When I first picked up this book I thought gee do I really want to slog through this 700 page documentary/bio. I'm glad I did. It was engaging and insightful and helped me form my own opinion on a man who holds such symbolic imagery to our country, its history, and race and civil rights perspectives.

Lee was and remains to me enigmatic, polarizing, and intriguing but having read the book I now know why I feel that way. It brings out so much in what this man not only stood for but the character that drove his stand and his haunting childhood tied to his famous but very wayward father, "Lighthorse Harry. From start to finish the one thing that becomes very evident about Robert E. Lee is that he stuck to his principles of his interpretation of right, honor, and duty. Unfortunately to a very misguided and lost cause.

The great tragedy of this man is that had he stayed on the Federal side to head off the break up of the country which he said he was for how different that war and the duration might have been. His brilliance or perceived brilliance should have been decisive considering the military leadership we as a country were saddled with from the start.

I was intrigued my his extensive family and how important that was to him despite his prolonged absences. His steadfastness to what he saw as honor and duty to his native Virginia never wavered even after the war and I saw that he never did seem to learn how wrong he was. The recent movements to remove his monuments seem justified to me as there is little to respect or honor on what he represented. ( )