Lee Versus Pickett: Two Divided by War

Ask a Southerner to name two things most important in Southern history and you are likely to get the same answer again and again; Robert E. Lee and Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg.

Robert E. Lee and George Pickett had a lot in common. They shared a military education, a Virginia birthright, even a middle name. One was the epitome of the southern gentleman; the other led the most dramatic, tragic, and studied assault of the Civil War. Both graduated from West Point (one first, the other last in his class), both are remembered fondly by Southerners, but few realize that great animosity existed between these two icons of the Confederacy.

Lee is the demigod of the "Lost Cause" legend but is often blamed, and took responsibility for, the disaster of Pickett's Charge. Pickett was the only general officer that Lee ever removed from command during the war. He fled the country at war's end to avoid a war crimes trial for having hanged 22 Union soldiers in North Carolina. Years later he returned and often remarked of Lee, "That man had my division slaughtered at Gettysburg."

Dr. Richard Selcer, a Texas college professor, here explores the complicated and contentious relationship between these men and their images through history. This is a critical book for those who seek to truly understand the American Civil War and Southern culture as a whole.