Douglas Southall Freeman

Background

Douglas Southall Freeman was born at Lynchburg, on May 16, 1886, the son of a Confederate veteran.

Education

Bachelor of Arts, Richmond College, 1904. Fellow, 1906-1907, Doctor of Philosophy., 1908, Johns Hopkins. Doctor of Laws, Washington and Lee, 1919, William and Mary College, 1920, University of Richmond, 1923.

Wake Forest, 1933, College of Charleston, 1938. University of Pennsylvania, 1942. Dickinson College, 1944, University California, 1947.

Johns Hopkins, 1948; Doctor of Letters, Dartmouth, 1935, University of Wisconsin, 1936, Wesleyan, 1936, Lafayette, 1940, Marshall, 1937, Rochester U., 1943, Northwestern, 1943, Columbia, 1945, New York University, 1945, Harvard, 1949. Bucknell, 1946, Yale, 1946, Princeton, 1947. Doctor of Humane Letters, Pittsburgh U., 1936.

Doctor of Civil Law, University of the South, 1948. Doctor of Science, Hamden Sidney, 1951.

Career

Freeman returned to Richmond to work for the state tax commission as well as for local newspapers. In 1908 he edited the Calendar of Confederate Papers, demonstrating his continued interest in Southern history. In 1911 he joined the News Leader, the Richmond newspaper that was his employer for the rest of his journalistic career. The next year Freeman edited the Reports on Virginia Taxation, and in 1914 he married.

In 1915 Freeman took two major steps. He became editor of the News Leader and signed a contract for a biography of Robert E. Lee. He started the biography while fully employed as a newspaperman with side interests in lecturing and radio commentary. By 1926 Freeman had established his famous work schedule: mornings—4:30 A. M. to noon—on the newspaper, afternoons on history. His Lee (4 vols. , 1934-1935) won a Pultizer Prize and made his reputation. It also resulted in Freeman's academic appointment as visiting professor of journalism at Columbia University (1934-1935). Freeman held the rank from 1936 to 1941 but was not in residence.

Lee's biography was a skillful amalgam of military history and biography which, according to historian Michael Kraus, has no superior in the "whole range of American biographical literature. " Looking at the world through Lee's eyes and with no more information than Lee had, Freeman developed Lee's character and ideas.

In 1936, utilizing his leftover data, Freeman commenced a study of the Army of Northern Virginia which was published as Lee's Lieutenants (3 vols. , 1942-1944). Regarded by Freeman as his best, though most difficult, work, it unraveled the complexity of the command structure of the army.

In 1945 Freeman began his most ambitious work, a biography of George Washington. Not until 1949 did he give up his newspaper position to become a full-time historian. Still he did not have enough time; only six of the seven proposed volumes were finished when he died on June 13, 1953. Freeman had not lived to hear the acclaim for George Washington: A. Biography (1948-1957).

Achievements

• Freeman's newspaper editorials and daily radio broadcasts made him one of the most influential Virginians of his day, his analysis of World War I and World War II military campaigns bringing him recognition throughout the country, especially in military circles. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt thanked him for suggesting the use of the term "liberation, " rather than "invasion, " of Europe.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Washington

    (An abridgment by Richard Harwell of the Pulitzer Prize-wi...)

  • Lee

    (Douglas Southall Freeman’s Pulitzer Prize–winning biograp...)

  • Lee's Lieutenants: A Study in Command

Religion

Freeman was a devout Baptist who prayed daily in the small chapel he built in his home. He acknowledged that his Christian faith played a central role throughout his life.

Politics

Churches should be encouraged to teach and preach biblical truth on moral issues and to urge their members to vote according to their beliefs, convictions, and values.

Views

The Bible can be puzzling but it is continually a source of inspiration and direction in lives of people.

Membership

Member Advisory Council, History Division, War Department. Member President’s Commission Higher Education. Member Planning Committee, Library Congress.

Chairman advising committee Princeton edit. writings of Thomas Jefferson. Member of advisory board Dictionary of America History, Atlas of America History. Member advising committee American Institute France.

Member National Council Boy Scouts of America, National Advisory Council Girl Scouts, National Citizens Committee Community Chests of America. Member of the council and honorary lay canon Washington Cathedral. Member National Academy Arts and Letters, American Philosophical Society (Franklin medalist, 1947), Southern Historical Society (president), Society American Historians (1st president), American Antiquarian Society, Massachusetts History Society (correspondent), N.E. History Genealogical Society, Virginia History Society (honorary and Executive Committee), American Academy Arts and Science, Newcomen Society.

Member of advisory council Mount Vernon Ladies Association, advisory council Robert E. Lee. Member Society of the Cincinnati, Sons of Revolution, South Carolina.V., American Society of Newspaper. Clubs: Commonwealth, New York, Southern, Country.

Connections

Freeman married to Inez Virginia Goddin on February 5, 1914. They had three children: Mary Tyler, Anne Ballard, and James Douglas. Mary Tyler Freeman married Leslie Cheek, Jr., longtime director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and became a founder or influential officer of several important community organizations, as well as president of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation. The family lived (and Freeman died) in a mansion he named "Westbourne" in Richmond's west end, a house listed (in 2000) in the National Register of Historic Places.

Father:

Walker Burford Freeman

Mother:

Bettie Allen Hamner

Wife:

Inez Virginia Goddin

Daughter:

Mary Tyler

Daughter:

Anne Ballard

Son:

James Douglas