The First Confederate Soldier

George Washington Lee represents a great untold epic of the Civil War. His campaigns encompassed Atlanta, Pensacola, Savannah, and Richmond, reaching from the swampy Okefenokee to the Appalachian Mountains. Literally the first soldier of the Confederate army, he was one of the last men in gray, even leading Cherokee warriors in one campaign. As provost marshal of Atlanta, Lee fought arsonists, bootleggers, counterfeiters, crime syndicate members, deserters, draft evaders, espionage agents, failing Confederate entities, thieves, and war resisters. He raised numerous companies for the Southern army.

This book presents one of the most controversial Civil War stories in history. Lee served the new Southern nation faithfully despite near-fatal bouts of tuberculosis, assassination attempts, and--as ordered by General William Tecumseh Sherman--treatment as a war criminal. Lee is only remembered for his suppression of resistance to the Confederacy, though neither he nor his family owned anyone. This account of Confederate Atlanta features an important yet neglected figure who oversaw it all in a dangerous world of devotion, loyalty, and treason.