General Robert E, Lee: Hero or Traitor?

[The Gadfly]

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.

Berserker? You mean like Burnside art Fredericksburg?

 

[uscitizen]

General Robert E, Lee: Hero or Traitor?

Yes.

 

[zzzz]

I think that most Americans, at least those that have an idea of what the war between the states was, view Lee as one of the great commanders of that war. He was a traitor in the sense that he turned on his country but back then people were more loyal to their state than the country itself. Even the Yankees were loyal to the states (see how they sent their men to war in Units). Remember this country was not even 100 years old yet and the pride in the state and states rights were very ideal to many. As to being a hero, I have a very limited definition of hero; one who goes above and beyond his duty, one who puts his life in jeopardy to accomplish an almost impossible task. Field commanders like a Corps commander back then were in line of fire but the army commanders themselves were usually set back away from harm. Sure the tactics and strategy were impressive at times but to me that does not make a hero.

Gen. Hancock was a hero at Gettysburg during Pickets charge.

During the massive artillery bombardment of the Union lines on Day 3 of the Battle, Union Major General Hancock road slowly along the lines, greatly inspiring his men as shot and shell rained all around. After conferring with General Stannard, a searing pain shot through Hancock's leg. Although painfully wounded in the upper right thigh with debris, possibly from his saddle, lodging itself eight inches into his flesh, he refused to be borne from the field until he knew that Pickett's Charge was repulsed.

The American Civil War and The Battle of Gettysburg: Major General Hancock

Many of the Confederate generals are looked up to as great commanders and rightfully so. They outmaneuvered and beat bigger armies throughout the war. Some of it had to do with the quality of the men they were leading.

 

[The Gadfly]

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.

Same old tired stereotype, same old excuse, same old political hatred, same old air of superiority; no damn wonder my ancestors hated any and all Yankees! I don't "dislike the North"; I despise the North; its arrogant, insufferably rude, loud, crass, disgusting people, its nasty, filthy, dehumanized cities, its Marxist politics, and its self-righteous hypocrisy! Racism? Didn't I see those fine, liberal, cultured citizens of Boston throwing rocks at little black kids, when they got a taste of the forced busing they had no trouble inflicting on the South? HYPOCRITES! A lot of us were not racist then, and are not racists now. But, if you want to see who and what led many of our ancestors to hate blacks, I suggest you google "Radical Reconstruction". Putting former slaves in political office while disenfranchising their former masters (as an act of revenge and political hegemony) might not have been such a good start, especially since the whole idea was unconstitutional on the face of it. Naturally you people cannot be troubled with such "trifles" as the historical facts of the conduct of your precious Union, before, during and after the hostilities. Sometimes, I wish my ancestors had chosen to fight you in a guerrilla war, that would have lasted a thousand years, if that's what it took to be out of your clutches!

In spite of all that, I am quite content to stay the hell out of the North, and I never intend to set foot there again. You can have the place; my ancestors never wanted it either! Now, why can't you just leave us alone? It's all they wanted back then, and it's all I want now. Stay out of the South; we don't want you here, or need you here; that means any and ALL of you! You Yankees pollute our air by breathing it, and dirty our soil by trodding upon it!

 

[whitehall]

Neither. He was the best general in the Civil War. The South was defeated by Northern industrial might rather than military tactics.. If the situation was reversed could make an argument that Grant would have been hanged as a war criminal just for authorizing the pillage of the Shenandoah and the burning of Atlanta.

 

[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.

Berserker? You mean like Burnside art Fredericksburg?

Burnside was just plain out of his league. What he was doing trying to scale Mary's hights like that I have no idea.

Him and his mud march as well.

Strait up the middle is all Lee ever seemed to do.

Contrast with Grant at Vicksburg. He has Grierson running around in Pemberton's back, He has Sherman at Hains Bluff, meanwhile Grant comes in from the south and confuses the hell out of Pemberton.

Sometimes up the middle works, like at Chattanoogah. But that was not Grant's first option.

And Grant managed to get away from Lee for three days as he moved his army across the James. Had it not been for Beauregard and his amateur theatrics (And the fact that up the middle worked so badly at Cold Harbor) if Grant had 3 more hours Lee would have found himself facing Grant, with Grant inside Richmond.

 

[hortysir]

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:

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.

Same old tired stereotype, same old excuse, same old political hatred, same old air of superiority; no damn wonder my ancestors hated any and all Yankees! I don't "dislike the North"; I despise the North; its arrogant, insufferably rude, loud, crass, disgusting people, its nasty, filthy, dehumanized cities, its Marxist politics, and its self-righteous hypocrisy! Racism? Didn't I see those fine, liberal, cultured citizens of Boston throwing rocks at little black kids, when they got a taste of the forced busing they had no trouble inflicting on the South? HYPOCRITES! A lot of us were not racist then, and are not racists now. But, if you want to see who and what led many of our ancestors to hate blacks, I suggest you google "Radical Reconstruction". Putting former slaves in political office while disenfranchising their former masters (as an act of revenge and political hegemony) might not have been such a good start, especially since the whole idea was unconstitutional on the face of it. Naturally you people cannot be troubled with such "trifles" as the historical facts of the conduct of your precious Union, before, during and after the hostilities. Sometimes, I wish my ancestors had chosen to fight you in a guerrilla war, that would have lasted a thousand years, if that's what it took to be out of your clutches!

In spite of all that, I am quite content to stay the hell out of the North, and I never intend to set foot there again. You can have the place; my ancestors never wanted it either! Now, why can't you just leave us alone? It's all they wanted back then, and it's all I want now. Stay out of the South; we don't want you here, or need you here; that means any and ALL of you! You Yankees pollute our air by breathing it, and dirty our soil by trodding upon it!

Damn, dude....


Vallum?

 

[Toronado3800]

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:

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.

Same old tired stereotype, same old excuse, same old political hatred, same old air of superiority; no damn wonder my ancestors hated any and all Yankees! I don't "dislike the North"; I despise the North; its arrogant, insufferably rude, loud, crass, disgusting people, its nasty, filthy, dehumanized cities, its Marxist politics, and its self-righteous hypocrisy! Racism? Didn't I see those fine, liberal, cultured citizens of Boston throwing rocks at little black kids, when they got a taste of the forced busing they had no trouble inflicting on the South? HYPOCRITES! A lot of us were not racist then, and are not racists now. But, if you want to see who and what led many of our ancestors to hate blacks, I suggest you google "Radical Reconstruction". Putting former slaves in political office while disenfranchising their former masters (as an act of revenge and political hegemony) might not have been such a good start, especially since the whole idea was unconstitutional on the face of it. Naturally you people cannot be troubled with such "trifles" as the historical facts of the conduct of your precious Union, before, during and after the hostilities. Sometimes, I wish my ancestors had chosen to fight you in a guerrilla war, that would have lasted a thousand years, if that's what it took to be out of your clutches!

In spite of all that, I am quite content to stay the hell out of the North, and I never intend to set foot there again. You can have the place; my ancestors never wanted it either! Now, why can't you just leave us alone? It's all they wanted back then, and it's all I want now. Stay out of the South; we don't want you here, or need you here; that means any and ALL of you! You Yankees pollute our air by breathing it, and dirty our soil by trodding upon it!

Your thanking the North for dragging your racist neighbors into the 19th Century and perhaps someday into the 20th is noted.

Far as political thought and Lee goes, I feel his support of state's rights is a little backwards. The Articles of Confederation created a flawed Union. Feudal Europe is what the South would have become. Go Holy Roman Empire!

Oh, and yeah, reconstruction was a bitch. Ripe with corruption and tons of other problems. While I'm not sure if I was President during the latter half of the 19th Century I could have dealt with the problems of Manifest Destiny and Indian Rights any better, Reconstruction, ug. At least it never resulted in Guerrilla Warfare. Perhaps if it was inspired Jim Crow wouldn't be a term we know.

Good god. The 1960's folks.

 

[The Gadfly]

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.

Berserker? You mean like Burnside art Fredericksburg?

Burnside was just plain out of his league. What he was doing trying to scale Mary's hights like that I have no idea.

Him and his mud march as well.

Strait up the middle is all Lee ever seemed to do.

Contrast with Grant at Vicksburg. He has Grierson running around in Pemberton's back, He has Sherman at Hains Bluff, meanwhile Grant comes in from the south and confuses the hell out of Pemberton.

Sometimes up the middle works, like at Chattanoogah. But that was not Grant's first option.

And Grant managed to get away from Lee for three days as he moved his army across the James. Had it not been for Beauregard and his amateur theatrics (And the fact that up the middle worked so badly at Cold Harbor) if Grant had 3 more hours Lee would have found himself facing Grant, with Grant inside Richmond.

What Burnside was doing, was exactly what any number of commanders on both sides did all through the conflict-reverting to their training and using tactics outrun by the realities of a battlefield environment that had radically changed.

Lee was at his best when he could establish a defense in depth (he had made his mark as an engineer earlier), or when he could maneuver against a slower opponent. One key to the latter was Jackson's Corps. Lee was in the habit of giving Jackson orders which allowed considerable latitude, letting him use the personal initiative that was his style. James Longstreet was a competent enough commander, but his style of command was fundamentally different from Jackson's and the two were miles apart in terms of personal temperament.One problem at Gettysburg, was that Lee gave Longstreet the same sort of orders he gave Jackson, and Longstreet took them quite differently than Jackson would have. Lee, unfortunately for the South, was not at his best in that campaign; there is a lot of evidence that he was tired, and already suffering from the heart problems that would eventually lead to his death. One consequence was that he failed to appreciate the differences in style and personality between Jackson and Longstreet; the latter did exactly what he was told to do, no more, no less. That particular failing of Lee's has helped get Longstreet vilified far more than he deserved, and was the primary reason the battle was lost on the second day (Pickett's charge, in all its glory and carnage, was a pointless anticlimax, a fact Longstreet could see at the time). Whatever his battlefield failings (and he had some) were, Lee's personal honor and chivalry were unquestioned by most on both sides. Ironically, though he believed in the primacy of state's rights (a common enough sentiment Among most Americans at the time, he despised the South's "peculiar institution", and had freed his own slaves long before the war (Grant, by contrast, was a slaveholder who did not free his own slaves until after the war, commenting that "Good help is so hard to find..."

 

[The Gadfly]

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.

Same old tired stereotype, same old excuse, same old political hatred, same old air of superiority; no damn wonder my ancestors hated any and all Yankees! I don't "dislike the North"; I despise the North; its arrogant, insufferably rude, loud, crass, disgusting people, its nasty, filthy, dehumanized cities, its Marxist politics, and its self-righteous hypocrisy! Racism? Didn't I see those fine, liberal, cultured citizens of Boston throwing rocks at little black kids, when they got a taste of the forced busing they had no trouble inflicting on the South? HYPOCRITES! A lot of us were not racist then, and are not racists now. But, if you want to see who and what led many of our ancestors to hate blacks, I suggest you google "Radical Reconstruction". Putting former slaves in political office while disenfranchising their former masters (as an act of revenge and political hegemony) might not have been such a good start, especially since the whole idea was unconstitutional on the face of it. Naturally you people cannot be troubled with such "trifles" as the historical facts of the conduct of your precious Union, before, during and after the hostilities. Sometimes, I wish my ancestors had chosen to fight you in a guerrilla war, that would have lasted a thousand years, if that's what it took to be out of your clutches!

In spite of all that, I am quite content to stay the hell out of the North, and I never intend to set foot there again. You can have the place; my ancestors never wanted it either! Now, why can't you just leave us alone? It's all they wanted back then, and it's all I want now. Stay out of the South; we don't want you here, or need you here; that means any and ALL of you! You Yankees pollute our air by breathing it, and dirty our soil by trodding upon it!

Your thanking the North for dragging your racist neighbors into the 19th Century and perhaps someday into the 20th is noted.

Far as political thought and Lee goes, I feel his support of state's rights is a little backwards. The Articles of Confederation created a flawed Union. Feudal Europe is what the South would have become. Go Holy Roman Empire!

Oh, and yeah, reconstruction was a bitch. Ripe with corruption and tons of other problems. While I'm not sure if I was President during the latter half of the 19th Century I could have dealt with the problems of Manifest Destiny and Indian Rights any better, Reconstruction, ug. At least it never resulted in Guerrilla Warfare. Perhaps if it was inspired Jim Crow wouldn't be a term we know.

Good god. The 1960's folks.

Still using one form of bigotry to justify another, I see, (as if the North's attitude in the civil rights era was so purely altruistic, or devoid of its own brand of racism). You people are not, and never have been saints; just self-righteous, self-serving hypocrites! BTW you can't blame us for Bush (either of them). G.H.W. is a classic old New England patrician, and W, despite the drawl, is no Southerner; he's just another carpetbagger from Connecticut pretending to be a Southerner. What's hilarious is that most people from the North who delight in bashing the South, didn't even have anyone in the fight; most of their families were not even in America before the war. Most of us Southerners, by contrast, had family here before the American Revolution, so when you insult the Confederate soldier, you are insulting our kinfolk, and we don't like that. In any event, the North has done us no favors, before, during or after the Late Unpleasantness. Your attitude, unfortunately, is entirely typical of the transplanted Yankees I meet every day down here (why can't they stay home, and foul their own nest?), and if the ignorance and bigotry you have exhibited here isn't enough for anyone else to understand why we do not care for your species, I do not know what would be.

 

[waltky]

Granny says...

... "Now don't ya'll go bad mouthin' Bobby Lee...

... he almost whupped dem yankees."

 

[Two Thumbs]

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.

good lord

Are you one of those "The South shall rise again!" people?

Time to grow up and face all the facts, not just nit pick at what different people said.

It's far far past time to grow up and let go of grudges for something that has not been done to you. It's dumber than when blacks demand reparations for being slaves.

 

[Two Thumbs]

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?

He attacked up hill again and again, even though Longstreet and others advised going around and attacking the hill from behind up a gental slope.

Lee was the advisary Tsun Tso dreamed of.

The fool never bothered to develope snipers like the North did.

 

[Sallow]

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.

In a perfect world the treachery and treason of the South would have been punished as such..

 

[paperview]

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.

Suck it up dude. All War is Hell.

That's another great quote.

 

[paperview]

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.

good lord

Are you one of those "The South shall rise again!" people?

Time to grow up and face all the facts, not just nit pick at what different people said.

It's far far past time to grow up and let go of grudges for something that has not been done to you. It's dumber than when blacks demand reparations for being slaves.

Yup.

The Lost Cause neo-confederates are sure a sight to behold.

 

[The Gadfly]

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.

Suck it up dude. All War is Hell.

That's another great quote.

You know, Sherman did exactly what the Left accused us of doing in Vietnam; the only difference is, Sherman actually did it! So Sjherman and his army of pillagers, bandits, vandals,, rapists and murderers are heroes, and Vietnam vets are "war criminals". Yeah, makes perfect sense....in a lunatic asylum.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Granny says...

... "Now don't ya'll go bad mouthin' Bobby Lee...

... he almost whupped dem yankees."

That is just the problem with the man. He fought to defend an evil system and without him the war would probably have been over in half the time and wouldn't have been anywhere near as socially destructive.
He made the nightmare slow and painful.

 

[Sunni Man]

"The War of Northern Aggression" waged by the North against the Confederates was about states rights as defined in the Constitution.

The southern states were following the true intent and words of the Constitution.

Unfortunately, the South lost the war, and Federalism became the governing ideology.

So that now 150 years later we have a giant out-of-control government and are in the middle of a financial mess.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

The southern interests were the aggressive ones all through the 1850s.

And if they hadn't been such spoiled brats during the 1860 election they would have won that one too. and after wagging the dog for all those years, then to take their marbles and go home was way out of line.

I will agree that the war was transformative in several bad ways. We got stuck with the gold standard, we got a huge debt, the literate part of southern culture was eliminated from politics and taxes had to get raised to previously unconscionable levels in order to pay for it.