The Life of General Robert E. Lee by G. Mercer Adam

GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE. FRONTISPIECE LIFE OF GENERAL LEE

THE LIFE OF General Robert E. Lee By G. MERCER ADAM

THE LIFE-CAREER AND MILITARY ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE GREAT SOUTHERN GENERAL, WITH A RECORD OF THE CAMPAIGNS OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT 1905 BY A. L. BURT COMPANY

LIFE OF GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE By G. Mercer Adam

PREFACE.

THOUGH more than a generation has now elapsed since General Robert E. Lee passed from the scenes of his illustrious deeds, public interest in the great soldier and his career is still active, and turns with increasing curiosity to any attractive recital of the incidents in his eventful life—many as are the biographies that have already been published of him. Nor is this perennial interest in the loved hero of “a Lost Cause” to be wondered at, when we recall not only the historical importance of the long struggle in which he so nobly fought, and against such heavy odds; but the remarkable military ability and eminently high character of the man whose career is identified with the great conflict, and whose life-story is throughout so attractive and inspiring.

The era is now passed when, in the North, Confederates and their sympathizers were hotly stigmatized as “rebels,” and when their attitude and their cause were aspersed as hateful as well as treasonable. To-day, the drama of the Civil War has gone into the limbo of history, and can now be written about dispassionately and, even on the Southern side, with admiring Northern curiosity and interest. This is one of the manifest advantages the modern-day writer has in dealing with the events of the distracting and calamitous period, and in reviewing the whole story with calm deliberation and historic impartiality. Another and special advantage has the narrator of the era's annals, when, as is the present case, he is writing biography as well as history, and has so entrancing a theme to deal with as the life-career and achievements of so distinguished and revered an actor in the tragedy of the Civil War as General Robert E. Lee. For the latter and his estimable character the present writer has always had the highest regard, and even veneration; and though this perhaps may not shield him from criticism should there be found shortcomings in the within work, it ought at least to placate the reader towards the author of it, if he is also an admirer of Lee, and lead him to be at once indulgent and friendly.

G.M.A.