Robert E. Lee: The Soldier

by Frederick Maurice

This work is neither a life of Lee, nor a history of the Civil War. It is an appreciation of Lee's generalship. When the Civil War began, Lee resigned his commission with the United States Army to command the Virginia forces and was the military advisor to Jefferson Davis. As the commander of the Northern Virginia army, he stopped Federal forces near Richmond, later being defeated at Gettysburg. Finally in 1865 as General in Chief of all Confederate Armies, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House.

Genres: Civil War, Biography, History, Civil War History, American History

313 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1925

About the author

Major-General Sir Frederick Barton Maurice, 1st Baronet GCB, GCMG, GCVO, DSO was a senior British Army officer, military correspondent, writer and academic. During the First World War he was famously forced to resign his commission in May 1918 after writing a letter to The Times criticizing Prime Minister David Lloyd George for making misleading statements about the strength of British forces on the Western Front. He also founded the British Legion in 1920, and served as its president from 1932 to 1947.

Grandson of F.D. Maurice, theologian, and son of Sir John Frederick Maurice, general.

Reviews

[Miles Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I debated whether to give this three or four stars. I settled on four because while I found some of Sir Frederick's writing to be uninteresting, I'm not a military historian and he's clearly writing a military biography that is doubling as a study of Lee's generalship. General Maurice was an impeccable writer and the book's style is excellent. Maurice was also fair-minded. He admired Lee but did not slip into hagiography. The fact that he was British also makes this work interesting, precisely because he doesn't have the emotionalized connection to the Civil War that so many Americans did as late as the 1920s.

[Kent · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was quite a useful book, written post-World War I by British major-general Sir Frederick Maurice. It is useful for its simple and clear discussion of Lee's ability as a general. Though I have read more than one account of many of Lee's battles, the overall strategical picture did not emerge until I read this book. As it emerged, so did Lee's brilliance, not only in original and imaginative maneuverings, but in his ability to integrate a bewildering number of factors and make them subserve his single, broad goal. Maurice also demonstrates that there was sound, if unconventional, military reasoning behind every one of Lee's dramatic risks, and the fact that they almost invariably paid off was not due to luck, as some of Lee's detractors have wished to allege, but due to careful planning, foresight, knowledge of his opponent, and his singular quality of staying multiple strategic steps ahead of his opponent. His ability to read Grant's intentions and anticipate his movements, near the end of the war, was nearly miraculous, and accounted for his ability to hold off Grant's 180,000 with his own 80,000, and to force Grant to pay 55,000 lives for an advance of 70 miles.

At the end Maurice gives a general assessment of Lee's place in history, and after some discussion, concludes that he ranks with Napoleon's pantheon of great generals: Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Prince Eugene, and Frederick the Great. Though the author does not mention it, I find it striking that General Lee is the first of the world's great military leaders who attained his status in a fully Christian way. His brilliance was displayed in a purely defensive and protective war, without the slightest intention of acquiring an empire. In fact, Lee constantly regretted the need for war and wished he could have chosen an other than military career. His conduct when on enemy soil was scrupulous to the last degree (Lee's only recorded loss of temper came during the march toward Gettysburg when he came across a soldier who had stolen a pig from a northern civilian). He accepted with reluctance every increase of authority given him by the Confederate government and indignantly spurned some unofficial overtures to make him dictator. He refrained from public cricitism of faulty execution by his subordinates, even when it came at the most crucial point of the war, saying to the last that he would take all responsibility. His personal life was characterized by unrelenting devotion to an invalid wife, diligent care for his seven children, and a deep evangelical faith.

It is difficult to emphasise how unprecendented in history is this combination of genius, restraint, and self-effacement. It is fitting that Lee provides the grand finale, as it were, to western Christendom's involvement in warfare, and represents the highest development to date in the Christian project of dedicating great ability and power to the defence of those in distress.

(This isn't just a lapse into purple prose or hagiography. All of that is true about Lee, and almost none of it is true even of other Christian generals, such as Gustavus Adolphus. Once he is placed in world-historical context, it is hard to escape the conclusion that General Lee provided the capstone of the first Christendom's involvement in warfare. It is intriguing to think what the next age may bring, wherever and whenever it comes.)