Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee are two of the most important, and heavily published about, figures in nineteenth-century American history, but despite the enormous amount of published material on the Civil War, including individual biographies of Lee and Grant, there is almost nothing that has been published which looks at these two figures together and which compares them over an extended period of time. This new, fully illustrated book is the first to provide a major re-assessment of their lives, careers and historical impact. This illustrated volume contains over 270 images, pictorial representations of both men, as well as photographs and engravings, and images from popular culture. Leading authors William Rasmussen and Robert Tilton cover both these major figures' lives, from their early education and military training at West Point, through the Civil War and its immediate aftermath, to their retirement.

TWO HUNDRED YEARS after Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee's funeral oration for George Washington, the eloquence of his words "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen" has caused most Americans to forget the clause that followed in which Lee located Washington's character firmly in his private life. George Washington: The Man behind the Myths redresses this historical imbalance in our image of Washington by examining our conceptions and misconceptions about him through a fascinating collection of documents and images.

Washington's own accounts, observations by his contemporaries, narratives by the first generation of Washington biographers, decorative objects, and visual images, which were assembled for a major exhibition sponsored by the Virginia Historical Society, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, and Washington and Lee University, invite a fresh evaluation of Washington. William M. S. Rasmussen and Robert S. Tilton trace the ways in which Washington's origins in the peculiar colonial society of Virginia prepared him for success on the national stage. Chronologically arranged chapters examine Washington's early exposure to the wealthy Fairfax family, his command of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War and later the Continental Army, his decision to attend the Constitutional Convention, and his two elections to the presidency. Rasmussen and Tilton argue that the major transitions we see in Washington's public image were made possible by the stability of his private life and his love of Mount Vernon.

The image of Washington created by antebellum writers and artists after his death was intended to capture what he signified to the fledgling republic. This myth has survived largely because of its usefulness to our national culture. George Washington: The Man behind the Myths takes a crucial step in restoring our understanding of Washington as he actually was.

From the time of its first appearance, the story of Pocahontas has provided the terms of a flexible discourse that has been put to multiple, and at times contradictory, uses. Centering around her legendary rescue of John Smith from the brink of execution and her subsequent marriage to a white Jamestown colonist, the Pocahontas convention became a source of national debate over such broad issues as miscegenation, racial conflict, and colonial expansion. At the same time, Pocahontas became the most frequently and variously portrayed female figure in antebellum literature. Robert S. Tilton draws upon the rich tradition of Pocahontas material to examine why her half-historic, half-legendary narrative so engaged the imaginations of Americans from the earliest days of the colonies through the conclusion of the Civil War. Drawing upon a wide variety of primary materials, Tilton reflects on the ways in which the Pocahontas myth was exploded, exploited, and ultimately made to rationalise dangerous preconceptions about the native American tradition.