File:Life of Robert Edward Lee (1906) (14779840622).jpg

Identifier: lifeofrobertedwa00shep (find matches)
Title: Life of Robert Edward Lee
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Shepherd, Henry E. (Henry Elliot), 1844-1929
Subjects: Lee, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 1807-1870
Publisher: New York and Washington, The Neale publishing company
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
er soul reveals its charm as it does in no otherphase of his life, as it is exhibited to us not even by themost scrupulous or the most fastidious of biographers.In his letter to wife and child the inner soul breathes out,for the reserve of conventional form is thrown aside, offi-cial decorum and precisianism cast to the winds. Hisson, Robert E. Lee, has rendered an invaluable service tohistory, and, above all, to the youthful generation of theSouth, by rescuing these letters from the touch of time,and revealing the inner life of his illustrious father. Theletters in question embrace every period of Lees activecareer from the close of the war with Mexico, 1848, untilthe end of September, 1870, or about two weeks preced-ing his death at Lexington, October 12, 1870. Theirrange is complex, varied, far-reaching, including almostevery topic, from the movements of our armies in thefield to the knitting of socks for our destitute soldiers. It is fortunate for the world, and especially for the
Text Appearing After Image:
o o z o H o < ft LEE AS A HUSBAND AND FATHER 129 people of the South, that Lee was born at a time whenthe art of epistolary correspondence had not become ex-tinct, or nothing survived of it, save the curt and ellipticalbrevity of the modern telegram. His letters have twodistinctive characteristics—they are the work of a manwho had something to say and who knew how to say it.The gentleman is reflected in every line that he pens, evenif it have reference to a matter of detail or some passingincident of the current day. The style is pervaded bythat simple dignity, that lack of straining after rhetoricaleffect which marked the correspondence of gentlemen inthe days that have vanished. We purpose, however, tolet the letters proclaim their own excellence, speak forthemselves, and illustrate Lee as he appeared in his ownhome, as the father of a Southern family, as a perfectembodiment of the ideal gentleman of the South, as thehusband of Mary Custis, the lineal descendant of the wifeof G

Note About Images