George Swift Trow

I am so bad with history. I got hold of this book when someone donated it to my Litte Free Library. I then decided I needed to read about Robert E. Lee to see if I could get some facts about him as his statues were being removed from many places in the United States (this being the summer of 2017 with the United States back in turmoil due to extreme political division). What I found in this book was a man whose father, "Light Horse Harry" Lee, fought in the American Revolution and later became governor of the state of Virginia. Later, his son, Robert E. Lee, was educated at West Point to lead a military life. As the nation divided over the issue of slavery, General Lee ended up leading the Confederate soldiers because his allegiance was primarily to the state of Virginia.

Both a friend of mine and my husband also read this book and felt that this version of Robert E. Lee's life was "sanitized". Obviously I have to do further in-depth and, more to the point, adult reading so I can better understand the role of Robert E. Lee in American history. To introduce me to this subject, I found this children's book, published in 1969, an interesting, if watered-down start. I have to decide if I want to continue reading about General Lee to get more of a sense of who he was and his role in American history.… (meer)