Four Years with General Lee

by Walter H. Taylor, James I. Robertson Jr. (Editor)

" . . . it offers a sure, quick, eyewitness assessment of all Lee's campaigns." ― Southern Partisan

Walter Taylor was "first to last the closest" of all staff officers to General Robert E. Lee, and his intimate relationship with his commander gives Taylor's writings signal importance in any study of Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. A recognized classic, Four Years with General Lee first appeared in 1877 and was a collector's item by the turn of the century. This annotated edition, first published in 1962, was prepared by noted Civil War historian James I. Robertson, Jr., who has provided a new introduction for this paperback reissue.

Genres: Civil War, History, Nonfiction, American History

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1877

Reviews

[Mom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is definitely full of information. Very dry statistical chapters, but if you are a figures person and this is important to you, it will not disappoint. I feel it would be a good companion book to other Civil War books. It can give you the details that some books lack when they are talking about the battles. The final chapter in the book is a tribute to the character of General Lee, which I think most of us don't need, and it really came off like, "Wah wah we didn't have enough men, wah wah we didn't have enough food, wah wah we didn't have enough equipment, wah wah Northerners are mean." Don't get me wrong, I am sympathetic to the South, but most of them don't blame others for their shortcomings. We KNOW the South was outnumbered, underfed, under-equipped but we will never say that they were outmaneuvered, because it wouldn't have taken the North four years to back them into a corner and win the war otherwise.

[Michael C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8

[R.J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Classic. But not an enjoyable read

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taylor started the ACW as aide de camp to Lee and ended the war as assistant adjutant general of the ANV. Taylor was described as "first to last the closest" of all staff officers to Lee. This makes Four Years with General Lee very frustrating. Taylor spends large sections of his memoir listing the strength of the ANV at various stages of the war. His objective, seemingly, was to show how outnumbered Lee was in all of his battles. For someone who was so close to Lee, he doesn't write that much about him. Readers will rarely learn of Lee's reaction to events, and events go by with remarkable speed. The actual battle of Second Manassas gets one paragraph, most of which describes casualties and equipment captured. Taylor then spends six pages determining the number of troops who were at the battle and describing how he came up with his figures.[return][return]The one battle that does get substantial treatment is Gettysburg. Taylor makes the claim that McLaws' and Hood's divisions were to have participated in the infantry assault of the third day but failed to do so. This is not something I have read elsewhere. Taylor includes the text of post- war correspondence with Longstreet regarding this matter in which Taylor asked why Hood's and McLaws' division did not advance. Longstreet wrote back that he had never received orders for them to participate in the assault. Perhaps Taylor is trying to shift blame for the events of the third day away from Lee.[return][return]Overall a valuable book for the information it contains regarding army strengths but Taylor should have included more of his personal observations of the commanders of the ANV. He seems to have realized this since thirty years later, he wrote a second memoir General Lee, 1861-1865.

[Vince · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written some years after the War, this memoir is more interesting as revealing the thinking behind the post war "Lost Cause" mentality that developed in the defeated South, than as an historically accurate depiction of the events of the time, as Taylor's memory is somewhat selective (e.g. his assessments of ANV strength is now considered by many to be well understated) and obviously greatly biased in favor of his saintly hero, Lee.

[Aaron Hutmacher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very informative but did not flow into an easily readable book. This book was more like a text book or a boring history book that makes one dread history. If you can muster through statistics some of the stories and battles were interesting. I am sure there are many other books out there that tell the story better. This book is written by his adjutant General and you could tell it by the amount of data written in it and the respect he gave his commander.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a bit disappointed in this book. I thought it would go into a little more depth about the man who led the Army of Northern Virginia. It dealt with a lot of numbers about troop size & strength. Although helpful, I don't think it should have been a real big focus. The latter part of the book did seem to go into a bit more about the man. It was an ok read.