Robert E. Lee

Introduction

The son of a Revolutionary War hero, with deep roots in the Virginia aristocracy, Robert Edward Lee compiled an exemplary academic and disciplinary record en route to graduation from the US Military Academy in 1829. His personal character and performance in the decades that followed as an engineer, a member of Winfield Scott’s staff during the Mexican War, and a cavalry commander made him one of the most respected officers in the US Army when the Civil War began. After turning down the offer of command of Union armies, he resigned from the service of the United States and accepted appointment as commander-in-chief of Virginia’s armed forces. Early in the war, problematic performances in western Virginia and along the Atlantic Coast raised questions about his suitability to command in the field; these doubts were thoroughly dashed in the months after he assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862. In the year and a half that followed his appointment to command, forces under Lee won impressive battlefield victories that arrested and then reversed the momentum of victory that Union armies had achieved and enabled him to carry the war north of the Potomac River on two occasions, with only setbacks in the 1862 Maryland and 1863 Gettysburg Campaigns to mar his record during this time. In 1864–1865, inexorable pressure exerted by larger Federal forces commanded by Ulysses S. Grant pushed Lee and his army back into the defenses of Richmond and Petersburg. Finally, in April 1865, Grant’s forces broke the Confederate lines around Petersburg, then chased Lee’s army down and compelled its surrender at Appomattox Court House. After the war was over, Lee’s compliance with the results of the war assuaged anxieties about Southern willingness to accept defeat. A superb battlefield commander, keen strategist and practitioner of the operational art, a possessor of sterling personal character, and a supreme leader of men, during and after the war Lee achieved a stature in the eyes of the American people that few have enjoyed and one that has inevitably inspired a backlash. Few officers in American history have compiled as impressive a record in service to—and against—his country as Lee or inspired a more extensive body of literature.

Biographies and Personality Studies

Given Lee’s importance and that of the events of which he was a part, the list of biographical studies of the general’s life is not as extensive as one might expect. This is largely a consequence of the massive shadow that Douglas Southall Freeman’s magnificent four-volume biography, Freeman 1934–1935, casts over the literature on Lee. The laudatory tone of Freeman’s work, and the fact that he wrote it as the descendent of a veteran of the Army of Northern Virginia and an unapologetic admirer of Lee’s (an admiring tone also characterizes Dowdey 1965), has generated a backlash against the general and Freeman’s biography, which is evident in much of the literature that has appeared in recent decades. Some of this reaction was undoubtedly inevitable, given the dramatic way that the Civil Rights Movement affected (or should have affected) perspectives on the South and the war it waged for independence. The great danger, though, and one of the problems associated with this change in society’s perspective on matters in general, and on the sectional conflict in particular, is for its leading authors to judge historical figures by standards that would have been alien to those figures. Although not the first to question whether Lee and his generalship were worthy of the high esteem in which both had traditionally been held, Connelly 1977 has inspired others to try to chip away at the Lee legend and its provocative arguments have been flattered with imitation in Nolan 1991, while Fellman 2000 likewise attempts to push the anti-Lee banner forward. Books that endeavor to steer a middle course and take a more balanced approach to Lee have also appeared in recent decades. The best of these is the premier one-volume biography, Thomas 1995, as well as McCaslin 2001, Reid 2005, and Pryor 2007.

Connelly, Thomas L. The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and His Image in American Society. New York: Knopf, 1977.
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A bracingly revisionist take on Lee as a man and general. The work is also a compelling account of the factors that led to what Connelly argues is a distorted view of Lee’s life and career and his exalted place in American history in general and Southern history in particular.
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Dowdey, Clifford. Lee. Boston: Little, Brown, 1965.
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A massive one-volume biography of Lee, the author of which is enthusiastic in his admiration for Lee, his character, and his generalship.
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Fellman, Michael. The Making of Robert E. Lee. New York: Random House, 2000.
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A critical account and assessment of Lee’s life and character, distinguished by a decidedly unsympathetic tone toward its subject and the Southern cause.
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Freeman, Douglas Southall. R. E. Lee: A Biography. 4 vols. New York: Scribner’s, 1934–1935.
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Freeman’s massive biography of Lee is characterized by an admiring, though by no means completely uncritical, tone toward its subject. Since its publication, Freeman’s work has so dominated scholarship on Lee that any work on the general’s life and career must address this work’s arguments. It remains the most thorough account of Lee’s life and career and one of the truly great biographical works in the history of the English language.
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McCaslin, Richard B. Lee in the Shadow of Washington. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001.
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A very good short overview of Lee’s life and career; emphasizes Lee’s efforts to follow the model set by George Washington in both his personal life and military career.
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Nolan, Alan T. Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
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A critical, polemical look at Lee that makes little pretense of balanced analysis. Whether the subject is Lee’s character, his generalship, or his image in history, the author finds little to admire and much to criticize.
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Pryor, Elizabeth Brown. Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through His Private Letters. New York: Viking, 2007.
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A massive, compelling look at Lee’s life; draws from previously unseen primary source materials to paint a complex portrait of Lee, with particular focus on his personal side.
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Reid, Brian Holden. Robert E. Lee: Icon for a Nation. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2005.
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A brief but impressive account of Lee’s career, Reid finds far more to admire than criticize in Lee’s character and generalship.
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Thomas, Emory M. Robert E. Lee: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.
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Thomas’s outstanding study is the best one-volume scholarly biography of Lee’s life. This portrait of Lee as a man is warm, yet remarkably balanced, and eminently compelling.
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Primary Sources: Reports and Correspondence

The most important primary sources on Lee are his actual writings. Bowery and Hankinson 2003 will be useful to readers interested in Lee’s tenure as superintendent at the US Military Academy (1852–1855). Lee’s wartime writings are usefully compiled in Lee 1904 and Dowdey and Manarin 1961 (editors also offer useful commentary), though there are some documents for which one must turn to Lee 1904, Freeman and McWhiney 1957, and US War Department 1880–1901.

Bowery, Charles R., Jr., and Brian D. Hankinson, eds. United States Military Academy Superintendent’s Letter Book No. 2 and No. 3: The Daily Correspondence of Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee, Superintendent, United States Military Academy, September 1, 1852 to March 24, 1855. United States Military Academy Library Occasional Papers #5. West Point, NY: U.S. Military Academy Library, 2003.
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Lee’s official correspondence from the nearly three years he served as superintendent of the US Military Academy during the 1850s.
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Dowdey, Clifford, and Louis H. Manarin, eds. The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961.
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A compilation of Lee’s writings from the war, both personal and military; one of the cornerstones of modern scholarship on Lee.
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Freeman, Douglas Southall, and Grady McWhiney, eds. Unpublished Letters of General Robert E. Lee, C.S.A. to Jefferson Davis and the War Department of the Confederate States of America, 1862–65. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1957.
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A collection of over 200 official documents written by Lee from the time he assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862 to the end of the war.
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Lee, Robert Edward, Jr. Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee, by His Son. New York: Doubleday, Page, 1904.
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A useful collection of documents that shed light on the personal side of Lee’s life and offers warm commentary on it and his military career.
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Taylor, Walter Herron. Lee’s Adjutant: The Wartime Letters of Colonel Walter Herron Taylor, 1862–1865. Edited by R. Lockwood Tower. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995.
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Walter Herron Taylor was a member of Lee’s staff, and his letters provide insights into his experiences and Lee’s efforts as a commander that are not contained in his postwar writings.
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US War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. 70 vols. in 128 parts. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901.
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The most important source for anyone doing research on the Civil War, the seventy volumes of the “OR” contain correspondence, reports, and returns that trace the conduct of the war on land.
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Primary Sources: Memoirs and Other Works by Contemporaries

After the Civil War, Lee undertook an effort to gather materials in order to prepare what he believed was a badly needed “true” history of his army, its campaigns, and the factors that led to its defeat. Unfortunately, Lee died before he could undertake such a history. Still, Lee’s contemporaries left no shortage of published primary source material on the Confederate commander. The most important of these works were produced after the war by subordinates of Lee’s who promoted what is known as the “Lost Cause” school of Civil War historiography, in which Lee’s sterling character and generalship were presented as exemplars of the Southern cause and his ultimate defeat being attributable to Union numbers and failures of his subordinates—James Longstreet principal among them. Among the leading works in this regard, written by one of the leading figures in propagating the Lost Cause image of Lee, is Early 1912. An admiring tone toward Lee is naturally evident as well in works by members of his family and staff, such as Lee 1894, Marshall 1927, and Taylor 1878. Invaluable perspectives, in part due to the less hagiographic tone toward the Army of Northern Virginia’s commander that characterizes their work, are to be found in the accounts in Alexander 1989 and Longstreet 1896. A variety of views and much invaluable information on Lee and his campaigns can be found in Johnson and Buel 1887–1888.

Alexander, Edward Porter. Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of Edward Porter Alexander. Edited by Gary W. Gallagher. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
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One of the best primary source accounts in existence on the history of the Army of Northern Virginia. Porter Alexander was not only a major player in the army’s history, but a keen analyst of men and events as well.
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Early, Jubal A. Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early: Autobiographical Sketches and Narrative of the War between the States. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1912.
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In addition to being one of the key figures in the emergence of the Lost Cause school of interpretation of the Civil War and its deification of Lee, Jubal Early was an important officer in the Army of Northern Virginia whose take on things is always interesting.
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Johnson, Robert U., and Clarence C. Buel, eds. Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York: Century Company, 1887–1888.
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This anthology of essays by participants in the Civil War is one of the most important collections of primary source material on the war, though the fact that contributors consciously used the opportunity to write their essays to settle scores and give their perspectives on various controversies means that the anthology must be used with considerable care.
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Lee, Fitzhugh. General Lee: A Biography. New York, 1894.
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An admiring biography by a man who, in addition to being the nephew of the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, was one of the Confederacy’s most famous cavalry commanders. Fitzhugh Lee also had access to family papers and used them extensively in crafting this book.
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Long, Armistead L., and Marcus J. Wright, eds. Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: His Military and Personal History. Philadelphia: J. M. Stoddart, 1886.
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This is a misleadingly titled work, in that it is not actually a memoir by General Lee. Armistead Long, however, saw extensive service on Lee’s staff and in this work provides a rich collection of anecdotes and insights from his service during the war.
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Longstreet, James. From Manassas to Appomattox. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1896.
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Few men enjoyed Lee’s trust to the extent that James Longstreet did during the war. Few men saw their military reputations suffer to the extent that Longstreet’s did at the hands of Lee’s admirers after the war. This is Longstreet’s response to those critics and an essential work for students of the history of Army of Northern Virginia.
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Marshall, Charles. Lee’s Aide-de-Camp. Edited by Frederick Maurice. Boston: Little, Brown, 1927.
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A warm reminiscence by Charles Marshall about his service on Lee’s staff, this work offers useful insights into Lee’s management of his army and was clearly written with an eye on addressing the various controversies that emerged after the war in a way that was favorable to Lee.
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Taylor, Walter Herron. Four Years with General Lee. New York: D. Appleton, 1878.
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Taylor was perhaps Lee’s closest staff officer, and his memoir offers some useful insights into the conduct of military operations, though Taylor is clearly endeavoring to support his chief’s argument that defeat was a consequence of superior Union numbers. Taylor also authored General Lee: His Campaigns in Virginia, 1861–1865 (1906; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994).
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Essays

Lee has been the subject of numerous essays in the 150 years since the Civil War. Gallagher’s Lee the Soldier (Gallagher 1996, cited under Military Studies) is remarkably thorough in bringing together the best of those essays published prior to 1996. Important contributions to the anti-Lee literature can be found in Bruce 1895–1918, Connelly 1969, and Hsieh 2006. More positive views of Lee and his generalship that effectively take on the general’s critics and offer useful perspectives can be found in Castel 1970, McMurry 1989, Gallagher 1998, Gallagher 1999, Gallagher 2001, Gallagher 2004, and Thomas 1992.

Bruce, George A. “Lee and the Strategy of the Civil War.” In Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts. 14 vols. Vol. 13. 391–483. Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot, 1895–1918.
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A lengthy critique of Lee’s generalship, written by the Union veteran George Bruce, that argues Lee’s aggressive generalship produced losses the Confederacy could not afford and demonstrated a narrow focus on the Virginia theater. A shorter version appears in Gallagher 1996, cited under Military Studies.
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Castel, Albert. “The Historian and the General: Thomas L. Connelly versus Robert E. Lee.” Civil War History 16 (March 1970): 50–63.
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A tough, no-holds-barred defense of Lee’s generalship, written to counter what the author deems to have been an unmerited attempt by Thomas Connelly to, in Castel’s words, “do a job on Bobby Lee” (p. 50). This essay has been republished in Gallagher 1996 (cited under Military Studies), and Castel, Winning and Losing in the Civil War: Essays and Stories (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996).
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Connelly, Thomas L. “Robert E. Lee and the Western Confederacy: A Criticism of Lee’s Strategic Ability.” Civil War History 15 (June 1969): 116–132.
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A fierce critique of Lee’s generalship that argues for a revaluation of Lee’s generalship and offers the extraordinary conclusion that the South “may not have fared better had it possessed no Robert E. Lee” (p. 132). The article’s arguments echo points made in Bruce 1895–1918 and Fuller 1933 (the latter cited under Military Studies) that, though effectively refuted in Castel’s response (Castel 1970), have in turn been echoed by subsequent anti-Lee authors. This essay has been republished in Gallagher 1996 (cited under Military Studies).
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Gallagher, Gary W. “An Old-Fashioned Soldier in a Modern War? Robert E. Lee as Confederate General.” Civil War History 45 (December 1999): 295–321.
DOI: 10.1353/cwh.1999.0020Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A well-argued counter to those who argue that Lee’s generalship was unsuited to the challenges posed by the Civil War. The original version of the essay is republished in John T. Hubbell ed., Conflict and Command: Civil War History Readers (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2012), while a revised version appears in Gallagher 2001 (cited under Military Studies).
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Gallagher, Gary W. “The Idol of His Soldiers and the Hope of His Country.” In Lee and His Generals in War and Memory. Edited by Gary W. Gallagher, 3–20. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998.
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Describes how Lee, his personal qualities, and the record of success he achieved on the battlefield were critical to the ability of the Confederacy to survive as long as it did because of the tonic they provided to Southern morale.
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Gallagher, Gary W. “Shaping Public Memory of the Civil War: Robert E. Lee, Jubal A. Early, and Douglas Southall Freeman.” In Lee and His Army in Confederate History. Edited by Gary W. Gallagher, 255–282. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
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An excellent overview of the major shapers of Lee’s image and the Lost Cause interpretation of the Confederate war effort. Gallagher makes a compelling case for neither completely accepting nor completely rejecting the arguments of the latter in regard to Lee.
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Gallagher, Gary W. “‘A Great General Is So Rare’: Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy.” In Leaders of the Lost Cause: New Perspectives on the Confederate High Command. Edited by Gary W. Gallagher and Joseph T. Glatthaar, 1–42. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2004.
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An effective and, while eminently balanced, an ultimately favorable consideration of Lee and his military contributions to the Confederate cause.
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Hsieh, Wayne Wei-Siang. “I Owe Virginia Little, My Country Much.” In Crucible of the Civil War: Virginia from Secession to Commemoration. Edited by Edward L. Ayres, Gary W. Gallagher, and Andrew J. Torget, 35–57. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006.
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A critical look at Lee’s decision to side with the Confederacy that contrasts the decision unfavorably with the course followed by George Thomas and other Virginia officers in response to secession.
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McMurry, Richard M. “Marse Robert and the Fevers: A Note on the General as Strategist and on Medical Ideas as a Factor in Civil War Decision Making.” Civil War History 35 (September 1989): 197–207.
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A fascinating consideration of the effect that perceptions of climate had on strategy during the Civil War, this article largely validates Lee’s view of the lower Mississippi River as an area of operations. This essay has been republished in John T. Hubbell ed., Conflict and Command: Civil War History Readers. Vol. 1 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2012, pp. 255–265).
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Thomas, Emory M. “Young Man Lee.” In Leadership during the Civil War: The 1989 Deep Delta Civil War Symposium: Themes in Honor of T. Harry Williams. Edited by Roman J. Heleniak and Lawrence L. Hewitt, 38–54. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1992.
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A charming portrait of Lee’s personality and the forces that shaped it during the decades prior to his service in the Mexican-American War.
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Military Studies

It was, of course, Lee’s command of the Army of Northern Virginia that is his principal claim to fame. Not surprisingly, there are a number of very good studies examining his generalship. He figures prominently as a matter of course in all accounts of the Civil War’s military history and studies of the Army of Northern Virginia. Once again, it is a work by Douglas Southall Freeman that stands out in Freeman 1942–1944. Even before Freeman’s work was published, a strong critique of Lee’s generalship had appeared in Fuller 1933. Fuller’s work was important for presenting arguments on behalf of Grant and against Lee that would be echoed by later critics of the latter. Insightful essays that offer a wide range of opinions regarding Lee and his generalship can be found in Carmichael 2004 and Gallagher 1996, while Gallagher 1998 and Gallagher 2001 clearly place its author squarely in the pro-Lee camp alongside Harsh 1998, and Rafuse 2008. Glatthaar 2008 provides an exceptional study of Lee’s army, while Woodworth 1995 offers a good study of the Civil War in the Eastern Theater, with Lee’s relationship with President Jefferson Davis as the book’s focus.

Carmichael, Peter S., ed. Audacity Personified: The Generalship of Robert E. Lee. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004.
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A first-rate collection of essays by accomplished scholars of the Civil War; it offers useful and diverse analyses of Lee’s generalship.
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Freeman, Douglas Southall. Lee’s Lieutenants. 3 vols. New York: Scribner’s, 1942–1944.
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One of the classic works in Civil War literature, this study provides a superb examination of the Confederate war effort in the Eastern Theater and the officers who served with and under Lee.
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Fuller, J. F. C. Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1933.
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Fuller’s positive assessment of Grant’s generalship and negative take on Lee’s ran contrary to the conventional wisdom when it first appeared. It anticipated the “rediscovery” of Grant’s virtues as a general in post–World War II scholarship, though its critique of Lee’s generalship is less compelling.
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Gallagher, Gary W., ed. Lee the Soldier. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.
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A massively thorough, first-rate collection of republished and original essays on Lee, as well as conversations the general had after the war. This is an essential work for anyone interested in the conduct of the war in the Eastern Theater and the first place for readers interested in Lee’s military career to begin their study.
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Gallagher, Gary W. Lee and His Generals in War and Memory. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998.
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In this collection of mainly previously published essays, Gallagher considers Lee’s image and that of his subordinates in the context of the Lost Cause interpretation of the war.
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Gallagher, Gary W. Lee and His Army in Confederate History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
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Another superb anthology, consisting mainly of Gallagher’s previously published essays. Like the earlier one, it looks at aspects of Lee’s generalship, such how his campaigns were perceived at the time and whether he understood the “modern” dynamics of the Civil War, and how popular memory of Lee and the war in general were shaped.
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Glatthaar, Joseph T. General Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse. New York: Free Press, 2008.
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A thorough, authoritative study of the Army of Northern Virginia from the bottom up and top down. In addition to its effective account of military operations, this work provides a superb picture of the Army of Northern Virginia as a socioeconomic, cultural, and social institution.
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Harsh, Joseph L. Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861–1862. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1998.
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A compelling and outstanding account of the effort to formulate an effective strategy for the Confederacy from the start of the war through the Second Manassas Campaign. This book offers a compelling analysis of Lee’s efforts during this time.
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Rafuse, Ethan S. Robert E. Lee and the Fall of the Confederacy, 1863–1865. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
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A favorable assessment of Lee’s generalship during the last two years of the war; considers the factors that shaped his strategy and ultimately undermined his efforts to achieve victory.
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Woodworth, Steven E. Davis and Lee at War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.
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An excellent study of the war in the Eastern Theater; as the title suggests, it emphasizes what its author believes to be fundamental differences in the strategic thought of Jefferson Davis and Lee.
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Campaign Studies

Lee is most famous for the various major military operations in the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848 and Civil War of 1861–1865 in which he played a major role. An extensive body of literature exists on all of the major military campaigns in which Lee exercised command.

Mexico through the Seven Days

After over a decade of service as an engineer, Lee first took part in an active military theater during the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848. Outstanding performances as a member of John Wool’s and Winfield Scott’s staffs, particularly his service during the decisive campaign against Mexico City, won Lee widespread acclaim and recognition as one of the truly outstanding officers in the US Army. A number of general accounts of the war have been published, with the best account of the campaign that captured Mexico City being Johnson 2007. Lee’s debut in field command during the Civil War came in the mountains of western Virginia. There, facing decidedly inhospitable terrain for military operations and saddled with troublesome subordinates, he was unable to drive out Federal forces that had seized control of the region prior to his arrival. Both Lesser 2004 and Newell 1996 offer useful looks at the western Virginia campaigns of 1861 and see in the efforts of Lee and Union general George McClellan foreshadowings of their later clashes. Lee’s appointment as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862 came in the aftermath of a battle at Fair Oaks (Seven Pines) that took place less than ten miles from the Confederate capital. The operations that carried the Union Army of the Potomac to the proverbial gates of Richmond prior to Lee’s appointment to command and the series of engagements, known as the Seven Days Battles, in which Lee and his army compelled the Federals to fall back to the James River were among the most important in the Civil War. Sears 1992 remains the best study of the entire Peninsula Campaign, though it is more enthusiastic in harshly judging George McClellan’s generalship than critically analyzing Lee’s. Burton 2001 is much more thorough in its treatment of the Seven Days Battles and balanced in its analysis, while Dowdey 1964 is likewise effective in its treatment of the subject. Gallagher 2000 provides a good overview of the campaign while offering essays that look at specific aspects in impressive depth.

Burton, Brian K. Extraordinary Circumstances: The Seven Days Battles. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
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A detailed and compellingly written account of Lee’s debut in command of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Seven Days Battles.
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Dowdey, Clifford. The Seven Days: The Emergence of Lee. Boston: Little, Brown, 1964.
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Dowdey’s admiring account of Lee’s first major campaign has been superseded by Burton 2001, but remains a useful source on the Seven Days Battles.
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Gallagher, Gary W., ed. The Richmond Campaign of 1862: The Peninsula and the Seven Days. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
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Although none has Lee as its focus, the essays in this collection offer important insights into the campaign in which Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia.
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Johnson, Timothy D. A Gallant Little Army: The Mexico City Campaign. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007.
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A well-researched and thorough account of the decisive campaign of the Mexican-American War in which Lee distinguished himself during his service on Winfield Scott’s staff.
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Lesser, W. Hunter. Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2004.
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A superbly researched and compelling study of the operations—successful in George McClellan’s case, unsuccessful in Lee’s—that laid the foundation for the establishment of West Virginia and the commanders who led them.
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Newell, Clayton R. Lee vs. McClellan: The First Campaign. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1996.
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A fine account of the operations in western Virginia in which George McClellan and Lee made their debuts as field commanders; offers useful analysis of their conduct and legacy in which the author’s years of studying the challenges of formulating strategy and analyzing military operations are evident.
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Sears, Stephen W. To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1992.
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The best account of the entire Peninsula Campaign and Seven Days Battles by a prolific and compelling writer.
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Second Manassas and Maryland Campaigns

In August and September 1862, Lee and his army carried the war in Virginia from the outskirts of Richmond to the outskirts of Washington before crossing into Maryland in an effort to win a victory that would break the North’s will to continue the war. The two campaigns are effectively studied together in Cooling 2008. The Second Manassas Campaign was as grand a victory as Lee could reasonably hope for and Hennessy 1993 is as good a book as anyone could hope for on the subject. Lee’s foray into Maryland was foiled by a faster-than-anticipated Union advance and at Antietam produced the bloodiest day of battle in American history. The campaign ended with Lee having no choice but to retreat back into Virginia, though in its course, Confederate forces compelled the surrender of over 12,000 Union soldiers at Harpers Ferry, which would stand as the largest event of its kind until the capitulation of US forces at Corregidor in 1942. The Maryland Campaign is thoroughly chronicled in Ezra Carman’s study, which did not see publication for several decades after it was written, the best edition of which is Carman 2010–2012. Sears 1992, which was for a generation the standard work, is still valuable, while a different take on the campaign is provided in Harsh 1999, the landmark study of Lee’s strategy and generalship. Hartwig 2012 is the first in a projected two-volume study of the campaign; the project upon completion will supersede previous works in scale, though it is definitely not for the novice. Once again, readers looking for insights into specific topics will find the Gallagher 1989 and Gallagher 1999 volumes on the Maryland Campaign excellent resources, though, lamentably, there is no similar volume on Second Manassas.

Carman, Ezra. The Maryland Campaign of 1862. 2 vols. Edited by Thomas G. Clemens. El Dorado, CA: Savas Beatie, 2010–2012.
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Carman was a veteran of the Maryland Campaign, who as head of the postwar Antietam Battlefield Board was responsible for developing interpretive signage for the battlefields and produced a massive study of the battle to support his efforts. Full of details that can be found nowhere else, Carman’s superb study did not appear in print until over 140 years after Antietam.
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Cooling, B. Franklin. Counterthrust: From the Peninsula to the Antietam. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008.
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An effective study of the Second Manassas and Maryland Campaigns that considers them as part of a single offensive push that carried the main armies in the Eastern Theater from the banks of the James River to the outskirts of the Federal capital before culminating north of the Potomac River at Antietam.
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Gallagher, Gary W., ed. Antietam: Essays on the 1862 Maryland Campaign. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1989.
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A collection of essays on the Maryland Campaign that focus on operations and command performance.
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Gallagher, Gary W., ed. The Antietam Campaign. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
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A superb volume of essays that consider a broader-ranging collection of subjects related to the Maryland Campaign than Gallagher 1989 does.
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Harsh, Joseph L. Taken at the Flood: Robert E. Lee and Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1999.
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A magnificently, thorough, and superbly written account of the Maryland Campaign; focuses on Lee’s generalship and how it fit into Confederate strategic goals. One of the truly essential works of modern Civil War scholarship.
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Hartwig, D. Scott. To Antietam Creek: The Maryland Campaign of 1862. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.
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The first, massive volume in a projected two-volume study of the entire Maryland Campaign.
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Hennessy, John J. Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
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An superb account of the operations in August 1862 that carried the war from the banks of the Rapidan River in central Virginia to the gates of Washington. It is fitting that perhaps the most magnificent campaign the Army of Northern Virginia ever conducted is the subject of such an outstanding book.
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Sears, Stephen W. Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1992.
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Although superseded by more recent works Harsh 1999 and Hartwig 2012, this book remains a valuable study of the Maryland Campaign. The focus is more on the defects of George McClellan’s generalship than on Lee’s performance.
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Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville

After the Maryland Campaign, the Federals pushed south into Virginia to reach the Rappahannock River. There, though, their efforts to achieve a victory over Lee were stymied in battles at Fredericksburg in December 1862 and Chancellorsville in May 1863. An inability to exploit these victories and a desire to avoid further battles along the Rappahannock line led Lee to the conclusion that his best course of action would be to move north again and carry the war across the Potomac River. The Fredericksburg Campaign has been the subject of two outstanding studies in the 2000s, Rable 2002 and O’Reilly 2003. Of the many works on Chancellorsville, Sears 1996 supersedes all previous works, though Bigelow 1910 contains much of value. Gallagher 1995 and Gallagher 1996 offer informative and insightful essays on particular aspects of these campaigns, while Sutherland 1998 provides an eminently satisfying account that looks at both together.

Bigelow, John. The Campaign of Chancellorsville. A Strategic and Tactical Study. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1910.
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While not as readable as Sears 1996 study, Bigelow’s work remains an invaluable source on Chancellorsville Campaign.
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Gallagher, Gary W., ed. The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
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A collection of seven essays on the Fredericksburg Campaign that look at topics ranging from the impact of the campaign on civilians to the Confederate high command.
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Gallagher, Gary W., ed. Chancellorsville: The Battle and Its Aftermath. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
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A collection of eight essays that consider aspects of the Chancellorsville Campaign and the factors that shaped its course, outcome, and aftermath.
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O’Reilly, Francis Augustin. The Fredericksburg Campaign: Winter War on the Rappahannock. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003.
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A thorough, prize-winning account of the December 1862 campaign in which Lee’s army won a relatively easy victory.
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Rable, George C. Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
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An excellent account of the Fredericksburg Campaign; while not as tactically focused as O’Reilly 2003, does a superb job of placing the campaign within its political and social context.
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Sears, Stephen W. Chancellorsville. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.
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Lee’s “greatest victory” has been the subject of a number of studies. Sears’s richly detailed and well-written account is the best and perhaps the best of his many books on the Civil War.
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Sutherland, Daniel E. Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville: The Dare Mark Campaign. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
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A fast-paced and efficient account of the operations along the Rappahannock River that resulted in victories for Lee and his army at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.
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Gettysburg

Victory in the Chancellorsville Campaign and the strategic problems he faced in its aftermath led Lee to successfully petition his government for permission to once again lead his army north across the Potomac River. In June 1863, Lee’s army began moving north, setting in motion the most famous campaign of the Civil War. Lee’s effort to achieve a decisive victory on northern soil and the three-day battle of Gettysburg has inspired a body of literature that is almost incomprehensible in size. Coddington 1968 remains unsurpassed in its treatment of the campaign, though there have been a number of subsequent works that merit attention, the best of which on the campaign as a whole are Sears 2003, Woodworth 2003, and Guelzo 2013. Notable works that focus on the Confederate side are Bowden and Ward 2001 and Brown 2005, while the essays in Gallagher 1999 merit the attention of anyone interested in the campaign. Shaara 1974 is a classic work of historical fiction that has contributed to both popular interest and perceptions of the campaign and continues to influence its study.

Bowden, Scott, and Bill Ward. Last Chance for Victory: Robert E. Lee and the Gettysburg Campaign. New York: Da Capo, 2001.
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A thorough account of the Army of Northern Virginia’s conduct of the campaign; counters criticisms of Lee’s performance and places responsibility for Confederate defeat elsewhere.
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Brown, Kent Masterson. Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, & the Pennsylvania Campaign. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
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A provocative and compelling reexamination of the campaign. Emphasizes the role of logistics in shaping its conduct, with particular focus on the operations that carried the campaign from Gettysburg to Williamsport.
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Coddington, Edwin. The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command. New York: Scribner’s, 1968.
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Coddington’s work remains the outstanding study of the campaign. The book effectively describes what happened and why events turned out the way they did, with a notably positive assessment of the generalship of George Meade.
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Gallagher, Gary W., ed. Three Days at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1999.
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Brings together essays on all three days of the Battle of Gettysburg and the failure of the Union pursuit of Lee’s army afterward.
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Guelzo, Allen C. Gettysburg: The Last Invasion. New York: Knopf, 2013.
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The most recent full-length study of the Gettysburg Campaign, this book is notably unsympathetic to either Lee or Meade.
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Sears, Stephen W. Gettysburg. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
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An excellent, readable, and balanced account of the Gettysburg Campaign; reflects its author’s many years’ research on the war in the East.
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Shaara, Michael. The Killer Angels. New York: McKay, 1974.
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Although a work of historical fiction, Shaara’s work is essential for students of Gettysburg. A compelling read and classic in Civil War literature, its influence—and that of the 1993 movie based on it—on how Gettysburg, Lee, and the other commanders who shaped the battle’s course and outcome are remembered is immense. Readers should also consult, though, D. Scott Hartwig, A Killer Angels Companion (Gettysburg, PA: Thomas, 1996).
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Woodworth, Steven E. Beneath a Northern Sky: A Short History of the Gettysburg Campaign. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003.
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As the title indicates, this work provides a good, concise account of the Gettysburg Campaign, though its author is openly skeptical of its importance in the course and outcome of the war.
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Bristoe Station, Mine Run, and the Overland Campaign

After Gettysburg, Lee defended his decision to go north by claiming that in the months that followed, the Union army was compelled by the damage it had suffered to no longer be a source of much concern. In fact, though, during the fall of 1863, the Army of Northern Virginia and Army of the Potomac experienced a season of maneuver and fighting that, while it failed to produce a major battle and thus has failed to attract a great deal of attention, nonetheless proved a considerable challenge for Lee and his army. Graham and Skoch 1987 gives a good account and analysis of the operations that brought Union and Confederate armies into contact with each other along Mine Run and the reasons it did not result in a major battle. Henderson 1987 is a solid account of Lee’s unsuccessful effort to maneuver the Federals into a battle on disadvantageous circumstances and the sharp defeat that Confederate forces suffered at Bristoe Station in its course. Graham and Skoch 1987 gives a good account and analysis of the operations that brought Confederate armies into contact with each other along Mine Run and the reasons it did not result in a major engagement. In 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was brought east after achieving impressive victories in the Western Theater, given the rank of lieutenant general, and, in an eagerly anticipated campaign, endeavored to achieve a decisive victory over Lee. This effort produced a series of battles and engagements that, in keeping the two armies in almost continual contact and extensively using field fortifications, marked a break with previous campaigns and produced a butcher’s bill of enormous proportions. Grant managed to push Lee’s command south from the banks of the Rapidan River to the gates of Richmond, with the two armies fighting significant engagements at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, the North Anna River, and Cold Harbor. The heavy losses that Grant’s command suffered in the process were much criticized and would be used by Lee partisans after the war in an all too successful campaign to assert the supremacy of their hero and denigrate Grant’s generalship. Modern scholarship has been much more balanced in its treatment of Grant’s generalship and the campaign as a whole, with the multivolume study in Rhea 1994, Rhea 1997, Rhea 2000, and Rhea 2002 providing a thorough account. Grimsley 2002 offers a shorter account that places the campaign between Grant and Lee in the context of the effort to execute the former’s strategic vision in the broader Virginia theater, while Hess 2007 approaches the campaign from a different, but likewise useful, perspective. Interesting takes on particular aspects of these operations can be found in Gallagher 1997 and Gallagher 1998.

Gallagher, Gary W., ed. The Wilderness Campaign. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
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Another first-rate collection of essays in the University of North Carolina Press’s series, this work’s eight essays offer fascinating and important insights into particular aspects of the initial engagement between Grant’s and Lee’s armies in 1864.
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Gallagher, Gary W., ed. The Spotsylvania Campaign. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
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A collection of eight essays that consider aspects of the May 1864 operations around Spotsylvania Court House and the factors that shaped the operations’ conduct, course, and outcome.
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Graham, Martin F., and George F. Skoch. Mine Run: A Campaign of Lost Opportunities, October 21, 1863–May 1, 1864. Lynchburg, VA: H. E. Howard, 1987.
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An efficient, well-crafted study of the operations following the Bristoe Station campaign, especially the fighting at Rappahannock Station and Kelly’s Ford in early November 1863 and the maneuvers that almost produced a major battle at Mine Run.
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Grimsley, Mark. And Keep Moving On: The Virginia Campaign, May–June 1864. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.
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A superb, one-volume account of the Overland Campaign, as well as the secondary operations in Virginia that took place in May–June 1864. Readable and informative, the book offers intriguing analysis of both Grant’s and Lee’s generalship.
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Henderson, William D. The Road to Bristoe Station: Campaigning with Lee and Meade, August 1–October 20, 1863. Lynchburg, VA: H. E. Howard, 1987.
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A very good account of Lee’s effort to outmaneuver the Federal army in October 1863 and the often overlooked engagements it produced.
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Hess, Earl J. Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
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Although, as the second in a three-volume series on the use and evolution of field fortifications in the Civil War, its focus is on the dynamics of trench warfare, this book also offers an excellent history of the Overland Campaign.
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Rhea, Gordon C. The Battle of the Wilderness May 5–6, 1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994.
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The first in Rhea’s multivolume study of the Overland Campaign, this impressively researched, thorough, and compelling account of the brutal two-day battle in the Wilderness is the standard work on its subject.
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Rhea, Gordon C. The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7–12, 1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997.
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Rhea carries his account of the Overland Campaign forward from his work in Rhea 1994, covering the maneuvers that brought the two armies to the vicinity of Spotsylvania Court House and the massive Federal assault of 12 May 1864 that smashed the Confederate “Mule Shoe” but failed to achieve decisive success.
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Rhea, Gordon C. To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13–25, 1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.
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This volume in Rhea’s series covers the often overlooked maneuvers around Spotsylvania Court House that followed the fight for the “Mule Shoe” and “Bloody Angle” and carried the two armies to the banks of the North Anna River.
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Rhea, Gordon C. Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26–June 3, 1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002.
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To date, this is the most recent of the works in Rhea’s series to appear and one that offers the best modern study of the infamous engagement at Cold Harbor.
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Richmond–Petersburg and Appomattox Campaigns

Brought to a stalemate by Lee at Cold Harbor in early June 1864, Grant moved his army across the James River in an attempt to seize Petersburg. The failure of this initial operation was followed by a nine-month campaign on the north side of the James and Appomattox Rivers against the defenses of Richmond and on the south side against Petersburg. Lee was able to successfully thwart over a half-dozen offensives and maintain possession of Richmond and Petersburg until, in April 1865, Grant’s men finally managed to break the Confederate lines. Lee’s attempt to escape to North Carolina to continue the fight carried his army west to Appomattox Court House. There, with his line of march to North Carolina blocked and Union forces making escape in any other direction unfeasible, Lee decided to surrender his army to Grant on 9 April 1865. The operations around Richmond and Petersburg have be relatively neglected in Civil War literature, with Hess 2010a offering the best one-volume account of the campaign and Sommers 1981, Greene 2008, Hess 2010b, and Newsome 2013 providing first-rate accounts of particular operations. Readers interested in the Appomattox Campaign will find value in Calkins 1997 and Marvel 2002.

Calkins, Chris. The Appomattox Campaign, March 29–April 9, 1865. Conshohocken, PA: Combined Books, 1997.
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A brief but thorough and well-written account of the Army of Northern Virginia’s last campaign, by its unmatched authority.
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Greene, A. Wilson. The Final Battles of the Petersburg Campaign: Breaking the Backbone of the Rebellion. 2d ed. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008.
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Greene describes the last week of the campaign for Petersburg with an attention to detail and ability to explain complex military operations in a way that is truly impressive and authoritative.
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Hess, Earl J. In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010a.
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This is the best one-volume account of the Petersburg Campaign and the final volume in a series that provides an outstanding study of the evolution of trench warfare and fortifications in the Eastern Theater over the course of the war.
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Hess, Earl J. Into the Crater: The Mine Attack at Petersburg. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2010b.
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The best account of the failed July 1864 Union offensive, whose highlight was the infamous Battle of the Crater, in which Federal troops bungled an opportunity to achieve a potentially decisive break in the Confederate line.
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Marvel, William. Lee’s Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
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As is typical of its author, this work offers a well-researched and iconoclastic take on the campaign that brought an end to Lee’s military career.
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Newsome, Hampton. Richmond Must Fall: The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, October 1864. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2013.
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An exceptional account of the operations in front of Richmond and southeast of Petersburg that produced significant engagements at the Darbytown Road and Hatcher’s Run.
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Sommers, Richard J. Richmond Redeemed: The Siege at Petersburg. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981.
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A first-rate study of the operations of late September and early October 1864 in which the Federals were able to achieve limited successes in front of Richmond and around Petersburg. The book is too much for the novice reader to handle, but a true delight for the serious student of the Civil War.
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Trudeau, Noah Andre. The Last Citadel: Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864–April 1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991.
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The best one-volume study of the Petersburg Campaign until the publication of Hess 2010a.
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