>>18364254
>A key Confederate defender of the Shenandoah Valley, during the Valley campaigns of 1864, Early made daring raids to the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and as far as York, Pennsylvania, but was eventually pushed back by Union Army troops led by General Philip Sheridan, losing over half his forces. After the war, Early fled to Mexico, then Cuba and Canada, and upon returning to the United States took pride as an "unrepentant rebel." Particularly after the death of Gen. Robert E. Lee in 1870, Early delivered speeches establishing the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, cofounding the Southern Historical Society and several Confederate memorial associations.

>When the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered on April 9, 1865, Early escaped to Texas on horseback, hoping to find a Confederate force that had not surrendered. He proceeded to Mexico, and from there sailed to Cuba and finally reached (the then Province of) Canada. Despite his former Unionist stance, Early declared himself unable to live under the same government as the Yankee.[17] While living in Toronto with some financial support from his father and elder brother, Early wrote A Memoir of the Last Year of the War for Independence, in the Confederate States of America (1866), which focused on his Valley Campaign.[53] The book became the first published by a major general about the war.[17] Early spent the rest of his life defending his actions during the war and became among the most vocal in justifying the Confederate cause, fostering what became known as the Lost Cause movement.

>>18364254
>President Andrew Johnson pardoned Early and many other prominent Confederates in 1869, but Early took pride in remaining an "unreconstructed rebel", and thereafter wore only suits of "Confederate gray" cloth. He returned to Lynchburg, Virginia, and resumed his legal practice about a year before the 1870 death of General Robert E. Lee. However, Early's father died in 1870, and the mother of his four children (whom he had never married) married another man in 1871. Early spent the rest of his life in "illness and squalor so severe that it reduced him to continual begging from family and friends."[54] In an 1872 speech on the anniversary of General Lee's death, Early claimed inspiration from two letters Lee had sent him in 1865.[55] In Lee's published farewell order to the Army of Northern Virginia, the general had noted the "overwhelming resources and numbers" that the Confederate army had fought against. In one letter to Early, Lee requested information about enemy strengths from May 1864 to April 1865, the war's last year, in which his army fought against Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (the Overland Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg). Lee wrote, "My only object is to transmit, if possible, the truth to posterity, and do justice to our brave Soldiers."[56] Lee also wrote, "I have not thought proper to notice, or even to correct misrepresentations of my words & acts. We shall have to be patient, & suffer for awhile at least. ... At present the public mind is not prepared to receive the truth."

>In his final years, Early became an outspoken proponent of white supremacy, which he believed was justified by his religion; he despised abolitionists. In the preface to his memoirs, Early characterized former slaves as "barbarous natives of Africa" and considered them "in a civilized and Christianized condition" as a result of their enslavement.
Despite Lee's avowed desire for reconciliation with his former West Point colleagues who remained with the Union and with Northerners more generally, Early became an outspoken and vehement critic of Lieutenant General James Longstreet and particularly criticized his actions at the Battle of Gettysburg and also took issue with him and other former Confederates who after the war worked with Republicans and African Americans. Early also often criticized former Union General (later President) Ulysses S. Grant as a "butcher."

A capable general that like D.H. Hill was cursed with terrible people skills.