Tainted Legacy
DOUGLAS SOUTHALL FREEMAN titled Chapter Six of the third volume of his widely read study Lee’s Lieuten ants, “Ewell Cannot Reach a Decision.” He depicted “Old Bald Head”—Robert E. Lee’s Second Corps commander, Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell—as a vacillating, indecisive, cautious leader who failed to seize the initiative and deprived the Army of Northern Virginia on more than one occasion of seizing opportunities that would have resulted in Confederate victory at Gettysburg.
Among Second Corps veterans Freeman deployed to build his case of Ewell’s “failures” were John B. Gordon, Isaac Trimble, and Henry Kyd Douglas. All sought for various reasons, in which Shaara drew heavily on Trimble’s self-serving account.
