To some in his day the defeated Confederate general Robert E. Lee symbolised the worst of the Old South. He defended secession, led a rebellion against the union and harboured racist attitudes toward slaves and later freedmen. To others, Lee was a hero for the very same reasons that detractors loathed him. One aspect of Lee's life that both detractors and defenders agree upon was the fact that Lee was a deeply religious person. R. David Cox explores, as the title of his book suggests, Lee's Christian faith.

In twenty-one short chapters, Cox recounts the details of Lee's life and analyses the various ways in which the Christian faith in general and the Protestant Episcopal Church in particular informed his everyday life. Cox devotes chapters to Anglicanism in early nineteenth-century Virginia, the impact of Bishop William Meade upon Lee's youth, the Evangelical Episcopal faith of Lee's wife, Ann Hill Carter Lee, his experience as a military officer, and his work as president of Washington College following the war. Several chapters are especially insightful, such as those which explore Lee's theological beliefs. Lee expressed little interest in such basic Christian doctrines as the Trinity. While he might have rather ‘uncomplicated’ theological views, as Cox generously describes it, he had a deep and abiding faith in divine providence. Contrary to some biographers who have classified Lee as a Stoic, Cox convincingly demonstrates that Lee's trust in divine providence originated from Christian sources and shaped the way in which he interpreted the affairs of this world, ranging from the death of loved ones to the defeat of the Confederacy. Cox does a fine job of carefully unravelling the sometimes seemingly contradictory mixture of commitments that informed Lee's attitudes toward slaves and later freedmen. Throughout his life, for instance, Lee held paternalist and racist attitudes toward African Americans, opposed radical abolitionists and favoured gradual emancipation. Yet Lee claimed that he was willing to free his own slaves (and may have even wanted all Southerners to do the same) in order to preserve the Union. Many Americans, as Cox notes, shared Lee's complex and seemingly contradictory attitudes toward African Americans.

Cox's biography not only sheds light upon the religious life of one of America's most controversial military figures but also upon nineteenth-century Virginian Episcopalians. Cox does an outstanding job of drawing upon the private correspondence of Lee and several family members to unpack the ways in which religion animated his daily life. As such, this engagingly written work makes a valuable contribution to American religious history.