Download or read book The Perfect Lion written by Jerry H. Maxwell and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2011-04-28 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a biography of John Pelham, an Alabama native who left West Point for service in the Confederacy and distinguished himself as an artillery commander in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Blond, blue-eyed, and handsome, Pelham's modest demeanor charmed his contemporaries, and he was famously attractive to women. He was killed in action at the battle of Kelly's Ford in March of 1863, at age twenty four, and reportedly three young women of his acquaintance donned mourning at the loss of the South's ?beau ideal.?.