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The Making of Robert E. Lee, by Michael Fellman
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Pp. xx, 360. Illus., notes, index. $18.95 . ISBN:0-8018-7411-4.
As has proven the case with his personal hero, George Washington, the true
Robert E. Lee, man and a soldier, suffered greatly from the mythmakers. In
Washington�s case the problem was the Parson Weems school of idolaters. For Lee
it was the �Lost Cause� historians. (No coincidence here that Douglas Southall
Freeman penned monumental biographies of both men.) For both Virginians, getting
at the real man has proven difficult, as the mythic image was greatly treasured.
For Washington the work was largely accomplished by the bicentennial . For Lee
it began with Thomas Connelly�s 1977 work The Marble Man, and is still
underway.
In The Making of Robert E. Lee Michael Fellman looks at both the
making of the real man and the making of myth. Only four of the thirteen
chapters are actually about the Civil War. The others focus on Lee�s early life,
including the impact on his character of the abandonment of his family by his
rebrobate father and the subsequent disgrace of his equally shameful older
half-brother. Considerable attention is paid to the political, cultural, and
social forces that shaped his views. As Fellman points out, most biographers
pass lightly over his views on slavery, picking and choosing to prop up Lee�s
image, and also ignore his tendency to snobbishness, surely a mechanism to
insure that he maintain a �gentlemanly� image at all times (in contrast to his
father and brother). Equally so, however, Lee�s biographers seem to miss his
surprisingly impish sense of humor (there�s a wonderful anecdote describing how
Freeman so totally misunderstood a little joke of Lee�s that he seems to have
thought it implied the man had committed murder!) and his playful relationships
with young women.
While The Making of Robert E. Lee does not delve deeply into Lee�s
military accomplishments, it represents a valuable work for anyone interested
in the Civil War.
Reviewer: Albert A. Nofi
Buy it at Amazon.com
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