A New York Times bestselling author’s revealing account of General Robert E. Lee’s life after Appomattox: “An American classic" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution). After his surrender at Appomattox in 1865, Robert E. Lee, commanding general for the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War, lived only five more years. It was the great forgotten chapter of his remarkable life, during which Lee did more to bridge the divide between the North and the South than any other American. The South may have lost, but Lee taught them how to triumph in peace, and showed the entire country how to heal the wounds of war. Based on previously unseen documents, letters, family papers and exhaustive research into Lee’s complex private life and public crusades, this is a portrait of a true icon of Reconstruction and quiet rebellion. From Lee’s urging of Rebel soldiers to restore their citizenship, to his taking communion with a freedman, to his bold dance with a Yankee belle at a Southern ball, to his outspoken regret of his soldierly past, to withstanding charges of treason, Lee embodied his adage: “True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly contrary, at one period, to that which it does at another.” Lee: The Last Years sheds a vital new light on war, politics, hero-worship, human rights, and Robert E. Lee’s “desire to do right.”

Honors the memory of the great Confederate general in an exploration of his post-Civil War years.

This book details Lee’s life from Gettysburg to his death just five years after the South’s surrender at Appomattox. Rather than retreating bitterly from life, Lee sought to heal the nation, even meeting with his rival, Ulysses S. Grant, while the former Union general occupied the White House. Leaving his military life behind, Lee went on to become president of Washington College, where he was revered for his fairness as well as his willingness to help struggling students.

In this reexamination of the last two years of Lee's storied military career, Ethan S. Rafuse offers a clear, informative, and insightful account of Lee's ultimately unsuccessful struggle to defend the Confederacy against a relentless and determined foe. This book provides a comprehensive, yet concise and entertaining narrative of the battles and campaigns that highlighted this phase of the war and analyzes the battles and Lee's generalship in the context of the steady deterioration of the Confederacy's prospects for victory.

They endured hardship and deprivation as they fought for their home and ideals - relive the final days of the Army of Northern Virginia. Appomattox: The Last Days of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia encompasses the defense and evacuation of the Confederate capital of Richmond, the horrific combat in the trenches of Petersburg, General Robert E. Lee's withdrawal toward the Carolinas in his forlorn hope of a rendezvous with General Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee to carry on the fight, the relentless pursuit of Union forces, and the ultimate realization that further resistance against overwhelming odds was futile. The Army of Northern Virginia was the fighting soul of the Confederacy in the Eastern Theater of the Civil War. From its inception, it fought against overwhelming odds. Union forces might have occupied territory, but as long as the Confederate army was active in the field, the rebellion was alive. Through four years of bitter conflict, the Army of Northern Virginia and its longtime commander, General Robert E. Lee, became the stuff of legend. By April 1865, its days were numbered. There are many stories of heroism and sacrifice, both Union and Confederate, during the Civil War, and Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia wrote their own epic chapter. Author Michael E. Haskew, a researcher, writer, and editor of many military history subjects for over twenty years, puts the hardship and deprivation suffered by this Army's soldiers while defending their home and ideals into proper perspective.

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning historian and best-selling author of Gettysburg comes the definitive biography of Robert E. Lee. An intimate look at the Confederate general in all his complexity—his hypocrisy and courage, his inner turmoil and outward calm, his disloyalty and his honor. "An important contribution to reconciling the myths with the facts." —New York Times Book Review Robert E. Lee is one of the most confounding figures in American history. Lee betrayed his nation in order to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose. He was a traitor to the country he swore to serve as an Army officer, and yet he was admired even by his enemies for his composure and leadership. He considered slavery immoral, but benefited from inherited slaves and fought to defend the institution. And behind his genteel demeanor and perfectionism lurked the insecurities of a man haunted by the legacy of a father who stained the family name by declaring bankruptcy and who disappeared when Robert was just six years old. In Robert E. Lee, the award-winning historian Allen Guelzo has written the definitive biography of the general, following him from his refined upbringing in Virginia high society, to his long career in the U.S. Army, his agonized decision to side with Virginia when it seceded from the Union, and his leadership during the Civil War. Above all, Guelzo captures Robert E. Lee in all his complexity--his hypocrisy and courage, his outward calm and inner turmoil, his honor and his disloyalty.