Robert E. Lee’s Softer Side
Edited by Thomas Forehand Jr.
(November 2008 Civil War News)

Notes, bibliography, index, softcover, 160 pp., 2007. Pelican Publication Company, 1000 Burmaster St., Gretna, LA 70053, $12.96 plus shipping.

Reviewer: John F. Marszalek
John F. Marszalek is a Giles Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History, Mississippi State University. A prolific author, he was recently named Executive Director and Managing Editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, the publisher of the Grant Papers.

Review:
From Robert E. Lee’s death in 1870 into the 21st century, the number of books written about him or some facet of his life has been prodigious.

In the 1930s, Douglas Southall Freeman published what became the standard biography. Freeman obviously admired Lee, saluting his statue every morning as he passed it on his way to work in Richmond. Then Thomas Connelly wrote his critical The Marble Man (1977), and Alan Nolan wrote his even more critical Lee Considered (1991).

In the most recent past, historian Emory Thomas published a major new biography Robert E. Lee (1995), Michael Fellman penned a psychological analysis entitled The Making of Robert E. Lee (2000), and most recently Elizabeth Brown Pryor wrote Reading the Man, A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters (2007).

Considering the existence of these and so many other books on Lee, what is the reason for this short paperback, which is a sequel to the author’s earlier Robert E. Lee’s Lighter Side? Thomas Forehand, who is a Lee reenactor, argues that, despite Lee’s willingness to send men to their deaths in battle, his determination to have a straggler executed, his hot temper and/or his cool aloofness, he “bore . . . a heart as soft as velvet.”

To demonstrate this point, Forehand writes he decided to put together a book “about Lee’s tenderness,” to show that “he was most decidedly gentle and kind,” though with no “syrupy sentimentality.”

Forehand divides this book into 11 chapters, each one dealing with some aspect of Lee’s life. The chapters contain sections: “Before the War,” “During the War” and “After the War.” They all provide stories about Lee or statements by him, culled from the vast Lee literature. There are chapters on Lee and Animals, Chivalry, Enemies, Family, Fellow Soldiers, Nursing, Others, Peace, Slaves, Students and Tears.

The first chapter points out that Lee loved animals and was kind to them. He had a snake as a pet and looked out for every horse he came into contact with, especially devoted to his faithful Traveller. The final chapter provides examples of Lee breaking down into tears when something moved him.

Anyone familiar with the vast literature about Lee will not find anything new in these pages and thus will not profit from reading this book. Anyone unfamiliar with these tales would do better to read one of the modern biographies of the Confederate general for a more balanced insight into his personality and generalship.