Civil War History

Confederate General Robert E. Lee (1807 – 1870) is the topic of this psycho-graphic essay from Confederate Portraits (1914) by the celebrated biographer, Gamaliel Bradford (1863 – 1932).

…Lee won the hearts of his soldiers by living as they did. He managed the business of his position with as little fuss and parade as possible. Foreign officers were struck with the absolute simplicity of his arrangements. There were no guards or sentries around his headquarters, no idle aids-de-camp loitering about…

Attached is a psychographic essay from Confederate Portraits (1914) by the noted biographer, Gamaliel Bradford (1863 – 1932). It must have been written in order to expose to the reading public that softer, more sensitive Raphael Semmes (1809 – 1877) that no historian ever seems to consider. This vision of the American Civil War pirate comes off as a quiet, pious Renaissance man, with a flare for the dramatic.

Semmes was not only a wide reader in his profession and in lines connected with it, but he loved literature proper, read much poetry and quoted it aptly. He was a singularly sensitive to beauty in any form.

Attached is a psychographic essay from Confederate Portraits (1914) by the noted biographer, Gamaliel Bradford (1863 – 1932). It must have been written in order to expose to the reading public that softer, more sensitive Raphael Semmes (1809 – 1877) that no historian ever seems to consider. This vision of the American Civil War pirate comes off as a quiet, pious Renaissance man, with a flare for the dramatic.

Semmes was not only a wide reader in his profession and in lines connected with it, but he loved literature proper, read much poetry and quoted it aptly. He was a singularly sensitive to beauty in any form.