Robert e lee biography douglas freeman

American historian and journalist

Douglas Southall Freeman (May 16, 1886 – June 13, 1953) was an American historian, biographer, newspaper editor, radio commentator, and author.

He is best known for his multi-volume biographies of Robert E. Lee and George Washington, for both of which he was awarded Pulitzer Prizes.^[1]

Early life

Douglas Southall Freeman was born May 16, 1886, in Lynchburg, Virginia, to Bettie Allen Hamner and Walker Burford Freeman, an insurance agent who had served four years in Robert E.

Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. From childhood, Freeman exhibited an interest in Southern history.

Robert e lee biography douglas freeman

In Lynchburg, his family lived at 416 Main Street,^[2] near the home of Confederate general Jubal Early. The family moved to the former Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, in 1892 at the height of the monument commemoration movement that memorialized Virginia's Robert E.

Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.