Robert E. Lee – from "Letter to his Family"

Robert E. Lee was very important to the Civil War, and even before that, he did a great deal for the United States army. He was a very intelligent man that came from a prestigious family. When the Civil War was beginning, Lee was heartbroken (Lee). Lee did not want the United States to fall apart into a country that needed force to uphold its laws and its idea of brotherly love (Lee). Originally, President Lincoln requested that he be the general for the troops that were in the Union, but when Lee's home state of Virginia seceded, he decided that he could not fight against his home state (Lee). Lee decided to go fight for the South, because he could not handle fighting against his home state and his family that was there (Lee). He quickly moved to the top of the ranks, and he became general of the Confederate army (Lee). He did well for a while, but he eventually lost too much and had to surrender to the North (Lee). We have letters that he wrote to his family before the war, and in the letter to his son, he talks about the heartbreak that he was experiencing over the breaking up of the United States (Lee). This work is Realistic, because it talks about his feelings at that moment in time (Lee). It is not Naturalistic, because it does not evaluate or study humans or what was happening (Lee). It is not really Regionalistic, even though it discusses different regions of the United States, because it is not trying to promote a certain place over others (Lee). This reflects society at that period, because while many people may have thought a war was inevitable, they did not want one (Lee). While many people were upset about the treatment between the North and the South, they wanted a war even less. This work has nothing about religion, and not really much about the government (Lee). It has a little, because Lee talks about the fact that if they had a war, their government would dissolve into nothing (Lee). There is nothing about nature, and the only human nature was about a work that Lee had just read because his son had sent it to him (Lee). The American Dream is not really in this work, but Lee's American Dream could have been that the Union would not break up, which did not end up happening (Lee). There was no figurative language in Lee's letter to his son, and there was also nothing about a Hero (Lee). This work was a lot about Lee's feelings about the politics going on at the moment and what was going to happen to the Union more than anything else, and while he wished for there to not be a war, his wishes did not come true (Lee). He was a very honorable man that wanted the best for his country and the people in it, rather than wanting the best for himself or for personal gain (Lee). Lee was an incredible general and man, who did his best to preserve the country.

Lee, Robert E. "Letter to His Family." American Literature. Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Douglas Fisher, Beverly A. Chin, and Jacqueline J. Royster. Columbus: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2009. 382-85. Print.