January 2011

Had he been a Catholic, the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, self-effacing in victory and noble in defeat, would likely today be known as St. Robert of Appomattox, idol as he was of his people, their lodestar. It is not so easy to be the daughter of a saint, idol, lodestar.

Robert E. Lee was a wonderful father to his young children. He taught them to ride, bought sleds and skates, had them learn to swim, competed in their jumping contests, was intensely involved in their studies. Telling lively and entertaining stories—he liked to be tickled and would say, “No tickling, no stories”—and showing how step-by-step solutions could be found for school-book problems, he was always cheery and with a bright smile that, Robert Jr. remembered, characterized him for his boys and girls.

The children turned into adults. The general adored his son Rooney’s wife, and he was forever asking friends to find a suitable match for his youngest son: “You see, there is no Mrs. R. E. Lee, Jr. Cannot you persuade some of those pretty girls in Baltimore to take compassion on a poor bachelor?”

Regarding “Presidents in the Woods” (April issue), the monument pictured on page 117 is theorized to be Phil Sheridan. My vote would be for one of Sheridan’s troublesome underlings, and a man with Ohio connections: George Armstrong Custer.

produced by Robert Drew , Direct Cinema Limited, 58 minutes, $34.95 . CODE: DCV-8

Sony Classical SS/ST/M 68488 (CD); $17.98 . CODE: BAT-57

by David Darlington , Henry Holt and Company, 337 pages, $25.00 . CODE: HHC-8

by Wilma King , Indiana University Press, 269 pages, $27.50 softcover . CODE: IND-1

FERGUS M. BORDEWICH CAME TO many of his conclusions about the future of Native Americans and reservation policy while completing Killing the White Man’s Indian , published earlier this year by Doubleday, 352 pages, $27.00, CODE: DOU-4 ).

Before he wrote about Thomas Jefferson’s vacation, Willard Sterne Randall tackled all of the third President’s days in Thomas Jefferson , a biography now in softcover (HarperCollins, 736 pages, $17.00, CODE: HPC-4 ).

U. S. A. , by John Dos Passos, has just been reissued in one of the Library of America’s unfailingly handsome editions (1,288 pages, $40.00, CODE: LOA-11 ).

transcribed by Karen Hess , Columbia University Press, 518 pages, $16.50 softcover . CODE: COL-2

IN THE LATE SIXTIES A CHILDREN’S BOOK appeared about a boy’s struggle to know what his hero George Washington ate for breakfast. At the book’s end, the boy’s family sits down to a hearty and evocative morning meal, but they do so with nothing like the culinary precision set forth in this family-recipe book, owned for fifty years by Martha Washington and passed down through the generations.

by Oleg Cassini , Rizzoli, 224 pages, $42.50 . CODE: R1Z-5

by Stephen D. Cuozzo , Times Books, 332 pages, $25.00 . CODE: RAN-41