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Charles Bracelen Flood
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Lee: The Last Years Kindle Edition

by Charles Bracelen Flood (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 347 ratings
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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.”
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  1. Print length
    340 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Mariner Books
  5. Publication date
    September 2, 1998
  6. File size
    11443 KB
  7. Page Flip
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  8. Word Wise
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  9. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“[A] powerful . . . story for which we have been waiting over a century.” —Theodore H. White

"Unforgettable." —The Philadelphia Inquirer
 

About the Author

Charles Bracelen Flood lives in Richmond, Kentucky. He is the author of the best-selling Love Is a Bridge and of Rise and Fight Again, which won an American Revolution Round Table Award.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00A4IUKZI
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books; 1st Mariner Books Ed edition (September 2, 1998)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 2, 1998
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 11443 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 340 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 347 ratings

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Charles Bracelen Flood

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Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
347 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Thomas W. Robinson
5.0 out of 5 stars The Lee many do not know
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2007
Verified Purchase
I've long considered myself a student of Southern history and the Civil War. Heck, I've been a historian at museums so I think I have a pretty good knowledge of the Civil War era. Furthermore, I live in Virginia and have been to the campus of Washington and Lee University. However, nearly every page of Charles Bracelen Flood's work on Robert E. Lee's post-war years is full of information I've never heard about. Flood has used many differing sources to pull together a wonderful, highly readable account of Lee's years after the war, how he came to be President of Washington College, and his role in the reconstruction of this country. What jumps out off the pages is that for as much as Lee has been studied and idolized for his exploits on the battlefield, his postwar years as President of the college should get just as much press. While Lee did not think defending his native state was wrong, he did wish for both North and South to reconcile as quickly as possible. After reading the book, I still do not think Lee is the god that some people hold him up to be, but he does stand out as a good man who wanted to bring the nation back together while also helping his fellow Southerners get back on their feet. While Flood's writing can be unimaginative at times and I thought he threw in little stories and vignettes that he didn't need too, the book is excellent overall and should be a must read for anyone interested in Lee. However, the book is such an easy, good read that I think almost anyone should pick it up.
6 people found this helpful
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Jackie
5.0 out of 5 stars Great writer, great historian and great biographer!
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2003
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Flood has produced a masterpiece that reveals the personality and character of Lee more than any book I've read. Lee's tremendous contribution to society after the war is presented in such an enjoyable, readable manner that each revelation unlocked about the inner man becomes a delight to the reader. I read this book in two sittings because I was so entranced by it. The author does not write from a hero-worship perspective but rather allows the facts and anecdotes of Lee's family life speak for themselves. It is for the reader to conclude that Lee had one of the most fully integrated characters a man can possess--honor, self-discipline, love of his Creator, humility, regard for all people, and an innate sense of fairness and reason. Lee lived only five years after the war but these years were spent performing maximum service to the South and to the US at large. It's a shame that so many books about Lee focus mainly on battle strategies and have the agenda of supporting the lost cause or revisionist view of why the South lost. If you are interested only in battle statistics and strategies, this book may not excite you, but if you want to really know the man himself, don't miss this treasure of a book.
17 people found this helpful
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ABP
4.0 out of 5 stars ...perspective on unresolved issues of our civil war and its best General who in defeat strove to end it
Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2020
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Perspective for our time from the man most famously associated with the South...this biography on the coda to his life and his efforts to heal the savage wounds of civil war to our nation. His stature and influence prevented a guerilla type conflict after Appomattox. He was a man of his time but also one who sought to bring peace to the newly defined United States of America and by example, provide light to the path forward.
5 people found this helpful
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Rkramer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book about a great man
Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2012
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This book was well written and contained many sources such as letters Lee had written and second hand information from many who had actually known and were family, friends, and acquaintences. This book related how Lee, a religious and honorable man, was a strong force for good during Reconstruction after the Civil War. Lee emphasized to all his former soldiers that they should do their utmost to become law-abiding American citizens, honor the authority of the United States, and regain their citizenship and voting rights. The book pointed out that Lee opposed secession from the Union, the institution of slavery, and mistreatment of prisioners of war, all things I was not familiar with before reading this book. The book pointed out the reasons that Lee did not accept the offer of command of the Federal Army at the outbreak of the war; he could not oppose his home state, his family and friends, and above all could not lead an invading Army into Virginia. Had politicians on both sides worked towards compromise with real integrity and purpose, Lee thought that war could have been avoided. His organizational and administrative actions as a college president at Washington College were a template for other college presidents that followed him in both the South and the North.
6 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Revealing
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2020
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I have been reading books on the Civil War for 50 years, since my cadet days at West Point, and have a fairly extensive library. Yet I learned much I never knew about Lee's final years from this book. In this era when it's once more fashionable to bash Lee, this is a revealing look into his character. It humanizes him in a way far beyond any of his biographies I have read in the past. Well worth reading. A shame it will never be read by the ignorant mob trying to erase history to meet their own prejudices for political correctness.
20 people found this helpful
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ERIC SKOVGAARD
5.0 out of 5 stars A Life Worth Knowing
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2019
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Here you find history that we have never known or forgotten. Here is one of the greatest men America has ever produced. Of course his life cannot be separated from that great struggle between the States, but here is a man from whom we can learn the lessons of loyalty and devotion to causes larger than ourselves. His relationship with his children, his desire to live a quiet life, his enduring, complete thanks to Grant, his kneeling next to a freed slave at the commune rail, and the love people of the South had for him even after the war left me in tears on several occasions.
15 people found this helpful
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