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The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee: The Forgotten Case against an American Icon
History has been kind to Robert E. Lee. Woodrow Wilson believed General Lee was a “model to men who would be morally great.” Douglas Southall Freeman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his four-volume biography of Lee, described his subject as “one of a small company of great men in whom there is no inconsistency to be explained, no enigma to be solved.” Winston Churchill called him “one of the noblest Americans who ever lived.” Until recently, there was even a stained glass window devoted to Lee's life at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
Immediately after the Civil War, however, many northerners believed Lee should be hanged for treason and war crimes. Americans will be surprised to learn that in June of 1865 Robert E. Lee was indicted for treason by a Norfolk, Virginia grand jury. In his instructions to the grand jury, Judge John C. Underwood described treason as “wholesale murder,” and declared that the instigators of the rebellion had “hands dripping with the blood of slaughtered innocents.” In early 1866, Lee decided against visiting friends while in Washington, D.C. for a congressional hearing, because he was conscious of being perceived as a “monster” by citizens of the nation’s capital. Yet somehow, roughly fifty years after his trip to Washington, Lee had been transformed into a venerable American hero, who was highly regarded by southerners and northerners alike. Almost a century after Appomattox, Dwight D. Eisenhower had Lee’s portrait on the wall of his White House office.
The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee tells the story of the forgotten legal and moral case that was made against the Confederate general after the Civil War. The actual indictment went missing for 72 years. Over the past 150 years, the indictment against Lee after the war has both literally and figuratively disappeared from our national consciousness. In this book, Civil War historian John Reeves illuminates the incredible turnaround in attitudes towards the defeated general by examining the evolving case against him from 1865 to 1870 and beyond.
Immediately after the Civil War, however, many northerners believed Lee should be hanged for treason and war crimes. Americans will be surprised to learn that in June of 1865 Robert E. Lee was indicted for treason by a Norfolk, Virginia grand jury. In his instructions to the grand jury, Judge John C. Underwood described treason as “wholesale murder,” and declared that the instigators of the rebellion had “hands dripping with the blood of slaughtered innocents.” In early 1866, Lee decided against visiting friends while in Washington, D.C. for a congressional hearing, because he was conscious of being perceived as a “monster” by citizens of the nation’s capital. Yet somehow, roughly fifty years after his trip to Washington, Lee had been transformed into a venerable American hero, who was highly regarded by southerners and northerners alike. Almost a century after Appomattox, Dwight D. Eisenhower had Lee’s portrait on the wall of his White House office.
The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee tells the story of the forgotten legal and moral case that was made against the Confederate general after the Civil War. The actual indictment went missing for 72 years. Over the past 150 years, the indictment against Lee after the war has both literally and figuratively disappeared from our national consciousness. In this book, Civil War historian John Reeves illuminates the incredible turnaround in attitudes towards the defeated general by examining the evolving case against him from 1865 to 1870 and beyond.
249 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2018
About the author
John Reeves
4 books9 followersJohn Reeves is the author of several books, including "Soldier of Destiny: Slavery, Secession, and the Redemption of Ulysses S. Grant" and "Grant's Betrayal: Power, Corruption, and the Theft of the Black Hills." He has been a teacher, editor, and writer for over thirty-five years. John’s articles on Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant have been featured in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and on the History News Network.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
April 12, 2018
I’ve never understood why so many Americans revere the memory of Robert E. Lee, the general that turned Lincoln away at the outbreak of the American Civil War and instead commanded the treasonous Army of Northern Virginia. When I saw this title, I leapt at the chance to read and review it. Thanks go to Net Galley and Rowman and Littlefield Publishers for the DRC. The book will be available to the public June 1, 2018.
Before reading this book I wasn’t even aware that an indictment had ever been issued. This is particularly odd given that a good part of my teaching career involved teaching American history and government. I even wondered, before opening it, whether this indictment would be metaphor; no indeed. Reeves did a lot of digging in order to write this book, and that’s what makes it worth having. His sources are ones that I cannot find myself through a quick Google search or a trip to the library or bookstore. Reeves uses sources that require traveling hither and yon in order to access special collections that libraries won’t check out to anybody ever, that’s proof that this writer had done the legwork.
Back to the indictment. Following the end of the war and the death of Lincoln, the North—contrary to mythological retellings—clamored for retribution. Let’s all be brothers and have peace? Oh hell no. Who had not lost a brother, a son, a husband to this terrible conflict? And President Andrew Johnson, working hand-in-glove with the passionate abolitionist, Judge Underwood, set out to “make treason odious.” At a bare minimum, Lee, Jefferson Davis, and the members of the Confederate cabinet most closely linked to the war itself needed a day in court. Afterward, they needed to either hang, or rot in prison for a goodly while. So the thinking went.
As usual, the devil was in the details. Why is it so difficult for government to move swiftly? A lot of terrible decisions were made here, the most noteworthy being to try these men in a civilian court rather than in a military tribunal. Too late they realized that Lee must then be tried by a jury of his peers in Virginia. This would have been disastrous, since Lee was regarded by most Caucasian Virginians as a hero, much the way we now look at Lincoln. After all, when the war broke out, most antiwar or antislavery advocates had to move North in fear of their physical safety, and only the diehard Dixie whistlers remained, so a fair and impartial jury in Virginia was a nonstarter. What could possibly be worse than letting Lee off scot-free? What would be worse would be for him to be exonerated.
Added into the stew was a heap of political scandal and the unraveling of Johnson’s presidency, and the tarnishing of Underwood’s reputation, a man controversial from the get-go. At the end of the day they were too busy salvaging themselves to bring these men to justice.
I find some measure of comfort in the knowledge that Arlington, the huge, fancy estate that had been passed down to Lee’s wife and of which he never stopped bragging, as if property ownership and family history made his family American royalty, was expropriated by the Union, and its extensive grounds became Arlington National Cemetery. After Lee’s death, there was considerable talk among the public suggesting that the widow Lee should get her old house back; however, she overstepped when imperiously telling Congress that she also wanted the remains of all those poor boys dug up and interred some other place. There was almost nothing she could have said or done to lose the sympathy vote more quickly.
This excellent book is highly recommended to those that are interested in the American Civil War and its aftermath.
Before reading this book I wasn’t even aware that an indictment had ever been issued. This is particularly odd given that a good part of my teaching career involved teaching American history and government. I even wondered, before opening it, whether this indictment would be metaphor; no indeed. Reeves did a lot of digging in order to write this book, and that’s what makes it worth having. His sources are ones that I cannot find myself through a quick Google search or a trip to the library or bookstore. Reeves uses sources that require traveling hither and yon in order to access special collections that libraries won’t check out to anybody ever, that’s proof that this writer had done the legwork.
Back to the indictment. Following the end of the war and the death of Lincoln, the North—contrary to mythological retellings—clamored for retribution. Let’s all be brothers and have peace? Oh hell no. Who had not lost a brother, a son, a husband to this terrible conflict? And President Andrew Johnson, working hand-in-glove with the passionate abolitionist, Judge Underwood, set out to “make treason odious.” At a bare minimum, Lee, Jefferson Davis, and the members of the Confederate cabinet most closely linked to the war itself needed a day in court. Afterward, they needed to either hang, or rot in prison for a goodly while. So the thinking went.
As usual, the devil was in the details. Why is it so difficult for government to move swiftly? A lot of terrible decisions were made here, the most noteworthy being to try these men in a civilian court rather than in a military tribunal. Too late they realized that Lee must then be tried by a jury of his peers in Virginia. This would have been disastrous, since Lee was regarded by most Caucasian Virginians as a hero, much the way we now look at Lincoln. After all, when the war broke out, most antiwar or antislavery advocates had to move North in fear of their physical safety, and only the diehard Dixie whistlers remained, so a fair and impartial jury in Virginia was a nonstarter. What could possibly be worse than letting Lee off scot-free? What would be worse would be for him to be exonerated.
Added into the stew was a heap of political scandal and the unraveling of Johnson’s presidency, and the tarnishing of Underwood’s reputation, a man controversial from the get-go. At the end of the day they were too busy salvaging themselves to bring these men to justice.
I find some measure of comfort in the knowledge that Arlington, the huge, fancy estate that had been passed down to Lee’s wife and of which he never stopped bragging, as if property ownership and family history made his family American royalty, was expropriated by the Union, and its extensive grounds became Arlington National Cemetery. After Lee’s death, there was considerable talk among the public suggesting that the widow Lee should get her old house back; however, she overstepped when imperiously telling Congress that she also wanted the remains of all those poor boys dug up and interred some other place. There was almost nothing she could have said or done to lose the sympathy vote more quickly.
This excellent book is highly recommended to those that are interested in the American Civil War and its aftermath.
August 7, 2018
I’ve recently found myself lost in books that deal with the nature of human memory and how effortlessly it can be twisted, distorted, and deceived. I’m reminded of this when thinking about how to review John Reeves excellent “The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee: The Forgotten Case Against an American Icon”.
Perhaps few men in American history have gone through more historical revisions during and after their lifetime than Lee. A decorated soldier in the Mexican-American War beloved by all, a civil war commander and slave owner beloved in the South and despised in the North, a post war pariah and traitor in the North, and finally today, a beloved American hero seen as anti slavery and a key force in post war reconciliation.
Can one man be all these things? Reeves answer is emphatically, no.
With meticulous research, he shows that contrary to the American hero he is viewed as today, he was in fact incredibly close to being prosecuted as a traitor and would have been if not for a series of blunders and incompetence on the part of politicians looking to cover their own tails and ambitions. Andrew Johnson himself, a Southerner who was no friend of abolitionism, tried in vain for 3 years to bring indictments against Lee and the Confederate leadership only to give up after three years of failure.
For his part, Lee was hardly the conciliatory and magnanimous post war Unionist history has made him out to be. In fact, Lee began almost as soon as he surrender at Appomattox to paint the war as a battle for “states rights” and would go as far as to say that:
“The best men of the South have long been anxious to do away with this institution, and were quite willing today to see it abolished.”
This is quite at odds with the words of every prominent member of the Confederate leadership. Take for example Vice President Alexander Stephens:
“Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not the equal of the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This, our new Government is first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral truth.”
Or President Jefferson Davis to the Confederate Congress immediately after hearing of the Emancipation Proclamation:
“A restoration of the Union has been rendered forever impossible by the adoption of a measure which from its very nature neither admits of retraction nor can coexist with union.”
Or Lee himself on the Proclamation freeing the slaves in 1963:
“In view of the vast increase of the forces of the enemy, of the savage and brutal policy he has proclaimed, which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death, if we would save the honor of our families from pollution, our social system from destruction, let every effort be made, every means be employed, to fill and maintain the ranks of our armies, until God, in His mercy, shall bless us with the establishment of our independence.”
Pollution and destruction of a social system. This is what Lee sought to maintain.
Yet soon after Lee’s death a scomprehensive campaign to lionize Lee was taken up by former Confederate generals, sympathizers, and Southerners from all walks of life. Statues were built across the South, books were written, schools were named, until somehow in 2018, we have arrived at a place where an unreconstructed slave owner who showed no remorse for taking up arms against the United States (Lee famously said in a postwar interview when asked if he has any regrets that: “I could have taken no other course save with dishonor, and if it were to be all done over again, I should act in precisely the same way”) is an American hero.
General Ulysses S. Grant, a man who was in many ways sympathetic to Lee found himself exasperated by Lee’s unwillingness to accept responsibility for the destruction he was a part of when he wrote:
“Lee is behaving badly. He is conducting himself very differently from what I had reason, from what he had said at the time of surrender, to suppose he would. No man at the South is capable of exercising a tenth part of the influence for good that he is, but instead of using it he is setting an example of forced acquiescence so grudging and pernicious in its effects as to be hardly realized.”
More importantly, Lee has become a hero whose history has been completely cleansed of the Black experience of those years and the years they would later spawn. Reeves describes a post war tour by Henry James of Richmond:
“The famous novelist Henry James noticed this absence of the African American experience when he visited Richmond in 1905 for a travel book he was writing. Upon arriving in the city, he felt it ‘had grown lurid, fuliginous, vividly tragic’. As he wandered around the town that had sent roughly 350,000 slaves downriver in the decades before the Civil War, he became conscious that something essential was missing. It was only after standing in front of the Lee monument lost in thought that he eventually figured out the riddle. James admired the equestrian statue of the Southern hero and felt it was a monument of considerable artistic merit. ‘The surrounding neighborhood, however, was desolate, somehow empty in spite of being ugly, and yet expressive in spite of being empty’ It was only upon turning his back on the monument and the surrounding area that James was able to solve ‘the riddle of the historic poverty of Richmond’. For James, Richmond’s problem was that it had ‘worshipped false gods’. He then concluded, ‘As I looked back, before leaving it, at Lee’s stranded, bereft image, which time and fortune have so cheated of half the significance, and so, I think of half the dignity, of great memorials, I recognized something more than the melancholy of a lost cause. The whole infelicity speaks of a cause that could never have been gained.’"
When will we in 2018 stop worshipping the “false gods” that James writes of? When will instead look at our painful history honestly and come to terms with what has been done in their name. Rather than continue to prop them up, perhaps we should instead lift up the true heroes of that era and give light to their experience. As Reeves so eloquently concludes:
“Fighting to uphold a slave based social system wasn’t just a lost cause, it was an unwinnable cause. Going further, one might say it was unwinnable because it was a bad cause that violated the essence of our founding principles. Only by restoring the black experience to the narrative does that become clear to all Americans.”
Perhaps few men in American history have gone through more historical revisions during and after their lifetime than Lee. A decorated soldier in the Mexican-American War beloved by all, a civil war commander and slave owner beloved in the South and despised in the North, a post war pariah and traitor in the North, and finally today, a beloved American hero seen as anti slavery and a key force in post war reconciliation.
Can one man be all these things? Reeves answer is emphatically, no.
With meticulous research, he shows that contrary to the American hero he is viewed as today, he was in fact incredibly close to being prosecuted as a traitor and would have been if not for a series of blunders and incompetence on the part of politicians looking to cover their own tails and ambitions. Andrew Johnson himself, a Southerner who was no friend of abolitionism, tried in vain for 3 years to bring indictments against Lee and the Confederate leadership only to give up after three years of failure.
For his part, Lee was hardly the conciliatory and magnanimous post war Unionist history has made him out to be. In fact, Lee began almost as soon as he surrender at Appomattox to paint the war as a battle for “states rights” and would go as far as to say that:
“The best men of the South have long been anxious to do away with this institution, and were quite willing today to see it abolished.”
This is quite at odds with the words of every prominent member of the Confederate leadership. Take for example Vice President Alexander Stephens:
“Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not the equal of the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This, our new Government is first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral truth.”
Or President Jefferson Davis to the Confederate Congress immediately after hearing of the Emancipation Proclamation:
“A restoration of the Union has been rendered forever impossible by the adoption of a measure which from its very nature neither admits of retraction nor can coexist with union.”
Or Lee himself on the Proclamation freeing the slaves in 1963:
“In view of the vast increase of the forces of the enemy, of the savage and brutal policy he has proclaimed, which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death, if we would save the honor of our families from pollution, our social system from destruction, let every effort be made, every means be employed, to fill and maintain the ranks of our armies, until God, in His mercy, shall bless us with the establishment of our independence.”
Pollution and destruction of a social system. This is what Lee sought to maintain.
Yet soon after Lee’s death a scomprehensive campaign to lionize Lee was taken up by former Confederate generals, sympathizers, and Southerners from all walks of life. Statues were built across the South, books were written, schools were named, until somehow in 2018, we have arrived at a place where an unreconstructed slave owner who showed no remorse for taking up arms against the United States (Lee famously said in a postwar interview when asked if he has any regrets that: “I could have taken no other course save with dishonor, and if it were to be all done over again, I should act in precisely the same way”) is an American hero.
General Ulysses S. Grant, a man who was in many ways sympathetic to Lee found himself exasperated by Lee’s unwillingness to accept responsibility for the destruction he was a part of when he wrote:
“Lee is behaving badly. He is conducting himself very differently from what I had reason, from what he had said at the time of surrender, to suppose he would. No man at the South is capable of exercising a tenth part of the influence for good that he is, but instead of using it he is setting an example of forced acquiescence so grudging and pernicious in its effects as to be hardly realized.”
More importantly, Lee has become a hero whose history has been completely cleansed of the Black experience of those years and the years they would later spawn. Reeves describes a post war tour by Henry James of Richmond:
“The famous novelist Henry James noticed this absence of the African American experience when he visited Richmond in 1905 for a travel book he was writing. Upon arriving in the city, he felt it ‘had grown lurid, fuliginous, vividly tragic’. As he wandered around the town that had sent roughly 350,000 slaves downriver in the decades before the Civil War, he became conscious that something essential was missing. It was only after standing in front of the Lee monument lost in thought that he eventually figured out the riddle. James admired the equestrian statue of the Southern hero and felt it was a monument of considerable artistic merit. ‘The surrounding neighborhood, however, was desolate, somehow empty in spite of being ugly, and yet expressive in spite of being empty’ It was only upon turning his back on the monument and the surrounding area that James was able to solve ‘the riddle of the historic poverty of Richmond’. For James, Richmond’s problem was that it had ‘worshipped false gods’. He then concluded, ‘As I looked back, before leaving it, at Lee’s stranded, bereft image, which time and fortune have so cheated of half the significance, and so, I think of half the dignity, of great memorials, I recognized something more than the melancholy of a lost cause. The whole infelicity speaks of a cause that could never have been gained.’"
When will we in 2018 stop worshipping the “false gods” that James writes of? When will instead look at our painful history honestly and come to terms with what has been done in their name. Rather than continue to prop them up, perhaps we should instead lift up the true heroes of that era and give light to their experience. As Reeves so eloquently concludes:
“Fighting to uphold a slave based social system wasn’t just a lost cause, it was an unwinnable cause. Going further, one might say it was unwinnable because it was a bad cause that violated the essence of our founding principles. Only by restoring the black experience to the narrative does that become clear to all Americans.”
April 10, 2020
History largely suppressed the treason indictment of Robert Lee as part of its inaccurate portrayal of Lee as a man who personally opposed slavery and fought only for state's rights and Virginia just as it tried to recast the Civil War into a war between the states that was not about slavery.
This book is part of recent scholarship of setting the record straight by going back to original sources of what was actually said and done. For example, in October 1864, Lee wrote to Grant proposing a prisoner exchange. Grant, who was aware of Confederate atrocities against captured African American soldiers wrote back "Before further negotiations are had upon the subject I would ask if you propose delivering these men the same as white soldiers?"
On October 3, 1864 Lee wrote back: "..deserters and negroes belonging to our citizens are not Considered Subjects of exchange and were not included in my proposition..." To Grant's credit, he refused the prisoner exchange that did not include African Americans as he, along with everyone in the war, knew that the Confederate army assumed any African America was a slave and tortured them before returning them to slavery or simply killed them. After the war Lee knew what he did was wrong by misleading a Congressional inquiry saying "I don't know why it(exchange) was suspended."
Lee's true attitude about slavery was also shown when after the war some of Lee's former slaves accused him of brutally whipping three of them after they tried to escape. Lee denied it and the author concludes that it is now impossible to know what exactly what happened, if Lee personally whipped them. However, he does go back to court records and newspaper articles from the time to show that the involved slaves had been promised freedom by Lee's father in law, that Lee went to court to argue they shouldn't be freed, that they escaped after that, that Lee sent people to capture them and afterwards he separated them from their families
The real history of Lee's attitudes towards slavery is just part of this book. The effort to bring Lee and others to justice is its core. The effort was sparked by Andrew Johnson who hated those who caused the killing of American soldiers. However, that hatred was overcome by his even stronger hatred of African Americans and those in Congress who were trying to ensure their right to vote and economic opportunity. The book details other issues between the indictment and eventual dismissal.
And I came away from the book not thinking that a treason conviction should have been pursued. Lee suffered as a result of his rebellion, notably the loss of his Arlington plantation. The disaster was Johnson's widespread amnesty of Confederates and setting the stage for them to take control of states from Reconstruction governments. In a better world, Reconstruction would have continued,ensuring the rights and protections of African Americans, with conciliatory steps such as dismissing Lee's indictment as part of a truly reconstructed South
This book is part of recent scholarship of setting the record straight by going back to original sources of what was actually said and done. For example, in October 1864, Lee wrote to Grant proposing a prisoner exchange. Grant, who was aware of Confederate atrocities against captured African American soldiers wrote back "Before further negotiations are had upon the subject I would ask if you propose delivering these men the same as white soldiers?"
On October 3, 1864 Lee wrote back: "..deserters and negroes belonging to our citizens are not Considered Subjects of exchange and were not included in my proposition..." To Grant's credit, he refused the prisoner exchange that did not include African Americans as he, along with everyone in the war, knew that the Confederate army assumed any African America was a slave and tortured them before returning them to slavery or simply killed them. After the war Lee knew what he did was wrong by misleading a Congressional inquiry saying "I don't know why it(exchange) was suspended."
Lee's true attitude about slavery was also shown when after the war some of Lee's former slaves accused him of brutally whipping three of them after they tried to escape. Lee denied it and the author concludes that it is now impossible to know what exactly what happened, if Lee personally whipped them. However, he does go back to court records and newspaper articles from the time to show that the involved slaves had been promised freedom by Lee's father in law, that Lee went to court to argue they shouldn't be freed, that they escaped after that, that Lee sent people to capture them and afterwards he separated them from their families
The real history of Lee's attitudes towards slavery is just part of this book. The effort to bring Lee and others to justice is its core. The effort was sparked by Andrew Johnson who hated those who caused the killing of American soldiers. However, that hatred was overcome by his even stronger hatred of African Americans and those in Congress who were trying to ensure their right to vote and economic opportunity. The book details other issues between the indictment and eventual dismissal.
And I came away from the book not thinking that a treason conviction should have been pursued. Lee suffered as a result of his rebellion, notably the loss of his Arlington plantation. The disaster was Johnson's widespread amnesty of Confederates and setting the stage for them to take control of states from Reconstruction governments. In a better world, Reconstruction would have continued,ensuring the rights and protections of African Americans, with conciliatory steps such as dismissing Lee's indictment as part of a truly reconstructed South
June 2, 2021
A quick read on a much-overlooked episode in American history. While the title references Lee’s treason indictment the book additionally goes into greater detail on how the government initially approached and ultimately abandoned treason trials of many of the Confederate leadership in the years immediately after the Civil War. Recommended for anyone who has even a passing interest in the immediate postwar period, especially given the scarcity of mainstream works on the subject.
September 11, 2018
As a history buff, I found this small volume to be very interesting. The author provides a good summary of Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox and the days following that momentous event. He also provides an interesting and thorough explanation of the indictment of Lee for treason ordered by President Andrew Johnson and the subsequent dismissal of that indictment a few years later. Lee had applied for a pardon from Johnson, assuming that it would quickly granted. But Johnson sat on Lee's application. Eventually, Lee was granted amnesty, along with all Confederate soldiers and leaders. The author also focused on Lee's views of slavery specifically and African Americans in general - a not terribly flattering picture. Finally, this book gives the reader a clearer understanding of how the myth of a "Lost Cause" evolved, bolstered by claims that the South fought the North to preserve states rights, not to validate and preserve slavery. A quick read, I recommend this book.
October 8, 2018
Fantastic book, and very well-researched. A must-read when considering today's political environment. The only blemish is in the editing, as certain thoughts and facts are presented multiple times as if they hadn't been discussed before.
February 17, 2022
John Reeves gives good insight to the indictment of treason brought against Robert E Lee, that seems to have been forgotten in the history of the Civil War. Of course this indictment, delivered by a grand jury in Virginia, was never seen through to fruition - to an actual trial, due to many circumstances. And of course, the myth of the “Lost Cause” has overshadowed the reality of what happened in the Civil War, along with history such as Lee’s traitorous activities. Well thought out and explained, Reeves presents a needed “reality check” into Lee and others and what actually happened at end and after the Civil War.
April 14, 2018
In most of my school history books Robert E. Lee was presented as being practically the fourth member of the Trinity. Among many dedicated church-going people I know, it is a “known fact” that Lee was a godly man fighting for a noble lost cause (states rights, not slavery which he abhorred).
John Reeves calls this narrative into question with his well-researched book. As the title suggests, the main focus is on the treason trials promised by President Andrew Johnson after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Though he is clearly not very sympathetic to Lee, the author is fairly even-handed in his presentation of the facts; not cherry-picking just the ones that suit his purpose and admitting when contradictory reports (e.g. of Lee’s cruelty to the 197 slaves under his charge) render a point uncertain. The neutral examination of thoughts and attitudes in the North immediately following the war provides a helpful perspective that I had never read about before.
I feel that the book suffers slightly from a lack of focus as it leaps between the attempted treason trials, reconstruction, the character of Robert E Lee (including his inconsistency/hypocrisy regarding slavery), and the revisionist “lost cause” narrative. I am unsure whether the main goal was to simply describe the events surrounding the attempted treason trials as accurately as possible or to discredit the Lee-as-godly-hero mythos. Nevertheless, it was an excellent read that I would highly recommend for those who want to read about a forgotten part of post-Civil war history and for anyone who wants a balance to the usual hagiographic Lee biographies.
John Reeves calls this narrative into question with his well-researched book. As the title suggests, the main focus is on the treason trials promised by President Andrew Johnson after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Though he is clearly not very sympathetic to Lee, the author is fairly even-handed in his presentation of the facts; not cherry-picking just the ones that suit his purpose and admitting when contradictory reports (e.g. of Lee’s cruelty to the 197 slaves under his charge) render a point uncertain. The neutral examination of thoughts and attitudes in the North immediately following the war provides a helpful perspective that I had never read about before.
I feel that the book suffers slightly from a lack of focus as it leaps between the attempted treason trials, reconstruction, the character of Robert E Lee (including his inconsistency/hypocrisy regarding slavery), and the revisionist “lost cause” narrative. I am unsure whether the main goal was to simply describe the events surrounding the attempted treason trials as accurately as possible or to discredit the Lee-as-godly-hero mythos. Nevertheless, it was an excellent read that I would highly recommend for those who want to read about a forgotten part of post-Civil war history and for anyone who wants a balance to the usual hagiographic Lee biographies.
December 5, 2019
I had the pleasure of working with John Reeves during his time at The Motley Fool, and I'm glad to see the kind, gentle, generous-spirited coworker I knew very much present in these pages. This fascinating, scrupulously researched account shoves aside the gauzy and frankly gross Lost Cause mythologizing to which we've all been unwittingly subjected for decades, and paints a clearer and more complex portrait of American life right after the Civil War. The book's tendency to hopscotch forward and backward in time from one episode to the next keeps it from developing the narrative momentum that it otherwise might. But each of those incidents captivates you, rendered in Reeves's clear, empathetic prose. This book made me angrier to read than I think the author was to write it, and I almost wish he'd shown more of the indignation I felt at just how grotesquely the losers of the Civil War twisted history to their own ends. But while he's measured and fair-minded, Reeves never lapses into hapless both-sides-ism. He's unafraid to call out wrong when he sees it. As large parts of our country slouch deeper into the poisonous fantasies they've clung to for more than a century and a half, everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to read this book. While it might not pack as much of a punch as it could, it brims with useful and deeply interesting history that feels all too current.
September 19, 2021
There was actually an attempt to bring Jeffferson Davis and Robert E. Lee to trial and execution! It failed, mainly because the whole idea just wasn't very well thought out. As I recall the reading, the law stated he had to be tried where the act of treason took place (he fought the majority of his part of the Late Unpleasantness in Virginny) and the prosecuting officials just couldn't "pack" a jury of folks willing to pronounce him guilty. Supreme Court Justice (Head Justice actually) Salmon Portland Chase just couldn't adjust his calendar to be there (as best as I could tell). Grant opposed the whole affair, holding that he gave Lee his parole at Appomattox and that would be good throughout. I found it not too easy to follow all the details (don't know if it t'was me or the writing); suffice it to say a good deal of time was taken up by Johnson's failed impeachment and then, when Grant was elected president, the whole affair probably became moot. Chapter 11 gives us the author's opinion of the whole thing and his opinion of Lee. Your call.
June 6, 2018
This book is a rare find these days - impeccably researched, well-written and engrossing while not dryly academic, and fair-minded. John Reeves compellingly lays out how Lee gained his reputations, both good and bad, and opens our eyes to a forgotten aspect of our history. The ideas in this book - treason vs loyalty, the law vs popular culture, retribution vs rebuilding - seem timeless and resonate strongly in our current political culture.
May 19, 2019
It is unusual, perhaps even remarkable, that despite the fact that Robert E. Lee was widely recognized as a heroic figure in the Civil War (despite choosing the wrong side), that it took more than 100 years after the Civil War for his various legal limitations to be removed by the efforts of Congress and the signature of then President Ford. This book is a detailed look at the course of the indictment for treason that Lee faced after the Civil War and why it is that the case is so rarely known and why it was that the desire of radicals (and President Andrew Johnson) to punish Lee and other prominent rebels after the Civil War fell through. It should be noted that the author is very heavy handed about his subject matter, pointing out that it is only in the statue-destroying contemporary period that mainstream American society has started to turn on Robert E. Lee, especially because of Lee's less than contemporary appealing views on race, although they would have been moderate by the standard of the South at the time. My own views of Lee are somewhat complex, but I did generally appreciate this book.
This particular book is about 200 pages and contains 11 chapters and a couple of appendices. The author begins with acknowledgements and a re-evaluation of Robert E. Lee as a general and as a gentleman. After that the author begins with Lee's determination not to flee in the aftermath of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant's army (1), along with with the hostility of many Northerners to Lee and other Confederate leaders in the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination (2), with the belief that Lee and others were guilty of what would be considered war crimes (3). After that there is the question of when the case will begin, a question that would become increasingly problematic as 1865 turned into 1868 and Andrew Johnson faced efforts to impeach and convict him for obstructing the Radical Republican agenda, which left little time and attention by the chief justice and others to put Lee on trial (4). Lee applied for a pardon (5), even as others criticized his efforts to re-enslave Union black soldiers (6), and thought that Lee would be fit for the gallows as a reminder of the horrors of treason (7). The author then examines the story of Lee's whipping of female escaped slaves (8) in the context of concerns about the justice that ex-rebels would receive in court (9), as well as Lee's death as a prisoner of war on parole (10), and the desire for justice on the part of blacks that was largely thwarted in the postwar period (11). The book closes with two appendices, an interview with Lee by the New York Herald (A), and a letter from Richard Dana about the logistics of trying rebel leaders for treason (B).
This is by no means a perfect book--the author is a bit repetitive and heavy-handed for that. It is also very clear that the author wishes to do justice by black Americans during Lee's time, be it the slaves that Lee inherited from his father-in-law and sought to profit from as much as possible through hiring them out, the black Union soldiers that were denied the honor that they were do because it was contrary to the debased racial culture of the Confederacy, or postwar blacks who struggled to rise in freedom in the face of the Southern refusal to consider their loss in the Civil War as meaning that their ideal of racial superiority was to be rejected. By pointing to the idealism of contemporary Republicans (although admittedly I am no particular friend of radicalism), the author manages to avoid judging the past by the standards of the present by pointing out that there were more enlightened views at the time, and that the question of mercy and judgment is a difficult one and always has been.
This particular book is about 200 pages and contains 11 chapters and a couple of appendices. The author begins with acknowledgements and a re-evaluation of Robert E. Lee as a general and as a gentleman. After that the author begins with Lee's determination not to flee in the aftermath of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant's army (1), along with with the hostility of many Northerners to Lee and other Confederate leaders in the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination (2), with the belief that Lee and others were guilty of what would be considered war crimes (3). After that there is the question of when the case will begin, a question that would become increasingly problematic as 1865 turned into 1868 and Andrew Johnson faced efforts to impeach and convict him for obstructing the Radical Republican agenda, which left little time and attention by the chief justice and others to put Lee on trial (4). Lee applied for a pardon (5), even as others criticized his efforts to re-enslave Union black soldiers (6), and thought that Lee would be fit for the gallows as a reminder of the horrors of treason (7). The author then examines the story of Lee's whipping of female escaped slaves (8) in the context of concerns about the justice that ex-rebels would receive in court (9), as well as Lee's death as a prisoner of war on parole (10), and the desire for justice on the part of blacks that was largely thwarted in the postwar period (11). The book closes with two appendices, an interview with Lee by the New York Herald (A), and a letter from Richard Dana about the logistics of trying rebel leaders for treason (B).
This is by no means a perfect book--the author is a bit repetitive and heavy-handed for that. It is also very clear that the author wishes to do justice by black Americans during Lee's time, be it the slaves that Lee inherited from his father-in-law and sought to profit from as much as possible through hiring them out, the black Union soldiers that were denied the honor that they were do because it was contrary to the debased racial culture of the Confederacy, or postwar blacks who struggled to rise in freedom in the face of the Southern refusal to consider their loss in the Civil War as meaning that their ideal of racial superiority was to be rejected. By pointing to the idealism of contemporary Republicans (although admittedly I am no particular friend of radicalism), the author manages to avoid judging the past by the standards of the present by pointing out that there were more enlightened views at the time, and that the question of mercy and judgment is a difficult one and always has been.
June 10, 2019
Reeves starts this book by briefly recounting the events that led up to Lee's pardoning in the 1970's by the Ford administration. He quickly overviews the prevailing view of Lee at the time, and how the fact that he had not yet been pardoned was wrongly (in the face of obvious evidence) believed to be merely bureaucratic oversight.
In reality, Lee was most likely second on the list of people whose hanging was most desired in the wake of the defeat of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox and the subsequent assassination of President Lincoln. The hawk Johnson wanted no more than to see his longtime rival Jefferson Davis hanged, but saw Lee in the same vein, as "arch-rebel".
Ultimately, the reason why Lee (and Davis) did not see the rope is because of a lack of a comprehensive effort to bring up charges in a winnable way. This caused delays that eventually took a back seat to Johnson's impeachment trial. As the wounds healed, the general public preferred to let sleeping dogs lie, and Johnson eventually issued a general amnesty for all rebels for political reasons.
Reeves lays out the case in an unbiased way that anyone could appreciate. The sections about Grant's defenses of Lee are particularly interesting. However, I could not give the book more stars for the following reasons.
First, while the Wirz trial and hanging by a military tribunal is fascinating, especially since it seems to be the only case of a CSA official, government or military, seeing any kind of real punishment, Reeves spends too much time trying to build a (weak) case against Lee for his culpability in the poor POW camps. He does probably shoulder some moral responsibility indirectly, but it's very hard to accept that he shoulders blame in any meaningful or legal sense. While it's interesting to think of the hypothetical of him being tried in a military tribunal for his responsibility in the POW camp conditions, this is not a strong point of the book.
Second, I found the conclusion, which Reeves considers to be true, that Andrew Johnson did not want Davis tried because the jury was half composed of freedmen, to be dubious. The only evidence of this is a single conversation where Johnson implies in an vaguely morose and odd way, given his previous comments about hanging Davis, that a jury made up of 50% freedmen would assure Davis was hanged, and that an actual trial would be pointless. That Johnson would be so possessed by racist fervor that this would matter that much to him is hard to believe.
Finally, Reeves does not answer the obvious paradox he lays out in the closing pages. Lee was simultaneously used as an archetypal figure to justify the white supremacist post-war Southern society that justified abysmal treatment of blacks and exemplified as anti-slavery, anti-racist, and a benevolent Southern gentleman by Lost Cause revisionists. These two views of Lee are not compatible, and while Reeves obviously did not set out to write a book about Lost Cause revisionism or the deification of Lee (outside of its nascent stages in the few years following Appomattox), an explanation is really required.
In any case, Reeves' book does precisely what it sets out to do, which is to detail how Lee's treason indictment was vigorously pursued, and were it not for the circumstances, he would at least have gone to trial and had a very good chance of losing. It's anybody's guess what merely going to trial would have done to his legacy, nevermind being hanged for treason.
In reality, Lee was most likely second on the list of people whose hanging was most desired in the wake of the defeat of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox and the subsequent assassination of President Lincoln. The hawk Johnson wanted no more than to see his longtime rival Jefferson Davis hanged, but saw Lee in the same vein, as "arch-rebel".
Ultimately, the reason why Lee (and Davis) did not see the rope is because of a lack of a comprehensive effort to bring up charges in a winnable way. This caused delays that eventually took a back seat to Johnson's impeachment trial. As the wounds healed, the general public preferred to let sleeping dogs lie, and Johnson eventually issued a general amnesty for all rebels for political reasons.
Reeves lays out the case in an unbiased way that anyone could appreciate. The sections about Grant's defenses of Lee are particularly interesting. However, I could not give the book more stars for the following reasons.
First, while the Wirz trial and hanging by a military tribunal is fascinating, especially since it seems to be the only case of a CSA official, government or military, seeing any kind of real punishment, Reeves spends too much time trying to build a (weak) case against Lee for his culpability in the poor POW camps. He does probably shoulder some moral responsibility indirectly, but it's very hard to accept that he shoulders blame in any meaningful or legal sense. While it's interesting to think of the hypothetical of him being tried in a military tribunal for his responsibility in the POW camp conditions, this is not a strong point of the book.
Second, I found the conclusion, which Reeves considers to be true, that Andrew Johnson did not want Davis tried because the jury was half composed of freedmen, to be dubious. The only evidence of this is a single conversation where Johnson implies in an vaguely morose and odd way, given his previous comments about hanging Davis, that a jury made up of 50% freedmen would assure Davis was hanged, and that an actual trial would be pointless. That Johnson would be so possessed by racist fervor that this would matter that much to him is hard to believe.
Finally, Reeves does not answer the obvious paradox he lays out in the closing pages. Lee was simultaneously used as an archetypal figure to justify the white supremacist post-war Southern society that justified abysmal treatment of blacks and exemplified as anti-slavery, anti-racist, and a benevolent Southern gentleman by Lost Cause revisionists. These two views of Lee are not compatible, and while Reeves obviously did not set out to write a book about Lost Cause revisionism or the deification of Lee (outside of its nascent stages in the few years following Appomattox), an explanation is really required.
In any case, Reeves' book does precisely what it sets out to do, which is to detail how Lee's treason indictment was vigorously pursued, and were it not for the circumstances, he would at least have gone to trial and had a very good chance of losing. It's anybody's guess what merely going to trial would have done to his legacy, nevermind being hanged for treason.
April 7, 2022
I read this book on the urging of my son. Owain is about to graduate from the University of Vermont with a history degree, and found The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee on the shelves of my local library, here in Manassas, Virginia.
It's a fascinating and strange book, an unusual cut through the American Civil War's conclusion and aftermath.
The focus is on what happened to Robert E. Lee at the war's end. In 1865 many in the north wanted him tried and punished for treason and the deaths of thousands. Yet Lee was never tried, and died of natural causes, respected by growing numbers of Americans. John Reeves' task is to explain what happened.
The answer is a bit complicated but makes sense. In brief: Andrew Johnson, president after Lincoln's assassination, initially sought to punish (i.e., indict and hopefully hang) Confederate leaders, including Lee as well as the CSA's president, Jefferson Davis, but logistical and legal snags kept cropping up. Eventually Johnson, overwhelmed by the office, besieged by political opponents, and sabotaging his own political capital, gave up on punishment and offered a blanket amnesty. Reeves is a good enough writer to make this interesting. He's also done a deep dive into contemporary documents. I'm not a period specialist, so I can't vouch for their success professionally; it felt convincing to me.
All of that is perhaps one half of the book. Around it The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee tells several other stories. There's the quick trial and execution of Henry Wirz, Andersonville's commandant, and (I think) the only Confederate to have been so treated. There's Jefferson Davis' fate, which roughly parallels Lee's: under threat of trial, under a northern cloud, loved by the south, losing money, unclear what to do next. There's a sketch of the shambolic Johnson administration, but Reeves holds back from the full story, including the impeachment. Then the book concludes with the Lost Cause story and how it unfolded into the 20th century. All of these bear on the story of Lee's indictment and unfulfilled prosecution.
I'm not an American Civil War buff. I said earlier that I'm not an Americanist. My undergrad degree was in Russian, anarchist, and Byzantine history, while my PhD was in British literature. But I try to peer into American studies as best I can, as an American and a curious fellow. The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee fascinated me and showed me new stuff. Good enough.
It's a fascinating and strange book, an unusual cut through the American Civil War's conclusion and aftermath.
The focus is on what happened to Robert E. Lee at the war's end. In 1865 many in the north wanted him tried and punished for treason and the deaths of thousands. Yet Lee was never tried, and died of natural causes, respected by growing numbers of Americans. John Reeves' task is to explain what happened.
The answer is a bit complicated but makes sense. In brief: Andrew Johnson, president after Lincoln's assassination, initially sought to punish (i.e., indict and hopefully hang) Confederate leaders, including Lee as well as the CSA's president, Jefferson Davis, but logistical and legal snags kept cropping up. Eventually Johnson, overwhelmed by the office, besieged by political opponents, and sabotaging his own political capital, gave up on punishment and offered a blanket amnesty. Reeves is a good enough writer to make this interesting. He's also done a deep dive into contemporary documents. I'm not a period specialist, so I can't vouch for their success professionally; it felt convincing to me.
All of that is perhaps one half of the book. Around it The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee tells several other stories. There's the quick trial and execution of Henry Wirz, Andersonville's commandant, and (I think) the only Confederate to have been so treated. There's Jefferson Davis' fate, which roughly parallels Lee's: under threat of trial, under a northern cloud, loved by the south, losing money, unclear what to do next. There's a sketch of the shambolic Johnson administration, but Reeves holds back from the full story, including the impeachment. Then the book concludes with the Lost Cause story and how it unfolded into the 20th century. All of these bear on the story of Lee's indictment and unfulfilled prosecution.
I'm not an American Civil War buff. I said earlier that I'm not an Americanist. My undergrad degree was in Russian, anarchist, and Byzantine history, while my PhD was in British literature. But I try to peer into American studies as best I can, as an American and a curious fellow. The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee fascinated me and showed me new stuff. Good enough.
March 1, 2020
The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee was highly interesting, but not quite satisfying. John Reeves has done excellent research and woven together a complicated story explaining why the indictment for treason of Robert E. Lee and 36 other Confederate leaders was never prosecuted. Politics, legal maneuvering, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and the plain desire to move on as quickly as possible from the War Between the States produced the ultimate failure to prosecute.
Reeves also traces Lee's thoughts on both secession and slavery revealing a man beneath the myth; a man whose circumstance (and perhaps his ill health) had modified his views, especially on slavery. By modern standards, Lee was certainly a racist. So was Andrew Johnson, the President who was desperate to hang Lee. Reeves handles this discussion in a very objective way and stays focused on the facts that we have at our disposal.
Reeves introduces his book with the story of Lee’s pardon, which was granted by Congress in 1975 (the House approved 407-10), then brings the story of America’s reaction to Lee all the way up to the Charlottesville riot in 2017. The rest of the book details the history of the indictment (1865-1868) and the contemporary reaction to Lee, including the beginnings of the Lost Cause mythology with Lee’s nobility and genius as its centerpiece. Based on the introduction, I expected to read at least one chapter which would trace the Lee mythology from 1868 through today, but that chapter did not appear. Hence, it was not quite satisfying to me. Nevertheless, it is fascinating history, well-told, and thus worthy of 5 stars.
Reeves also traces Lee's thoughts on both secession and slavery revealing a man beneath the myth; a man whose circumstance (and perhaps his ill health) had modified his views, especially on slavery. By modern standards, Lee was certainly a racist. So was Andrew Johnson, the President who was desperate to hang Lee. Reeves handles this discussion in a very objective way and stays focused on the facts that we have at our disposal.
Reeves introduces his book with the story of Lee’s pardon, which was granted by Congress in 1975 (the House approved 407-10), then brings the story of America’s reaction to Lee all the way up to the Charlottesville riot in 2017. The rest of the book details the history of the indictment (1865-1868) and the contemporary reaction to Lee, including the beginnings of the Lost Cause mythology with Lee’s nobility and genius as its centerpiece. Based on the introduction, I expected to read at least one chapter which would trace the Lee mythology from 1868 through today, but that chapter did not appear. Hence, it was not quite satisfying to me. Nevertheless, it is fascinating history, well-told, and thus worthy of 5 stars.
September 20, 2018
An interesting, informative, and thorough read that will hopefully educate people on the Lost Cause. Reeves has resurrected a lot of history that has fallen into the cracks. Legal history mostly. The North might have won the war but they lost the peace. Reeves explains President Johnson’s motivation towards holding the top tier leaders of the South accountable for treason. It mirrors today’s same dilemmas over military or civil prosecutions of terrorists. Lincoln’s assassins and the commandant of Andersonville were all tried in military courts as the Civil War had not been declared over with martial law in much of the South. That took one year. Nor could the legal minds of the North agree on where the trials of Davis or Lee should occur and who should be the judge. Justice Samuel Chase deserves much of the blame for delaying the trials which never occurred. That took another two years. Johnson meanwhile was a racist and not about to grant freedmen equality. Frustrated by the long delays and mired in his impeachment proceedings Johnson realized it was too late. Davis and Lee weathered the storm and were pardoned and freed out of a momentum to move on. Never having paid the price for their treason they were glorified as heroes. Reeves explains the Lost Cause objectively with the book ending with the dedication of Lee’s statue in Richmond in 1890.
February 7, 2023
Growing up in the South, I’d absorbed a lot of the Lost Cause narrative that painted Lee as an uncomplicated, heroic, exemplary moral figure. While I’ve moved well past that view, I had no idea that he was actually indicted for treason after the Civil War and came close to being tried for his crimes against humanity. Definitely recommend this book for a balanced, factual view of his actions during the war and subsequent legal issues that he and other Confederate leaders faced after the war. I wish the author had written more about the rise of the cult of personality surrounding Lee and how it still thrives today; he touches on it briefly in the last chapter, but it could probably be a book-length topic on its own.
February 19, 2021
Was Robert E. Lee a hero or a villain? This book discusses this very point & traces the efforts of the Johnson administration after the end of hostilities to decide what to do with him. Was he traitor to be hung or a defeated military who happened to be on the losing side? In the end, as we know, Lee wasn't put on trial & executed.
How Robert E. Lee is viewed & remembered is still a live issue in the USA today. Was he a hero? Was he good man who fought for a bad cause or a bad man who fought for a bad cause? Those questions are still a subject for discussion & controversy. After reading this book my thoughts on the matter are much clearer.
How Robert E. Lee is viewed & remembered is still a live issue in the USA today. Was he a hero? Was he good man who fought for a bad cause or a bad man who fought for a bad cause? Those questions are still a subject for discussion & controversy. After reading this book my thoughts on the matter are much clearer.
October 19, 2024
This book fills in some holes in my knowledge of American History, especially as it relates to Robert E. Lee and other confederate military and political figures. It was a very straightforward, factual account of how difficult it was for the country to deal with these people after the Civil War ended. Should they be indicted and tried for treason, should they be punished in some way, or should they basically be forgiven?
This was, for me, a good companion book to Robert E. Lee and Me by Ty Seidule Stephen White, which I recently read.
This was, for me, a good companion book to Robert E. Lee and Me by Ty Seidule Stephen White, which I recently read.
November 19, 2018
This book sheds light on a forgotten chapter of US history. Immediately after the Civil War, many people wanted to prosecute former rebel leaders for treason. This book details the discussions between prominent Union leaders and their antagonists about whether former Confederates were protected under Grant's surrender terms at Appomattox or whether they could face trial for their transgressions. A fascinating read.
November 4, 2018
I found this to be a relatively even-handed, and well-researched, take on the US Government's efforts to charge Lee and other Confederate leaders with treason. The book included much insight I had not seen before, and was especially helpful in understanding the evolution of American views of Lee from the immediate post-war period until today.
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June 23, 2023Not only do you get a glimpse into the mind of R.E.L. but also to the southern mentality AFTER the civil war. A time period that is often overlooked and not learned. Reeves gives many different views from both sides of the war and lets you make your own conclusion. Book ends nicely and left me with the yearning to learn more about the reconstruction era.
December 22, 2018
Outstanding review of history. Shows the fraudulency of the "Lost Cause" of states rights as to being about the right to slavery and spread of white supremacy. Completely dubunks the myth of Lee's heroism
May 10, 2021
outstanding and timely. A must read.
At a time when this country is being torn apart by unresolved racial strife
this book is an important reminder of our history and the consequences of inaction.
At a time when this country is being torn apart by unresolved racial strife
this book is an important reminder of our history and the consequences of inaction.
September 8, 2018
Very readable and a concentrated treatment of Lee's situation after the war.
January 7, 2022
A surprising case where the information is even more compelling than the title. This book is very useful in an academic and curious historical toolkit.
May 18, 2022
You will learn a lot, but you will hear it all at least twice.
May 24, 2023
This work sheds light on the relationships of President Andrew Johnson with his political allies and enemies, and then wanders aimlessly through the R.E. Lee mythologies we already knew.
September 4, 2023
This book was incredibly informative and made me realize how much we weren't taught about the Confederacy and lies that were told via "Lost Cause" messaging and myth making.
November 6, 2024
An interesting read, especially post Jan 6th. Could still be a more engaging one… happy to find a historical text that addresses a missing topic
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