PERSONAL REMINISCENCES, ANECDOTES, AND LETTERS OF GEN. ROBERT E. LEE, Annotated and Illustrated, by John William Jones

Robert E. Lee lived only five years after the end of the War Between the States. Dedicated to his work in directing the education of young men at Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, where he served as president, he did not have time or opportunity to write his memoirs. One of his chaplains with whom he was quite close in Christian fellowship ─ his familial friend, J. William Jones, set about to prepare a near approximation of Lee's memoirs, which was endorsed both by the Lee family and Washington (and Lee) College. Lee's story is told topically as Jones looks at various aspects of his life and character. Included are an abundance of professional and personal correspondence by Lee that give the reader insight into Lee, the man, soldier, husband, and father better than any narrative describing him.