Through Bevin Alexander's powerful descriptions and analyses of bloody battles, heroic charges, and desperate retreats, he paints a controversial picture of the South's most revered military figure -- Robert E. Lee. While Lee gets full credit as an inspiring leader and an effective defensive tactician, Alexander demonstrates how Lee's strategic blunders decimated the Army of Northern Virginia and ultimately lost the Civil War.

Amazon.com Review
Military historian Bevin Alexander offers a view of Robert E. Lee's entire Civil War career, focusing on tactics and battlefield maneuvers. Alexander keeps the narrative moving with colorful anecdotes drawn from contemporaneous accounts, but the real value of his book lies in the detailed rendering of strategy and execution of the various battles. Alexander offers a fair appraisal of Lee as tactician, noting both his strengths and failings on the battlefield.