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A man who devoted his entire life to the benefit of others without regard to himself.
Woodrow Wilson3a
Robert E. Lee has been one of the most admired and loved men in our national experience. He spent a life of devotion to his duty as he saw it, subordinating his self-interest, not seeking personal glory but using his great gifts of leadership to advance a cause in which he believed. Having spent thirty years in the Federal Army, he abandoned his career there at the very moment that he was offered the field command of it, choosing instead to lead the doomed Army of the Confederacy. At Appomattox he submitted to defeat in a manner that inspired universal respect, and afterward he tried to heal the wounds between North and South by providing a model to others of submission without rancor. By identifying with such a fine product of Southern rearing, Southerners were able to regain some measure of self-respect after the war's material and emotional devastation. His dignified acceptance of their common suffering enobled them all, making them feel almost superior to the North, who had merely won. More broadly, Lee's memory is an inspiration to all who lose. The subject of this paper is what prepared Lee for this role.
My interest in Lee was stimulated by Thomas B. Connelly's recent reappraisal of him3 that attempted to separate the encrustation of myth from the man and show the man in a fresh light. Though my basic conceptualization of Lee differs from Connelly's—and I think from all others'—in certain details I agree and I am greatly indebted to Connelly's work for creating an atmosphere that encourages fresh