Robert E. Lee's Civil War | 
 enlarge | Author: Bevin Alexander
Publisher: Adams Media
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 976839
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 338
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.2
ISBN: 158062135X
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.73013
EAN: 9781580621359
ASIN: 158062135X
Publication Date: May 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Military historian Bevin Alexander offers a view of Robert E. Lee's entire Civil War career, focusing on tactics and battlefield maneuvers. Alexander keeps the narrative moving with colorful anecdotes drawn from contemporaneous accounts, but the real value of his book lies in the detailed rendering of strategy and execution of the various battles. Alexander offers a fair appraisal of Lee as tactician, noting both his strengths and failings on the battlefield.
Product Description
This vivid depiction of the fiercest battles ever fought on American soil presents the Civil War as you've never seen it before-with a provocative re-examination of the military genius of Robert E. Lee, and a critical, pragmatic re-evaluation of the performance of the generals who led the armies of both South and North. Military strategist and historian Bevin Alexander takes you behind the battle lines into the general's camps offering a gripping look at the uncertainties, the bravado, and the often misguided decisions of these West Point-trained officers as they struggle to adapt traditional strategies to a new era of warfare. Robert E. Lee-the South's most revered military leader-receives full credit for both his outstanding defensive maneuvers and for his remarkable achievement in holding together a disorganized and often under-equipped Confederate Army. But, Alexander also demonstrates how Lee's rigid belief in launching large-scale attacks on Union armies led inevitably to the Confederacy's defeat.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
A critique of Lee as a general and respect for Lee as a person July 11, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is another in a set of critiques of Robert E. Lee's generalship during the Civil War. It also notes that he may have done far more for all concerned at the close of the war.
This is competently written and rather simplistically argued.
As many others, Alexander argues that Lee was far too aggressive and took offensive action too reflexively. He notes the bloodletting during the Seven Days and at Gettysburg as examples. His basic point (page ix):
"The key to understanding Lee as a commander is that he sought from first to last to fight an offensive war. . . . This offensive war, though it produced many spectacular clashes and campaigns which arouse fascination to this day, ultimately failed because Lee's methods and his strategy were insufficient to overcome the South's weakness in arms and manpower."
He juxtaposes Lee with Stonewall Jackson, who preferred defensive action--with rapid flank attacks and so on as preferable to frontal attacks. The examples in the book suggest that there may be something to this argument, but--again--the final analysis appears a bit simplistic.
However, the author also pays tribute to Lee at his surrender at Appomattox. Here, Lee urged his countrymen to return peacefully and give up the fight. In that sense, he was a strong voice for ending the war and binding the wounds of disunion.
This is worth taking a look at, but the argument is rather simplistic.
 Lee Revealed March 29, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I am not a military historian nor a civil war specialist, but am an avid reader, have read Foote's books recently and have read many more books on the Civil War ove the years. This book goes into great detail discussing the military and strategy mistakes Lee made, crucial to the war's final outcome. It is not a Lee-bashing book, but puts him in perspective, contradicting the traditional "he can do no wrong" or "he can do no right" viewpoints, in my opinion. It is dry in tone and style in many parts--it is, after all, not a fictional novel but a scholarly, well researched and well-written nonfiction book.
But, through letters and personal reminiscences, Lee becomes human. He is not deified or vilified. He was after all, just a man--educated, well trained, with great courage and dignity, but still--just a man. We should remember that and judge him and his place in history accordingly.
My Cousin President Lincoln beat the South by being bigger August 8, 2005
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Robert E Lees Civil War by Bevin Alexander is a decent read. The Civil War was basically a war of Attrition and the North outnumbered the South. Admittedly the South had more courageous Generals at first. Then came Antietam where Union General Mcclellan captured General Lees plan of march and joined battle with him. Antietam was the bloodiest day of fighting in American history especially when you think that both sides were American. The Southern Army retreated from the field of battle leaving the Union Army to survey the destruction. General McClellan said to one wounded Southerner "You men fought bravely today" and the Southerner replied "Yes and here we lie." The flanking moves of Southern General Stonewall Jackson are mentioned but he usually failed to exploit his successes sometimes stopped by nightfall. This book says that General Lee liked frontal assaults which were bloody in the days of the minie ball ammunition which was large and accurately fired. At the battle of Gettysburg Lee appeared to throw the battle and the war with Picketts charge. Some of my cousin President Lincolns advisors wanted General Grant replaced but Lincoln said "He fights." General Lee was a Christian and that may help explain his graceful surrender a Appotomax. Civil War buffs will like this book.
 read Bonekemper's book instead April 24, 2005
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
As someone who greatly dislikes the deification of Lee, I was looking forward to seeing him taken down a few pegs. Alexander certainly does that, but he sacrifices truth to do it. Lee can do no right is just as bad as Lee can do no wrong. In effect, Alexander deifies Jackson in place of Lee. People who want truth instead of fantasy should avoid this book.
In my opinion, Bonekemper (How Robert E. Lee Lost the Civil War) does a much better and much more historically accurate job of bringing Lee down to earth. (But for a really excellent comparison of Lee and Grant's generalship, read Gordon Rhea's superb, fair, and detailed 4 volumes on Wilderness to Cold Harbor.)
The only reason I give Alexander's ax-grinder of a book even 2 stars is that it is well written.
 Fantasy Land June 14, 2004
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book is a mixed bag of stuff that's largely not worth bothering with.
First, Alexander points out that Lee made far too many frontal assaults, from his first battle to his last. This is quite true, and we can justly point out that what Nathan Bedford Forrest figured out in his first action ('Never make a frontal attack if there's a half-way decent alternative'), R. E. Lee may still not quite grasped in '65. But a one-sentence idea does not make a book.
Second, Alexander rehashes his 1996 volume "Lost Victories: The Military Genius of Stonewall Jackson." If only Davis and Lee and _listened_ to Jackson, we're told, and implemented his strategies, the South would have won in 1862 or '63. But war is the realm of uncertainty: the one time Jackson's ideas were followed to the letter, Chancellorsville, things didn't go as planned, Jackson died, and it's arguable that Hooker would have won the battle if he hadn't been wounded.
Thirdly, there's fantasy masquerading as analysis. For instance, during the Gettysburg campaign, Lee should have attacked Philadelphia! That would have taken the Army of Northern Virginia 80 or so miles further into Northern territory, cut Lee's line of retreat, and enabled Lincoln to move troops there first via Philadelphia's concentration of rail lines, the thickest in the United States, but what the heck, it was certain to work because . . . well, that's where I lose the thread.
And then there's random inconsistency. Lee was a menace to the Confederacy because he constantly made frontal assaults on superior numbers in strong positions. Braxton Bragg, otoh, invaded KY in the summer of '62, and had a chance to take Lexington -- by making a frontal assault against superior numbers in a strong position. Ah, but Bragg also had an entire separate Union force on his tail, one that ALSO outnumbered him. Besides, Bragg's troops were badly worn out by marching and short rations, and Bragg's subordinates frequently disobeyed orders without even telling Bragg what they were doing. So obviously Bragg's failure to attack Lexington reflects a loss of nerve, because a Confederate attack would have inevitably won. "RIGHT!", as Noah said to the Lord.
There are many good books on the Civil War. This isn't one of them. Skip it.
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