General Robert E, Lee: Hero or Traitor?

[Truthseeker420]

I was listening to a debate this morning on Boston radio with James C. Cobb, distinguished Research Professor at the University of Georgia and Natasha Trethewey, a poet and a professor of creative writing at Emory University.

Robert E. Lee unquestionably became an American Icon after the Civil war was over.

President Ulysses S. Grant lauded him, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said he was “unsullied as he read the pages of history.”

But as the nation stares hard at the sesquicentennial of the War Between the States has the hagiography of some of the battlefield commanders obscured the cause of the war: human bondage?

This hour On Point: Robert E. Lee Revisited.

The Myth And Legend Of Robert E. Lee | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

 

[Sallow]

Traitor.

Arlington Cemetary..while a nice Ironic punishment..didn't go nearly far enough.

 

[Truthseeker420]

Traitor.

Arlington Cemetary..while a nice Ironic punishment..didn't go nearly far enough.

Does he get any slack because at that period in our history people were more loyal to their states?

 

[Sallow]

Traitor.

Arlington Cemetary..while a nice Ironic punishment..didn't go nearly far enough.

Does he get any slack because at that period in our history people were more loyal to their states?

Naw.

He believed in a Gentry Class. He also swore an oath to the United States when he entered the Military.

I have a little more sympathy for the rubes that didn't have slaves, but thought they were defending their homes. Some Rebels couldn't give two shits about slaves.

 

[Truthseeker420]

Traitor.

Arlington Cemetary..while a nice Ironic punishment..didn't go nearly far enough.

Does he get any slack because at that period in our history people were more loyal to their states?

Naw.

He believed in a Gentry Class. He also swore an oath to the United States when he entered the Military.

I have a little more sympathy for the rubes that didn't have slaves, but thought they were defending their homes. Some Rebels couldn't give two shits about slaves.

Should he have been hung after the war?

 

[Two Thumbs]

Both

Legally he should have hung for treason as he swore an oath to uphold the Constitution.

Heroic b/c he stood up against what he thought was a tyrant in Lincoln.

Through 21st centurary eyes he was a ruthless fuck that wanted to keep people as property and killed his fellow man to do so.

Hell, even the History and Military channels shit on him now. His military and leadership skills seem to have been over rated by history.

 

[Sallow]

Does he get any slack because at that period in our history people were more loyal to their states?

Naw.

He believed in a Gentry Class. He also swore an oath to the United States when he entered the Military.

I have a little more sympathy for the rubes that didn't have slaves, but thought they were defending their homes. Some Rebels couldn't give two shits about slaves.

Should he have been hung after the war?

Yep.

But honestly..it probably wasn't possible.

Unless you were going to get really punitive on the South in general..reconcilation dictated that kindness to be shown to adversaries.

In the long run..it really didn't matter. He died shortly after the war..a beaten and broken man.

 

[Two Thumbs]

Naw.

He believed in a Gentry Class. He also swore an oath to the United States when he entered the Military.

I have a little more sympathy for the rubes that didn't have slaves, but thought they were defending their homes. Some Rebels couldn't give two shits about slaves.

Should he have been hung after the war?

Yep.

But honestly..it probably wasn't possible.

Unless you were going to get really punitive on the South in general..reconcilation dictated that kindness to be shown to adversaries.

In the long run..it really didn't matter. He died shortly after the war..a beaten and broken man.

Execution would have been a mercy.

Everything was taken from him.

 

[Truthseeker420]

Both

Legally he should have hung for treason as he swore an oath to uphold the Constitution.

Heroic b/c he stood up against what he thought was a tyrant in Lincoln.

Through 21st centurary eyes he was a ruthless fuck that wanted to keep people as property and killed his fellow man to do so.

Hell, even the History and Military channels shit on him now. His military and leadership skills seem to have been over rated by history.

It seems rencent history is more critical of him. But speaking of Licoln there is a good case (judging by today's standards) to make of him being a war criminal for what he and his generals did to the south.

 

[Truthseeker420]

Naw.

He believed in a Gentry Class. He also swore an oath to the United States when he entered the Military.

I have a little more sympathy for the rubes that didn't have slaves, but thought they were defending their homes. Some Rebels couldn't give two shits about slaves.

Should he have been hung after the war?

Yep.

But honestly..it probably wasn't possible.

Unless you were going to get really punitive on the South in general..reconcilation dictated that kindness to be shown to adversaries.

In the long run..it really didn't matter. He died shortly after the war..a beaten and broken man.

He really was a big help in bringing the north and south back together after a bitter fight.

 

[Two Thumbs]

Both

Legally he should have hung for treason as he swore an oath to uphold the Constitution.

Heroic b/c he stood up against what he thought was a tyrant in Lincoln.

Through 21st centurary eyes he was a ruthless fuck that wanted to keep people as property and killed his fellow man to do so.

Hell, even the History and Military channels shit on him now. His military and leadership skills seem to have been over rated by history.

It seems rencent history is more critical of him. But speaking of Licoln there is a good case (judging by today's standards) to make of him being a war criminal for what he and his generals did to the south.

Post war times were a bit ruthless. But if you consider that every soldier could have been hung and damn near everyone else put in jail. What did occur was childs play.

 

[JWBooth]

The greatest man the 19th century produced, on this or any other continent.

 

[Toronado3800]

IMO he was a very good general.

IMO morally he was average for a southerner of the time.

 

[Divine Wind]

Traitor.

Arlington Cemetary..while a nice Ironic punishment..didn't go nearly far enough.

Does he get any slack because at that period in our history people were more loyal to their states?

No, he doesn't because the history books are written by the victors.

If the Founding Fathers had lost the American Revolution and had all been hung as traitors, every Queen's Birthday, we'd be discussing how wrong they were to be traitors to King and Country. Those bastards!

 

[Divine Wind]

IMO he was a very good general.

IMO morally he was average for a southerner of the time.

I think he was a little better, morally speaking, than most men of his time and place. He put his loyalty to his "country" even though he thought it foolish to secede. He also worked to have the southern states work with the northern after the war. He was a man of his times, not PC, but not anymore immoral than Thomas Jefferson who kept slaves himself while speaking about "inalienable rights".

From Wiki:

In early 1861, President Abraham Lincoln invited Lee to take command of the entire Union Army. Lee declined because his home state of Virginia was, despite his wishes, seceding from the Union. When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in April 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state.........Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, marking the end of Confederate hopes; the remaining armies soon capitulated. Lee rejected as folly the starting of a guerrilla campaign against the Yankees and called for reconciliation between the North and South.

After the war, as a college president of what is now Washington and Lee University, Lee supported President Andrew Johnson's program of Reconstruction and intersectional friendship, while opposing the Radical Republican proposals to give freed slaves the vote and take the vote away from ex-Confederates. He urged them to rethink their position between the North and the South, and the reintegration of former Confederates into the nation's political life. Lee became the great Southern hero of the war, and his popularity grew in the North, as well, after his death in 1870. He remains an iconic figure[8] of American military leadership.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

I don't even belive he was that good a general. Grant has the reputation of a butcher, but according to JFC Fuller Lee had the worst casualty percentage of the war, Grant the best. This despite the Wilderness campaign and Cold Harbor.

And I still can't figure why he went off to PA rather than send Longstreet off to TN like he should have. Longstreet could have made his way to the Ohio and raised havoc, and maybe have drawn Grant away from Vicksburg. Instead he threw away 40% of his army against an entrenched opposition and he blew away all his artillery powder on the third day.

And even if he had won in PA, what would that have meant? Nothing. Most of the AOP wasn't even engaged, he was on the wrong side of the mountains with a barefoot army with no powder.

Meanwhile, Grant took Vicksburg, cutting off the supplies from Mexico and Texas.

 

[The Gadfly]

Should he have been hung after the war?

Yep.

But honestly..it probably wasn't possible.

Unless you were going to get really punitive on the South in general..reconcilation dictated that kindness to be shown to adversaries.

In the long run..it really didn't matter. He died shortly after the war..a beaten and broken man.

Execution would have been a mercy.

Everything was taken from him.

Everything but honor...and now, I see the spiritual and political descendants of the Damnyankees are trying to steal even THAT. I am not surprised. As for that "child's play" you referred to, it was and is responsible for the way a lot of Southerners feel about the North in general, and New Englanders in particular. Count me as one Southerner, who is fed up with having our culture and history bashed, our heroes dishonored, our Battle Flag turned into an emblem of racial hatred, and ourselves subjected to daily insults from Yankee transplants, on our own native soil. I am fed up with seeing the Sons of Confederate Veterans called a "hate group" by ignorant Yankees and liberals. I am sick of seeing my people described as ignorant, inbred white trash, and being the only Americans it is perfectly politically correct to insult, degrade, stereotype, and abuse.

Hell no, I won't ever vote liberal, hell no, I will never turn my back on my heritage, and I speak for many. If you don't like that, stay the hell up North, out west, or anywhere, but down here, and kick us out of the mess the REAL traitors, tyrants, and constitutional criminals (Lincoln and the Radical Republicans), and their army of war criminals made of our Republic. It'll be less trouble that way; we won't have to put up with your "culture" and your politics, and a bunch of "Rustbelt Refugees" who still have not learned NOT to shit where they sleep, and you won't have to deal with us. We won't mind a bit!

Here's a contrast for you:
"There is a class of people at the South, men, women and children, who must be EXTERMINATED if we are ever to have peace in this country" -William T. Sherman, 1864

"We must remember that we make war only upon armed men, and may not take vengeance for the wrongs committed against out own people, without lowering ourselves in the sight of those whose abhorrence has been excited by the conduct of our foes, and offending against Him to to Whom vengeance belongeth." -Robert E. Lee, to the Army of Northern Virginia, at the beginning of the Pennsylvania campaign.

Seems to me, there are a lot of would-be Shermans among Northerners today.

 

[Toronado3800]

IMO he was a very good general.

IMO morally he was average for a southerner of the time.

I think he was a little better, morally speaking, than most men of his time and place. He put his loyalty to his "country" even though he thought it foolish to secede. He also worked to have the southern states work with the northern after the war. He was a man of his times, not PC, but not anymore immoral than Thomas Jefferson who kept slaves himself while speaking about "inalienable rights".

From Wiki:

In early 1861, President Abraham Lincoln invited Lee to take command of the entire Union Army. Lee declined because his home state of Virginia was, despite his wishes, seceding from the Union. When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in April 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state.........Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, marking the end of Confederate hopes; the remaining armies soon capitulated. Lee rejected as folly the starting of a guerrilla campaign against the Yankees and called for reconciliation between the North and South.

After the war, as a college president of what is now Washington and Lee University, Lee supported President Andrew Johnson's program of Reconstruction and intersectional friendship, while opposing the Radical Republican proposals to give freed slaves the vote and take the vote away from ex-Confederates. He urged them to rethink their position between the North and the South, and the reintegration of former Confederates into the nation's political life. Lee became the great Southern hero of the war, and his popularity grew in the North, as well, after his death in 1870. He remains an iconic figure[8] of American military leadership.

Points well made.

On someone else's dislike of the north, yeah, I hate racists all over. If more are in the south so be it. Southern states have a bad reputation with me and I suspect others to this day thanks to that whole civil rights era.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

What really bugs me about Lee is the tendency of folks to try and make him a saint. He was not. He was a berserker who killed off the cream of the confederacy through dumb ass frontal assaults and pointless high casualty battles in MD and PA.

I am also annoyed at the lost cause nuts who try and make Longstreet the goat of every failure of Lee's. If Lee had listened to Longstreet back in May of 1863 Longstreet might have been able to force Grant away from Vicksburg, and 40% of the ANV would not have been ground to hamberger on Cemetery Ridge.

Since Longstreet was the goat, they refused to listen to him after the war as well, so the south remained in racial bikering and stupidity which it took 120 years to recover from.

 

[Divine Wind]

What really bugs me about Lee is the tendency of folks to try and make him a saint. He was not. He was a berserker who killed off the cream of the confederacy through dumb ass frontal assaults and pointless high casualty battles in MD and PA.

He was neither a saint nor a berserker. As for his tactics, how were they different from others of the time?