Abstract
Robert E. Lee, the famed Confederate forces commander and icon of the South, is a towering figure in U.S. and military history. The son of a famed Revolutionary War officer, his path to greatness included graduating at the top of his class at West Point, serving with distinction in the Mexican-American War, and being asked to command the Union Forces at the start of the Great War. Declining the offer, he chose to remain with his home state of Virginia, which had seceded. His memoirs, here gathered and edited by his youngest son Robert Jr., bring to life a seismic period in American history.