Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command; Volume III: Gettysburg to Appomattox

xlvi, [2], 862 pages. Folding map at back. Volume III only. Dramatis Personae. Illustrations (Eight portrait photographs and forty-six military maps), Footnotes. Appendices. Selected Critical Bibliography. Index. DJ has wear, tears, soiling and chips. Scuff and white out area on fep. Douglas Southall Freeman (May 16, 1886 - June 13, 1953) was an American historian, biographer, newspaper editor, radio commentator, and author. He is best known for his multi-volume biographies of Robert E. Lee and George Washington, for both of which he was awarded Pulitzer Prizes. Following the critical success of R. E. Lee: A Biography, Freeman expanded his study of the Confederacy with the critically acclaimed three-volume Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command, published in 1942, 1943, and 1944. It presents a unique combination of military strategy, biography, and Civil War history, and it shows how armies actually work. Published during World War II, it had a great influence on American military leaders and strategists. A few months after the conclusion of the war, Freeman was asked to join an official tour of American forces in Europe and Japan. Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command established Freeman as the preeminent military historian in the country, and led to close friendships with United States generals George C. Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command is the most colorful and popular of Douglas Southall Freeman's works. A sweeping narrative that presents a multiple biography against the flame-shot background of the American Civil War, it is the story of the great figures of the Army of Northern Virginia who fought under Robert E. Lee. The Confederacy won resounding victories throughout the war, but seldom easily or without tremendous casualties. Death was always on the heels of fame, but the men who commanded—among them Jackson, Longstreet, and Ewell—developed as leaders and men. Lee's Lieutenants follows these men to the costly battle at Gettysburg, through the deepening twilight of the South's declining military might, and finally to the collapse of Lee's command and his formal surrender in 1865. To his unparalleled descriptions of men and operations, Dr. Freeman adds an insightful analysis of the lessons learned and their bearing upon the future military development of the nation. Accessible at last in a one-volume edition abridged by noted Civil War historian Stephen W. Sears, Lee's Lieutenants is essential reading for all Civil War buffs, students of war, and admirers of the historian's art as practiced at its very highest level. Volume Three of Douglas Southall Freeman's masterful "Lee's Lieutenants" begins with the fateful Battle of Brandy Station, at which Confederate Cavalry commander Jeb Stuart is surprised and embarrassed by his Union counterparts in a closely fought combat. The supposed stain on his honor would prompt the proud Stuart to exceed his orders during the Gettysburg campaign, leaving General Lee for days without good information about his Union opponents. Lee and the vaunted Army of Northern Virginia would stumble into a pitched and bloody three-day battle at Gettysburg; the South would never recover from its losses, especially in general officers. Freeman closely tracks the last two years of the Civil War, as attrition of leadership forced Lee to reach deeper into the ranks for commanders. Some, such as John Gordon, shone as commanders. Some others were less than equal to the challenge. Worst of all, in Union General Grant, Lee faced an opponent prepared to fight to the death, that of the Army of Northern Virginia. The ending of the narrative has all the qualities of a tragedy, as Lee's army is bled nearly death at the Siege of Petersburg.…