The Old Rebel: Robert E. Lee As He Was Seen By His Contemporaries

Why in the 21st Century should we care about "the Old Rebel" Robert E. Lee, a Victorian who was old fashioned even during his own time, and who died nearly 150 years ago? Why a book about how his peers saw him, when the world he lived in disappeared long ago, making his life and death seemingly meaningless to those of us living in the modern era? In The Old Rebel: Robert E. Lee As He Was Seen By His Contemporaries, award-winning author and Southern historian Colonel Lochlainn Seabrook provides the answers: in our ever growing impersonal cyber age where we continue to distance ourselves not only from others, but from God and Nature as well, the Christ-like Southern gentleman Robert E. Lee is more relevant than ever before. In his hard-working, conservative, dutiful, and honest ways, in his deeply spiritual, modest, loyal, gentle, loving, and forgiving nature, Lee serves as an ideal moral compass for today's depersonalized humanistic society, a true-life paragon that all of us-no matter what our age, occupation, race, religion, or political persuasion-can aspire to. To aid us in better understanding the stunning power of Robert E. Lee's life, Colonel Seabrook has gathered together nearly 400 footnoted quotes by the General's 19th-Century contemporaries, including both his admirers and his former Northern enemies. The book, a companion to Seabrook's equally absorbing work The Quotable Robert E. Lee, is divided into convenient chapters, covering everything from Lee's birth, childhood, and family life, to his service in both the U.S. military and the C.S. military, as well as his time as president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University). We also learn about the General's earliest known French and English ancestors, his royal bloodline through William the Conqueror, Stratford Hall (Lee's birthplace) and Arlington House (the Lee-Custis family estate), and the etymology of the Lee surname. Colonel Seabrook's personal notes and the numerous Victorian illustrations lend historical context, helping make this Civil War Sesquicentennial Edition an indispensable work for all those interested in learning the truth about Lincoln's War, Confederate history, and Southern culture. The Foreword is by nine-time award-winning Texas historian Scott Bowden (Last Chance For Victory: Robert E. Lee and the Gettysburg Campaign). An attractive, unique, affordable, and popular tourist-friendly work that will appeal to both casual Civil War buffs and hardcore Civil War scholars alike, The Old Rebel is the perfect addition to any retail outlet, including not only bookstores, but Civil War sites, historic houses, and museum gift stores. Civil War scholar Lochlainn Seabrook, a close cousin of the Lee and Custis families and a descendant of the families of Alexander H. Stephens and John S. Mosby, is the most prolific and popular pro-South writer in the world today. Known as the "new Shelby Foote," he is a recipient of the prestigious Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal and the author of over 50 books that have introduced hundreds of thousands to the truth about the War for Southern Independence. A seventh-generation Kentuckian of Appalachian heritage and the sixth great-grandson of the Earl of Oxford, Colonel Seabrook has a forty-year background in American and Southern history, and is the author of the international blockbuster Everything You Were Taught About the Civil War is Wrong, Ask a Southerner! His other titles include: The Great Yankee Coverup: What the North Doesn’t Want You to Know About Lincoln’s War; Confederate Flag Facts: What Every American Should Know About Dixie’s Southern Cross; and Women in Gray: A Tribute to the Ladies Who Supported the Southern Confederacy.