. Nolan
The University of North Carolina Press; Published: 1996-09-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops:
America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nationby David Goldfield
Bloomsbury Press; Published: 2011-03-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
The Union Warby Gary W. Gallagher
Harvard University Press; Published: 2011-04-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.76
Price in other shops:
Leeby Douglas Southall Freeman
Scribner; Published: 1997-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.74
Price in other shops:
Lee: The Last Yearsby Charles Bracelen Flood
Mariner Books; Published: 1998-09-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.33
Price in other shops:
Robert E. Lee: A Biographyby Emory M. Thomas
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 1997-06-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.89
Price in other shops: