Editing Robert E. Lee (section)

=== Biographies ===
[[Douglas Southall Freeman]]'s Pulitzer prize-winning four-volume ''R. E. Lee: A Biography'' (1934), which was for a long period considered the definitive work on Lee, downplayed his involvement in slavery and emphasized Lee as a virtuous person. Eric Foner, who describes Freeman's volume as a "[[hagiography]]", notes that on the whole, Freeman "displayed little interest in Lee's relationship to slavery. The index to his four volumes contained 22 entries for 'devotion to duty', 19 for 'kindness', 53 for Lee's celebrated horse, [[Traveller (horse)|Traveller]]. But 'slavery', 'slave emancipation' and 'slave insurrection' together received five. Freeman observed, without offering details, that slavery in Virginia represented the system 'at its best'. He ignored the postwar testimony of Lee's former slave Wesley Norris about the brutal treatment to which he had been subjected."<ref name="Foner" />

More recent biographies offer a broader variety of perspectives. [[Thomas L. Connelly]]'s ''The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and His Image in American Society'' (1977) was an iconoclastic revision of Lee's mythical status in the South. ''Robert E. Lee: A Biography'' (1995) by [[Emory M. Thomas]] attempted a "post-revisionist" compromise between the traditional and more recent views.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Eisenhower|first=John|date=August 6, 1995|title=The Commander|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/06/books/the-commander.html|access-date=September 28, 2021|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> ''Robert E. Lee: A Life'' (2021) by [[Allen C. Guelzo]] focuses on a study of Lee's character.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Goldfield|first=David|date=September 28, 2021|title=The True Story of Robert E. Lee|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/books/review/robert-e-lee-allen-c-guelzo.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20211228/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/books/review/robert-e-lee-allen-c-guelzo.html |archive-date=December 28, 2021 |url-access=limited|access-date=September 28, 2021|issn=0362-4331}}{{cbignore}}</ref>