General Stephen D. Lee
This biographical portrait by a well known Civil War historian brings much deserved attention to an exceptional Confederate military figure who became one of the New South’s most progressive leaders.
Herman Hattaway’s clear, swift narrative depicts Lee in brilliant performance at Second Manassas, Chickasaw Bayou, Nashville, and after the war as a leader who used his military skills and discipline to work in bringing prosperity and education into the defeated South.
After the war Lee established a home in Mississippi and found fulfillment in his calling to be the first president of Mississippi A & M College (today Mississippi State University), where he preached the message of applying brain power to farming. His admirers bestowed upon him the title "Father of Industrial Education in the South."
Though the significance of Stephen D. Lee was long overlooked in historical perspectives of the Civil War and the development of the New South, Hattaway’s appreciative study has remedied a case of unintended neglect by previous historians.
Herman Hattaway (1938-2023) was a professor of history and religious studies at the University of Missouri Kansas City for over thirty years. He was also author, editor, or coeditor of multiple award-winning books on Civil War and southern history, including (with E. Grey Dimond) Letters from Forest Place: A Plantation Family’s Correspondence, 1846-1881, published by University Press of Mississippi.
