Overview
Robert E. Lee emerged as the most renowned military commander of the American Civil War. Rarely has a leader been so revered by both his supporters and his opponents. Unlike many of his contemporaries who became embroiled in endless controversies, Lee died soon after the war, which served to enhance his legendary status. As a veritable icon, Lee's actual strengths and weaknesses came to be above serious discussion, not only in the South, but frequently in the North as well. Specialists have occasionally challenged Robert E. Lee's military reputation, but John D. McKenzie, in this well-written, well-researched and provocative book, seriously opens the question of Lee's generalship to a broader audience for the first time. The author is unsparing in his critique of Lee's battlefield tactics, strategic vision, command system, staff organization and logistic planning. Lee's own shortcomings are put in the context of restrictions placed on him by Confederate government interference and weaknesses in the senior levels of Confederate command. While most senior Southern leaders are strongly criticized, the author makes a solid case that Stonewall Jackson was Lee's ablest lieutenant and the Confederacy's most irreplaceable loss. While the personal traits and individual experiences of Lee and his contemporaries are given due consideration, the author supports his fascinating narrative with strong statistical evidence: comparing military reputations with hard facts and figures about the troop strengths and casualties that made some Civil War results almost inevitable.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Perhaps because he's not a professional historian, McKenzie, a Civil War buff and retired business executive, brings, in his first book, a fresh perspective to the contentious debate over the merits of the generalship of Robert E. Lee. McKenzie claims that Southern historians have protected Lee's reputation by blaming his subordinates for mistakes on the battlefield and by arguing that, since the defeat of the Confederacy was inevitable, Lee's heroic fight against the overwhelming force of the Union was all the more admirable. Not so, claims the author, who believes that the South had the opportunity to win the war but failed. McKenzie examines a number of topics, such as Lee's health, his inability to assemble an effective staff and his faulty offensive strategy, which resulted in heavy casualties. He concludes that Lee was a less than great general, but that incompetent Northern generals who fought prior to Grant's ascendancy allowed Lee to escape his major mistakes (such as Antietam and Gettysburg) without irreparable harm. In making his case, McKenzie traces the story of the Virginia theater of operations from 1861 to 1865, highlighting Lee's role in the heavy fighting in the East, as well as his effect on Confederate strategy west of the Alleghenies. Although his text is marred by several factual errors, McKenzie brings new and serious insight into a thorny area of Civil War history. Military Book Club selection. (Feb.)Library Journal
McKenzie, a contributor to Civil War magazine, reexamines General Robert E. Lee's military skills. MacKenzie's work is bound to stir up controversy, because he claims that Lee wasted lives with pointless attacks, created an inefficient staff structure, was unable to take a long-term strategic view of the war, and could not adapt to the changing military technologies. It is easy, some 130 years after the war, to criticize a general's performance under extraordinarily stressful conditions. Despite this, McKenzie presents his arguments forcefully and well in a number of short chapters that provide a glimpse into various aspects of Lee's generalship. Whether or not the reader will agree with the author's conclusions is something else again. For public libraries.-Robert A. Curtis, Taylor Memorial P.L., Cuyahoga Falls, OhioBooknews
Critique's the Civil War general's battlefield tactics, strategic vision, staff organization, and logistic planning, looking at his shortcomings in the context of restrictions placed on him by Confederate government interference and weaknesses in the senior levels of Confederate command, and makes a strong case for Stonewall Jackson as Lee's ablest lieutenant. For Civil War buffs. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.Kirkus Reviews
A candid evaluation of Robert E. Lee's military career, penetrating the misty legends surrounding the "marble man" and the Lost Cause that grew after his death in 1870.At the end of the war, McKenzie points out, many Southern newspapers blamed Lee and Jefferson Davis, among others, for their defeat. But Southern historians, he suggests, came to dominate the study of the Civil War and gradually reworked Lee's image, turning him into an idealized figure, incapable of error. Early Southern victories, he reminds us, were won by the skilled use of defensive tactics applied against the hapless efforts of incompetent Union generals. McKenzie asserts that Lee, an engineer, had a genius for just such warfare, but that he had to be pushed by Davis and "Stonewall" Jackson to go on the offensive, where he was often less effective. Jackson emerges as the greatest Southern strategist, an innovative general who advised Lee against a war of attrition, arguing for attacks designed to cause maximum casualties to the enemy. But Jackson died, and Lee, applying Jackson's tactics in less favorable circumstances, staged massive frontal assaults at Antietam and Gettysburg, against strong defenses, that resulted in huge casualties. And as younger, more innovative and battle-tested Union generals (Grant, Sherman, etc.) emerged, their new strategies and tactics consistently outclassed the poorly staffed and supplied Southern armies. McKenzie argues that Jackson's tactics, if used early in the war, might have won more battles and foreign allies for the Confederacy, leading to a negotiated peace. But Lee was not the figure to carry out such a strategy, and he was further handicapped by an interfering, inept president, by ill health, and by a bureaucracy unable to provide sufficient food, clothing, and arms for his troops.
McKenzie's first book offers a clear, concise, realistic rereading of Lee's career and strategic abilities. A powerful revisionist work.