This dual biography viewing Lee and Grant as equally worthy had the bad luck to come out just before shares in Lee’s reputation crashed. Its dual biography format is still useful.
Grant vs. Lee
For years, Lee got much more respect from the ordinary American than Grant both as a military leader and as a personality. But historians have long been teaching that Grant was not only the better general but also the better man.
‘The Myth of the Lost Cause’ by Edward Bonekemper
Nearly everything you learned in school about the Civil War is wrong. Even up North, the story had a Southern bias. It turns out that Grant was a better general than Lee.
‘Confederates in the Attic’ by Tony Horwitz
With good humor, the late Tony Horwitz, who described himself as a Jewish Civil War buff, explores why contemporary southerners care so much about a war from the middle of the 19th century.