Robert E. Lee.

Robert E. Lee, by Emory M. Thomas (Norton, 449 pp., $30)

WHAT more is there to say about Robert E. Lee? Douglas Southall Freeman helped turn Lee into a secular saint with his Pulitzer Prize - winning biography; more recent authors, such as Alan T. Nolan, have labored, with only modest success, to diminish Lee's reputation. Thomas does neither. He is an admirer: "Lee was a great person, not so much because of what he did (although his accomplishments were extraordinary); he was great because of the way he lived, because of what he was." But Thomas goes on to search for the real Lee -- the human being who actually lived. What he discovers is a figure of enormous complexity. Lee was sometimes judgmental toward his wife and children in his letters, but demonstrated his deep love for them in person. He was shy, but became a mythic public figure. He was a unionist, but opposed invading the seceding states. He was unrepentant about his Confederate service, but promoted reconciliation after the Civil War. Thomas succeeds admirably in helping us understand one of the truly great men of American history. Even after reading Robert E. Lee, however, we probably still don't see Lee "whole," as Thomas intends. But then, Lee may never have really understood himself. As he admitted near the end of his life, this man who had achieved so much was "always wanting something."