Lee and Jackson

by Paul D. Casdorph

Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson comprised one of the greatest collaborations in American military history. This, the first biography to examine them both, probes the private lives and public careers of these consummate soldiers to find out just what the secret behind their extraordinary success was. They were men of starkly different personalities, but their contrasting characters superbly complemented one another, so that together they fought the Union. Machine to a standstill. Robert E. Lee, the son of an aristocratic southern family, attended West Point and married a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. By the Civil War he was already one of the country's greatest generals, a hero of the Mexican War who, ironically, had been offered field command of the Union Army. "Stonewall" Jackson, a devout Calvinist, was a rigid man whose troops more often felt admiration than affection toward him. He met Lee at West Point. When he was a cadet and Lee an engineering officer; J