The Civil War and Its Historians: Douglas Southall Freeman and His Reverence for Robert E. Lee
DOUGLAS SOUTHALL FREEMAN has often been called one of the great U.S. historians, and ‘dean of the Virginia historians.’ And this is remarkable because he was NOT an academic but what he called “a tramp newspaperman.” He wrote major multi-volume biographies of some of the greatest Virginians, and he also wrote very fine “miniatures” on Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson for the Dictionary of American Biography.
Dumas Malone, an excellent Virginia historian, was in awe of “Dr. Freeman” — as was Freeman’s successor as editor of the Richmond News Leader, James J. Kilpatrick.
If it seems unwise to try simultaneously to be a first-rate newspaper editor and a major historian, the double task seemed almost effortless for Douglas Southall Freeman.
Not only that, Freeman also served on a number of civic boards, was for many years Chairman of the Board of the University of Richmond, was a member in good standing in various historical and literary societies and gave a huge number of lectures and speeches — 173 of them in 1937 alone. James J. Kilpatrick called him “the first genius I ever met.”
Dr. Freeman was born in Lynchburg but around 1890, at age four, moved to Richmond with his family. His father, Walker Freeman, was in the insurance business, but told his sons that what a man did for a living wasn’t terribly important. What really mattered was giving love to your family, loyalty to your friends, and accepting the reality of God and the divinity of Jesus.
Walker Freeman was a Confederate, a proud veteran of the Civil War, which he called the War Between the States. He’d been with Robert E. Lee on the day Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, and he thought the world of General Lee.
Walker Freeman was an active member of the United Confederate Veterans, and brought young Douglas to many of the group’s reunions, where the boy heard stories of heroism and calm excellence during that chaotic, disastrous war. Every Confederate at those reunions seemed to consider General Lee both a superb military strategist and a kindly soul, and Douglas drank that in.
After Douglas Southall Freeman graduated from the University of Richmond, he went on to Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, and in 1908 earned his doctorate in History. This orderly, restrained man wrote his dissertation on a chaotic and passionate time, that of the Virginia Secession Convention. The doctorate meant a great deal to him; all his life he liked to be called “Dr. Freeman.”
He disliked and mistrusted demagogues but had a knack for public speaking, and considered being a minister or an actor before choosing journalism and historical scholarship. Though learned and passionate about history, he had no interest in being a History professor. As a journalist, he was curious about the world but not in being anyone’s foreign correspondent.
What he wanted to study was Virginia.
By the age of 29, he was the editor of the Richmond News Leader. From age 29 to 63, he held that job, all through the heart of his life. He’d rise at 2:30 a.m., drive to the News Leader office in the dark, and write that day’s major editorial before the rest of the staff arrived.
All morning, he sorted out tasks, made assignments and supervised his staff. By noon, he was done with newspapering for the day.
Dr. Freeman drove home, had lunch and often a brief nap and spent the afternoon writing history, books spread out around him. On Sundays, he wrote all day long. After dinner, he listened seriously to music, and was in bed by 9 p.m. He loved his work, loved being in harness, never bucked his schedule. Douglas Freeman lived by the Thomas Jefferson quote: “It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.”
He moved smoothly from his editor’s post to writing his history books; the change from one work to another seemed to soothe him. He was serene, quiet, but always ready to write another page, to go another day. He called it “joyous labor.”
To address other men formally came naturally to him. Using an overly familiar tone would be in bad taste. He never swore — and even profane men found themselves holding back in his presence, not wanting to disappoint him. Likewise, Dr. Freeman never smoked and at his editorial conferences even habitual smokers refrained from lighting up.
Doctor Freeman disliked flowery prose or second-guessing. He advised young journalists: “Don’t gush and don’t twitter. Play it straight.”
He liked newspaper work and knew it was important. Citizens in a democracy, in order to perform their duties, must be well-informed and well-educated about what’s happening in the world. Newspapers were a key part of that education. He wrote his editorials with care.
But he knew that the screaming headlines and the news articles and the earnest editorials and all the rest of the daily newspaper wouldn’t last long except in a few libraries. He called journalism “writing in sand.”
On the other hand, he savored the fact that the best historical writing lasted for centuries. He did not idealize the Founding Fathers beyond what they were, but he had a deep respect and affection for them, and for the Confederate soldiers and their leaders. Every day, coming to work and again going home, he’d pass, and salute, the prominent statue in Richmond of Robert E. Lee.
He kept his journalism and his historical scholarship in different compartments of his mind — but sometimes one bled into another, as when during World War Two, he compared troop movements in the European Theater to the way General Lee had moved Confederate troops during the War Between the States.
Doctor Freeman revered tradition. He assumed that traditional ways must have real meaning; otherwise, they would not have survived. Reform could be a good thing, too, but reforms should be sensible and limited, updating old modes of doing things rather than replacing them wholesale.
He had an orderly mind that loved to see things in proper proportion. In 1935, when he published “Robert E. Lee,” he knew he’d spent 6,100 hours on it, because he’d totaled them up in an account book. To write “Lee’s Lieutenants,” he’d spent 7,121 hours — and it bothered him that he’d spent more time on Lee’s lieutenants then he had on the great general himself.
He kept his newspaper office desk neat as a pin. He tried to return any and all personal letters within 24 hours; his replies were often brief, and requests for assistance were not always granted, but each reply was written with a full appreciation, and skillful use, of the English language.
Dr. Freeman did use a series of research assistants for his history-writing — but only one at a time; and he could have gotten along without them.
He took enormous pleasure in the writing of history. On one October Sunday in 1948, inspired by some lovely foliage just outside his window, he wrote 4,800 words of history in a single day. He spent a great many hours outlining his works before he began the writing, but very few hours rewriting or revising. Graceful sentences and orderly paragraphs flowed from his pen.
Many people told Dr. Freeman: ‘Please write George Washington’s biography.’ And Dr. Freeman knew this would be a splendid project, because Washington was the greatest Virginian of them all, the indispensable man, without whom America likely would not have become a free nation at all. He also knew that George Washington had no first-rate biography.
So Doctor Freeman wrote his George Washington biography, brushed aside the myth that young George had cut down one of his father’s cherry trees, then said, “I cannot tell a lie!” Freeman spent 15,693 hours on his George Washington book, and it was celebrated in its time, and is still charming in its way.
Dr. Freeman intended to bring George Washington through his second presidential term, restore him to his beloved Mount Vernon, and describe his years of honored retirement. His readers had faith that Dr. Freeman would do final justice to President Washington, tying up the story with dignity, intelligence and grace. But in 1953, Dr. Freeman died rather suddenly, at the age of 67 with his unmatched portrait of George Washington unfinished.
Never cynical, Dr. Freeman mixed biography and good sense with a deep understanding of how armies moved, what soldiers could and couldn’t do without good leadership; and the nuances involved in tactical thinking, both in politics and in war. It was old-fashioned history that he wrote, where great men did great deeds — not because they were perfect but because they’d been raised by codes of honor which they labored to uphold.
So the life of Douglas Southall Freeman seemed in 1953 and for decades afterward: a devout Christian, a first-rate newspaper editor, a proud Virginian and a superb historian, who wrote unmatched accounts of men like Robert E. Lee and George Washington.
But what if Robert E. Lee was NOT a brilliant general, but a man who stupidly chose to fight a conventional war against the industrialized North, when a guerilla war would have suited the South’s ends much better?
And what if as a “slave master,” General Lee thought nothing of breaking up families of the enslaved? What if he directed that enslaved people caught escaping should be whipped until their backs were lacerated and then brine poured over the lacerations?
What if, when he so brilliantly invaded Pennsylvania, he directed his troops to abduct free blacks and bring them back behind Rebel lines as “slaves”? What if he had no objection to his troops massacring African-American troops who were trying to surrender?
What if, after the war, at Washington College, while serving as its President, Robert E. Lee did nothing to suppress a KKK chapter on campus, nor to keep them from attempting to abduct and rape African-American female college students, and lynch African-American males? What if he was dead set against African-Americans having any political power?
In 2022, it seems that either Douglas Southall Freeman didn’t know Robert E. Lee nearly as fully as he thought he did — or else that he refused to acknowledge the ugly side of the man.
“Play it straight,” he used to advise young journalists. Dr. Freeman would have done well to heed his own advice.