Originally Posted by polemic_turtle

This isn't quite the picture one gets from the biography by Sean Michael Lucas. He makes it sound as if Dabney was almost immediately too worn out to be a soldier( he lasted about 5 months, I believe ) and while recovering at home, he felt so bad about losing his "manly honour" in battle that he turned to writing rather harsh attacks upon the North and went so far as to polarize his position upon slavery so that rather than supporting the gradual freeing of the slaves, he took to the notion that slavery was really the best option available for such folk and was a perfectly sound institution. He( Lucas ) dwelt upon the theme of the antebellum conception of "manly honour" and alleged that Dabney had a great weakness in regard to his perceived "manly honour" which drove him to extremes, since his body could not bear up to the strains of manly warfare. I left the bio feeling disgusted with Dabney in some respects. Was that a fair bio? I believe the earlier bios were accused of not being critical enough of him; was, on the other hand, the modern bio too critical of him?