In May, the city of New Orleans removed the last of its
Civil War monuments, a statue of General Robert E. Lee. There has been great outcry by both sides of
the political spectrum over the removal of these monuments. The left is pleased to see them go, decrying
them as continual reminders of the national sin of slavery and a debunking of
the “lost cause” Civil War mythos. The
right, while agreeing with the evils of slavery, wondered out loud about
forgetting our history as a nation and wondered whether the founders of our
country, many of them slave-holders as well, would also soon be “removed” from
public view.
In the midst of this discussion, I had the privilege of
reading Michael Korda’s biography of Robert E. Lee entitled Clouds of Glory:
The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee.
I have read and heard much in recent months about this man from many
sources, from media reports to Facebook memes.
Who was this man and how much of our perception of him, 150 years later,
is accurate?
Korda’s book is massive – almost 700 pages of text, not
counting footnotes – and his story is told well. Except for a few instances of irritating
repetition and a few factual errors, such as errors in dates that a good editor
should have caught, Korda’s portrait of Lee is well painted. Beginning with his early life in a prestigious
but impoverished Virginia family, Korda follows Lee through West Point,
marriage and the Mexican-American War, where Lee first made his mark on the
national stage. Many of Lee’s years in
the Army, either as an engineer or cavalry commander, were years of boredom,
drudgery and a lack of promotion. That
said, as a result of Mexican War heroics, he entered the Civil War with a rank
of Colonel. After the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, both sides, Union and
Confederate, sought Lee’s services as a commander of their armies in the
field. Only when Virginia seceded from
the Union did Lee make up his mind, following his home state into the arms of
the rebellion.
The bulk of Korda’s book focuses on Lee’s years as a Civil
War commander. He was, without a doubt,
the most brilliant of all the commanders on both sides of the war. He took risks no other commander would take,
and often he pulled them off. Korda does
a good job analyzing Lee’s strategical and tactical choices, marveling at his
willingness to divine his forces in the face of the enemy. At the same time, Clouds of Glory is
not hagiography. Korda criticizes Lee
for the risks he took that did not turn out well. He especially is concerned about Lee’s
unwillingness to be forceful with his sub-commanders, all too often trusting
them too much and leaving too much in their hands, which at times led to
movement and attacks that were made too late to garner even greater victories.
Throughout the book, Korda addresses the glorification of
Lee that is the product of historians like Douglas Southall Freeman and others
of the “Lost Cause” persuasion. While
Korda considers Lee to be a brilliant general, he has little time of day for
Lee’s most zealous apologists. One area
where those apologists focus their interest is on Lee and his slavery
views. While Lee did hate slavery, he
also considered, as many Americans on both sides of the rebellion did in those
day, that black Americans were inferior.
While Lee did not participate in the slave trade, he did own 200 slaves,
all inherited through his wife’s family at the death of his father-in-law. Despite his revulsion of slavery, Lee was
unable to free his slaves prior to the Civil War due to the stipulations of his
father-in-law’s will.
One of the things I appreciated most about Korda’s book was
its emphasis on Lee’s religious faith.
While he does not make it a major part of the book, he does not shy away
from matters of faith like many modern biographers do. He is very clear that Lee is what he calls an
evangelical Christian and that his faith in God’s will guided and directed his
life to the end. His mentions of Lee’s faith in God are woven
throughout the book, as I believe they should be.
The book, while excellent, produced mixed feelings in
me. While I share Robert E. Lee’s faith,
I cannot relate to his views of African Americans or his tolerance of slavery. I don’t know how he mixed those views; that
concept is foreign to me. Like a number
of Civil War icons, Lee is an enigma to those of us who see the world in a
different way. At the same time, Korda’s
portrait is still eminently worth reading.
We cannot forget our history, especially the parts that make us
uncomfortable, even while we forge ahead, committed to not repeating the
mistakes of the past.
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