Lee's Lieutenants

Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command is the most colorful and popular of Douglas Southall Freeman’s works. A sweeping narrative that presents a multiple biography against the flame-shot background of the American Civil War, it is the story of the great figures of the Army of Northern Virginia who fought under Robert E. Lee. The Confederacy won resounding victories throughout the war, but seldom easily or without tremendous casualties. Death was always on the heels of fame, but the men who commanded—among them Jackson, Longstreet, and Ewell—developed as leaders and men. Lee’s Lieutenants follows these men to the costly battle at Gettysburg, through the deepening twilight of the South’s declining military might, and finally to the collapse of Lee’s command and his formal surrender in 1865. To his unparalleled descriptions of men and operations, Dr. Freeman adds an insightful analysis of the lessons learned and their bearing upon the future military development of the nation. Accessible at last in a one-volume edition abridged by noted Civil War historian Stephen W. Sears, Lee’s Lieutenants is essential reading for all Civil War buffs, students of war, and admirers of the historian’s art as practiced at its very highest level.

Author Biography

Douglas Southall Freeman was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1886, the son of a Confederate soldier, and by the age of 22 had received his Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University. Seven years later, he was named the editor of The Richmond News Leader, a post he would hold for 34 years. Freeman was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, first for his four-volume biography of Robert E. Lee, and later for his six-volume biography of George Washington, which he finished only hours before his death in 1953