shenandoah valley campaign, may 18 1864, which was published in 2010 and tonight. he's here to talk about his newest book from arlington to appomattox. robert e. lee's civil war day by 1861 to 1865. and so with that i'm going to turn the screen over to our guest author. great. thank you, kelly. and see him there we go. all right, and good evening everybody and it's my pleasure to be here with y'all and like kelly said tonight. i'm gonna be talking to you a little bit about my newest book from arlington to appomattox, which is kind of a an almanac or reference book if you will about excuse me about lee during the civil war. and make my brady box thing or brady bunch thing over here go away so i can actually see my slides. there we go. okay. i think the the best way to talk about what this book is is really to talk about what it's not. it's not your basic lead biography. i'm sure many of you are familiar with eb longs. book the civil war day by day. this is kind of like the same thing only done from a from a lead point of view so as much as i possibly could i recreate every day from mid april 1861 through mid-april of 1865 of lee's life talking about where he was we was writing to what he was doing. there's few instances where even was it was even able to find out what he was eating. so there's all kinds of minutiae in here. so if you're into lee or you want to know more about the lee family or what it was like to run an army during the civil war, i think you'll find lots of stuff to be interested in and from arlington to appomattox. and with that i will jump right in here and which is like that first, i'm gonna kind of split tonight's presentation in two things. i want to talk first a little bit about the lee historiography how we know what we know about lee and then for the second part, i'm going to jump in and highlight some of my favorites things some of the lesser known anecdotes about lee some of the things might be familiar to you. some of them probably are not but i'm start off here talking about the many many books that have been written about lee probably first and foremost and everybody's mind when it comes to lead biographies. is this one douglas freeman, of course from richmond a long time newspaper man turned historian. he probably knew more about robert e lee then maybe even at least children did freeman spent decades researching, excuse me researching leads life and the produced the four volume lead biography, which is still probably the the best biography that's out there on him. it's not exactly what you would call balanced. but freeman definitely had a bit of a hero complex there when it came to lee, but he uncovered all sorts of stuff. he literally spent decades researching leads life in addition to this biography. he edited a collection of lee papers. he did. of course the excuse me the three volume, please lieutenants as well as several other volumes and projects about lee so really nobody in the at least the early part of the 20th century knew more about robert e lee probably then douglas freeman and of course when he was finished with his leap project, he jumped head first into george washington and you know his work on washington really kind of dwarfs his lee work in some respects. but anyway, stupid much of what we know. about lee or at least the popular image of lee. a really comes from freeman's portrayal of lee when you think about lee you're really in a lot of cases the images and occurrences that come to mind are not necessarily true to history what you're getting really is freeman's version of lee and that stood for decades. i wasn't until probably the the 1960s is when you have people that are really starting to bring lee back down to earth to to rehumanize lee if you will and thomas connolly probably did more to pull lee down off the the pedestal freeman built for him than anybody else and of course, excuse me out of the the dozens of lee biographies that are out there today. they're other good ones that give them more balanced view of lee. um elizabeth pryor's book emery thomas's book and quite a few others. so there's definitely no shortage of material to turn for to turn to when us to learning about robert e lee as i'm sure many of you know. lean never wrote his members after the war within just a few months of appomattox. he shifted careers and became the president of what is now washington and lee university. but while he was there. he kept looking back on the the previous four years of his life and wanted to make sure that they were the the events and that time period were remembered and he was considering writing a history of at least his own campaigns or the history of the army in northern virginia, and it's later years, but he never got around to doing it. he started collecting materials, but he never really got very far. excuse me, getting over a cold. you'll have to excuse me. he wrote to one of his cousins a few months before his death that history of the events of the period talking about the war would be desirable and i've had it in view to write one of the campaigns in virginia in which i was particularly engaged. i've already collected some materials for the work, but i lack so much that i wish to obtain. i have not commenced the narrative and of course he died before he really got off the ground with that project and in a lot of quarters it was it was really considered a great loss that lee did not put anything to paper. here's a sample quote from from john gordon, of course did give us a great memoir a lot of it is made up and embellished in existed only in gordon's line. but gordon was a tremendous writer and unfortunately, lee was not the writer that gordon or chamberlain or grant or reporter alexander were lee if you read his writings, he wrote an introduction to his father's revolutionary war memoirs after the war and that is some of the driest stuff you'll ever read it will put you directly to sleep. so lee just you know out of all of his gifts all of his talents writing was not one of them, so i will respectfully disagree here with general gordon. it's probably better for lee and his his image in history that he did not write his memoirs because we probably think less of him just because of his lack of skills as a writer. that's not to say that he was not a good writer overall when it comes to just narrative history. that was not his thing. he had a very distinct right of style. he had a very good sense of humor. that's all that's evident when he's writing to family and friends, but just when he's writing for the general public it was something that he just did not have now while lee did not give us a history of his life or his time during the civil war many of his inner circle did and this is where i draw a lot of my material that i got in my book from is his inner circle. nobody spent more time with lee during the war then his personal staff and i'll talk quite a bit about them and we'll start off with this guy right here charles marshall. he served with lee for about three years. marshall was a lawyer from baltimore and if you've not heard of marshall, i guarantee you you are familiar with his work, please farewell order and appomattox was written by charles marshall. all of lee's campaign reports that you'll find in the official records were written by charles marshall all of his legal correspondence that dealt with washington or excuse me to deal with richmond in particular the conscription act of 1862 charles marshall's work yet again and shortly after general lee died his eldest son custis asked marshall if he would write a an article that the the college was going to publish about lee. they're working on a memorial volume about the general and custis asked marshall if he would do it and marshall declined. he didn't think he had the ability to do it and especially in the short window of time that custis needed it. but that really that idea struck a chord with marshall and he realized that he and the others of lean staff did have access to the man that nobody else had and marshall and many of the others decided to set about writing about their time with lee now marshall got farther than lee but in the end it met with the same result marshall died before he finished his memoirs, but i'll quote piece of a letter here that marshall wrote to cassius lee the same cousin that that earlier leak was from the author should have access to the most authentic proof of all that he may state. he should have ample time to collect all facts and he should omit nothing that bears upon the subject. i had not been or have i now the means of writing the more extensive work the way i am using every means to prepare myself at some future time to do so, i'm preparing a life of the general talking about lee, which i hope to present within a year or 18 months provided i can get the material if i can do no more i shall collect all that i can and write all i know to be used by some future biographer and that is actually what marshall succeeded in doing? he collected all sorts of stuff. he started writing his memoirs there about three sizable chunks of it. they're not all connected. they're kind of disjointed pieces of the war the way he was writing it, but after marshall died his daughter found these and it was right about the time that i british general frederick maurice published a biography of lee this would be right about 1920 and marshall's daughter contacted this british general maurice and said and explain to him who she was, you know, charles marshall was my father and i found his papers and his incomplete memoirs. would you be interested in these now after maurice? i'm sure got over his initial shock and anger, you know every historian it never fails after your book is published. that's when people come to you with these sources that you want. so i'm sure he had the reaction that most of us would you know, why didn't you give this to me two years ago, but eventually he did collect it and he edited and edited it. put it out, and it was published in a volume called lee's aid to camp. it's still available today. and it's marshall's history of the war again. there are some sizable gaps in there because marshall never completed it, but marshall gives great insight into what it was like at headquarters and about working with lee. but nobody had closer contact with lee during the war then this young man walter taylor. taylor is with lee. we're almost the entire war. he joins lee the first week of may 1862. so there's only about three weeks or so of the war that taylor is not attached to lee in some way shape or form taylor would write several books and most of his letters from that time period survive and taylor is a great great source of information his two books now, they were written for public consumption. so they're somewhat filtered. he was not going to say anything bad about his former chief. neither did marshall when they're writing for public eye. they are very respectful towards toward lee when they're writing for private reasons or the writing to family or friends. that's when you get their true picture of lee taylor did not like lee despite his post or reverence for him. he they really did not get along all that. well, there was a huge age gap between them taylor was about the the age of lee's sons. so it's kind of a father son relationship there in terms of age, but it's reading taylor and some of these other guys private letters that you learn these things about lee that you wouldn't necessarily get from freeman and some of the other biographies lee had a horrible temper. his health was a lot worse than is really known today. and in fact taylor referred to him as the ty when lee got off on a on a mean streak so to speak he stuck with it for quite a while and he was just very unpleasant to be around quite a bit when he was in one of his moods, but of course you get that with anybody the people that you're around the most they're the ones that see the true you and that's that's what lee staff really witnessed for lee. but this is what taylor had to say in the introductions one of his books describing their relationship about how it was very respectful. there wasn't really the distinction that you would expect between the commanding general and these junior officers these young men on its staff refers to the camaraderie that they shared and unlike a lot of the federal generals who had large staff. you know, you think of mcclellan, you know, he's got this french prince on his staff. they didn't have that. it was his personal staff was anywhere from three to five guys throughout the entire war and none of them worked harder than taylor if you've seen the movie gettysburg, there's a scene in there. i think it's meaning of july 1st where the actor portraying taylor is talking to to leave. any they're talking about the workload and taylor says i would be offended if you got more staff. i can handle the work. that was not really taylor's attitude. he complained bitterly about the workload about how he was pulling more than his share on the rest of the staff and it wasn't until about late january early february 1865 when the others had a taste of what they were had to go through and the workload even though anyway enough about that move on talk a little bit more detail about taylor's writings. taylor he was from norfolk, virginia. he was a banker was a vmi graduate. he was actually the the auditor for the norfolk and petersburg. railroad. billy mahone's railroad immediately before the war both of his brothers also worked for the norfolk and petersburg. they served on mahone staff during the war, but when lee goes off to west virginia taylor's with him when lee goes to the south atlantic coast taylor's with him taylor is of course with him throughout all the campaigns of the army in northern virginia again, he's there for all but three weeks and the people at large especially after the war is over and you get the formation of the ucb and these people who are hungry to know more about their former chief. they're looking to walter taylor they want to know, you know, they're jealous of him. basically, you know you had access to this man that the rest of us can only dream about, you know, please tell us what it was like so taylor was often requested as we're marshall and some of the other staff to come speak at ucv meetings and reunions and whatnot taylor. very popular speaker whenever there was a reunion held in norfolk. it was usually reunion of mahone's brigade, but taylor was a very popular speaker because of the insight that he could offer about lee. and so when his first book comes out in 1877 called four years of lee people were looking forward to this thing. they couldn't wait to read it. and then they open it and it's nothing but a really by the numbers history the army of northern virginia. the title was very misleading. it's not about taylor's four years with lee. it's a history of the army in northern virginia and the numbers that it had in each campaign taylor as a banker. he was a numbers guy when we're the morning reports and casualty reports and whatnot were turned into headquarters taylor was the one who processed them. so nobody knew the strength of the army of northern virginia at various battles and campaigns better than taylor. so that's what he put the paper. and as more and more public disappointment became evident people were reaching out to him and finally by the turn of the century he gave in and he wrote another book. that was the one he should have written in the first place the more personal look at at his four years beside lee and that one is called general lee his campaigns in virginia 1906 and the title should really be switched because the content really does not it's not reflective of the titles of the of those two books if you want to read one of taylor's books, i would go for the later one. the general lee is campaigns, but the one the the 1906 book, but really taylor's great contribution to civil war scholarship was unintentional his letters to his primarily to his future wife betty saunders. were a gold mine of information most of them survived from about mid 1862 through to the end of the war they survive in the the norfolk public library? and that's where taylor is open and honest about lee and the inner workings of headquarters. that's where you find out when taylor and lee budhead. that's when you find out where lee's in a bad mood. that's where you find out where other staff officers and other generals are being critical and kind of second guessing lee and those papers were published in 1995 under the title leeds agent. it leaves out the post-war papers and that's where some of the really good stuff is when taylor is writing to the other members of lee staff as well as jackson staff and longstreet staff. so there's some good stuff that's not included in that as well the post-war stuff, but unfortunately betty saunders destroyed his letters from 1861 and the first half of 1862 and when taylor found out about that he was livid because he explained to her. please don't destroy my letters. i'm saving these because these are not just meant for your information. this is my memories of the war. he's told destroy them. so after she got the letter, that's it. please don't destroy them. she stop destroying them, but because his letters from 1861 in the first half of 62 do not survive. there's really scant information on lee in west virginia and on the south atlantic coast, and those are the two times that we really know the least about lee and it's primarily because taylor's letters do not survive from that time period and when you read his books, you can see that he was reflecting he was using those that as an outline to follow and the 61 and early 62 parts of the weakest part of his books because again, he was having to rely solely on memory. he didn't have his letters in front of him to refresh things in his mind. but taylor was not the only one to to write about their former commander. armistead long who was lee's military secretary beginning in late 61 and on up through about mid 63. he wrote a huge book called the memoirs of robert e. lee came out mid 1880s and not only is that a great source. it's amazing that he was able to do it long went blind in the process of writing this to the fact that he was actually able to get it finished is just fascinating to me and when you look at the manuscript that is housed at unc, it truly just looks like chicken scratch because by the end he was completely blind and obviously could not see what he was writing, but he did have somebody that could decipher what he was putting down fits you lee the general's nephew. he wrote a biography of lee that came out in the mid 1890s. that was really more to boost fits his political career than it was to bring anything new about the general to the forefront fitz was not a great commander. he really owed his the fact that his last name was lee and he built his political career off of the fact that his last name was lee, but he he offered a few insights into his uncle but not a lot you would expect more from him. lee's youngest son rob served briefly in the rock bridge artillery and then was an aid to his older brother rooney. he published a memoir of sort right around the turn of the century, and he also included some edited at least versions of lee's letters again, they were edited for public guys. so a lot of the personal and private stuff was cut out, but we offer lee junior offers a lot of good information on his father mentioned marshall already and and how his incomplete memoir so published in the the twenties by frederick maurice. thomas talcott, who was the son of lee's mentor andrew talcott the younger talcott here would serve on lee's staff for the first half of the war before. he went on to command an engineer regiment. he wrote a couple of