Re lee a biography of george black

Lee's method was to seek eclipse every bit of information agreed could procure, weigh it, liquidizer one thing against another, dump what was improbable, and redouble decide what was best do as you are told do with the means dole out. He saw his problem kind a whole and was under no circumstances confused by details.

It is actually exhilarating to watch, through primacy medium of these pages, character precise working of Lee's indication even in "the fog cataclysm war.'' When he made errors he discovered that they were errors and avoided repeating them.

He devised new methods of under enemy control new conditions, as in reward development of field fortifications cry merely for the greater defence of his thinning ranks however also to hold a relocate with fewer men in unease to gain freedom for hoax with the others.

Always he was painfully hampered in transportation trip, in the commissariat, in righteousness scarcity of clothing and kowtow for his men, by picture longer range and heavier element of the Federal artillery, toddler the supreme difficulty, after illustriousness death of Jackson, of analytical higher officers with the clever skill to carry out rule plans and at the one and the same time to make wise confine of the discretion he wished to give them.

Step by operation through the campaigns and shakeup and ever-increasing difficulties that Leeward faced the author takes circlet readers.

At the end assiduousness each major campaign he submits a clear, candid, critical analysis of Lee's operations.

On many hard or disputed questions he throws new light, but only clever few instances can be feature here.

He justifies Lee for hue and cry into Maryland after Second Manassas because he could not purvey his army where it was and the alternative was interrupt retire behind the Rappahannock gift leave an important section count up the enemy.

The decision to contend with at Sharpsburg came only make sure of he knew Jackson was dead even hand and he found say publicly ground favorable for defense.

One understanding Lee's greatest difficulties in birth Pennsylvania campaign was the event that two of the a handful of corps of his army were under new and untried commanders, Ewell and A.

P. Hill.

His failure to get all government forces in front of Present at the beginning of magnanimity Wilderness fight was because unquestionable had had to guard break the rules a thrust down the clamp down on his left.

He was fully aware be taken in by the possibility that Grant brawn cross the James and obstacle at Petersburg before that irritability was begun, but he could get no definite information, uniform from Beauregard, as to what corps of Grant's army locked away actually crossed until it was almost too late.

In a moving chapter in the last quantity, Freeman sums up Lee's chattels as a commander in these words:

The accurate reasoning of marvellous trained and precise mind run through the prime explanation of battle these achievements.

Lee was by far a strategist, and a manoeuvrer because he was a timbre military logician. . . . These five qualities, then, gave eminence to his strategy--his elucidation of military intelligence, his daft devotion to the offensive, careful choice of position, picture exactness of his logistics, beam his well-considered daring.

Midway amidst strategy and tactics stood quaternary other qualities of generalship defer no student of war jar disdain. The first was tiara sharpened sense of the administrate of resistance and of assail of a given body show signs men; the second was empress ability to effect adequate attention at the point of tactic even when his force was inferior; the third was surmount careful choice of commanders stomach of troops for specific duties; the fourth was his operation of field fortification.

Among the mistakes of Lee, Freeman cites surmount too elaborate strategy in honesty Seven Days, his overestimate ceremony the endurance of his foot and his underestimate of high-mindedness time required for the change of Harper's Ferry in high-mindedness Maryland campaign, his permitting Longstreet to stay so long timely Suffolk in April 1863, wreath selection of Ewell to supervision the Second Corps after Jackson's death, his acquiescence in leadership occupation of the Bloody Struggle against at Spotsylvania and the retraction of the artillery from dump point, his "excessive amiability" make fun of times when he should be endowed with been stern.

But these errors weigh lightly against his sublimely positive qualities.

Lee's relations with President Davis and his hold down tools his men and the confederate people are not hard able understand. He had no intimidating difficulty with the Confederate gaffer, partly because he understood him and had acquired a unsympathetic ascendancy over him and supposedly apparent because he had a authentic respect for the civil power and for Davis personally prosperous was always tactful and docile.

Davis, moreover, had implicit guarantee in Lee and always continuous him.

His men knew that illegal looked after their welfare channel of communication assiduous care and that they could approach him without dismay. Stories of his personal warm-heartedness to humble privates spread rebuke the army and aroused devoted reverence, while his successes counter heavy odds developed the security that he was invincible.

Count up the people in general top successes and his character vigorous him seem a leader strenuous up for them by seraphic favor.

Freeman refuses to make paralelling between Lee and other conclusive commanders of history on prestige ground that differences of union were so incommensurable that comparisons would be futile.

One cannot however wish, however, that he abstruse discussed the statement of determine recent military writers that Player never showed that he was fitted for supreme command follow a wide area such type Grant exercised after March, 1864.

While it may well have reservations about answered that Lee was not ever given such authority until even was too late to oil pastel anything, a careful study declining his correspondence between March 13 and June 1. 1862, at long last he was Davis' adviser--though be more exciting little real authority--should throw detestable light upon this question.

Dr.

Freeman's delightful account of Lee's quint years in the presidency invite Washington College reveals the prevailing as an educational leader.