General Robert E, Lee: Hero or Traitor?

[editec]

Strickly in the legal sense, I think he and all who took up arms against the United States of America, was a traitor.

However, I suspect that he was an honorable person who believed that he was doing the honorable thing.

That's gotta count for something.

 

[The Gadfly]

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.

Not really; but I'm sick and damn tired of Yankee insults (especially from the Left side of the political fence), and I'm damn sick and tired of seeing my culture, history, and region used as the scapegoat for all of America's racial problems, and as a sacrificial lamb to appease black people. I'm sick and tired of insults and degradation that would be unacceptable if directed at any other group. Reparations: The only reparations I want, is for Yankees to leave the South (ALL of THEM, and take the government they rammed down our throats for the lest 150 years with them. We are NOT your "conquered provinces, your colonies, or your subject, and we have been abused enough. YOur side won a war, a war in which it had its opponent outnumbered four to one, and an even greater superiority in war material and supplies. You people have never let us forget that, OR the concomitant (and false) conclusion that that makes you superior to us in every way. Our culture and history seems to be the one thing to which the current ideas of "diversity" and "tolerance" are not to be applied.

You people have one thing right; Southerners are NOT like you (Thank God!), and we will NEVER be like you, think like you, act like you, or vote like you. This is OUR land, and YOU are still occupying it! I'd prefer to simply separate from you, and leave you in peace. I don't want another war with you, and more than Lee wanted the first one, but there ARE limits to what I (and many other Southerners) are willing to put up with! By the way, if you hate us so damn much, why are so many of you Damnyankees down here? You were NOT invited, and I can assure you, you are NOT wanted. One hundred and fifty years of oppression is enough. IN case you haven't noticed, we HAVE risen again (no thanks to the North), and we fully intend to keep it that way. You do not have to like our history, our culture, our politics, or us, but we have every right to demand that all of these be respected, not abused.

 

[GHook93]

He took up arms against the Union and the US government! He lead an army of insurrection against the United States. He tried to break the Union into two countries. He tried to preserves the South's "right" to keep other human beings as chattel!

I know your a dimwit pothead, but it's clear as day that General Lee was a TRAITOR!!!

 

[The Gadfly]

He took up arms against the Union and the US government! He lead an army of insurrection against the United States. He tried to break the Union into two countries. He tried to preserves the South's "right" to keep other human beings as chattel!

I know your a dimwit pothead, but it's clear as day that General Lee was a TRAITOR!!!

Yes, and Lincoln fought a war, NOT to end slavery (that's a lie!) but simply to keep us in your damned Union to serve the moneyed interests of the North against our will. Some "liberator"! We didn't like it then, and don't like it now. We have been the most loyal of Americans, in defending the country; what did it get us, but more oppression, and abuse?

The concept is called "self-determination", dimwit". America seems to think it's a good idea everywhere else in the world (so it says), EXCEPT the South. Can we say "HYPOCRISY", boys and girls? Why yes, I believe we can.

 

[rightwinger]

Lee chose loyalty to his state over loyalty to his country

By definition, that would make him a traitor to his country

 

[Sunni Man]

The Tenth Amendment (Amendment X) to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791.[1] The Tenth Amendment states the Constitution's principle of federalism by providing that powers not granted to the federal government nor prohibited to the states by the Constitution are reserved, respectively, to the states or the people.

Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[zzzz]

It will be interesting to see how the revisionist trend will go with the anniversary of the War. The trend now is to vilify all our American hero's by making them more human. Looking at it that way then the flag is nothing more than a piece of colored cloth. When we have no hero's left, no glory, or no honor where does that put us as a people?

 

[GHook93]

I love how people always say it wasn't about slavery it wasn't about slavery. True Lincoln and the Union forces went to war to keep the Union together and his first plan for the slaves was to create a country for them in Central America. HOWEVER, the disagreement between the states was all about slavery. The Dred Scott verdict was a major cause of this disagreement. The South pulled away from the Union simply because slavery was going to get outlawed. Heck the reason the Republican party was formed was to end slavery!

He took up arms against the Union and the US government! He lead an army of insurrection against the United States. He tried to break the Union into two countries. He tried to preserves the South's "right" to keep other human beings as chattel!

I know your a dimwit pothead, but it's clear as day that General Lee was a TRAITOR!!!

Yes, and Lincoln fought a war, NOT to end slavery (that's a lie!) but simply to keep us in your damned Union to serve the moneyed interests of the North against our will. Some "liberator"! We didn't like it then, and don't like it now. We have been the most loyal of Americans, in defending the country; what did it get us, but more oppression, and abuse?

The concept is called "self-determination", dimwit". America seems to think it's a good idea everywhere else in the world (so it says), EXCEPT the South. Can we say "HYPOCRISY", boys and girls? Why yes, I believe we can.

 

[The Gadfly]

It will be interesting to see how the revisionist trend will go with the anniversary of the War. The trend now is to vilify all our American hero's by making them more human. Looking at it that way then the flag is nothing more than a piece of colored cloth. When we have no hero's left, no glory, or no honor where does that put us as a people?

Ah, that's the question we should be asking. It is folly, and a fallacy to view the bare facts about any historical person solely in the context of today, omitting the context of the standards, knowledge and mores of the time he or she lived in. What might they be, had they been born today; what might we have been, if we were born a hundred, or two hundred, years ago? We can't know, and that sort of thing is thus no more nor less than idle speculation. History stripped of context and nuance, really IS bunk. That particular sort of historical revisionism, especially when combined with our tendency to like our relatively short history neatly packaged, categorized, sorted and pigeon-holed, is not a good thing; the result is over-simplified pap, often put forth in pursuit of an agenda, and just as inaccurate as any other incomplete accounting; all it really does, is leave out a different part of the full story.

Unfortunately, in this age of intellectual sloth and the anti-hero, this sort of thing has become fashionable. We live in an age of sloth and envy that fundamentally despises greatness, and so we cut our historic figures (and current ones too) "down to size"-OUR size. Perhaps that makes some of us FEEL better, but it doesn't help MAKE us better, or give us anything to aspire to, or to strive for. That is what heroes, even flawed ones, are for. Denying that in the name of "truth" does not make us more "aware" or more honest; in the long run it makes us less than we might have been, and ignorant of what we might have learned. A society which destroys its statesmen and heroes will soon have neither, nor will it have any real standard but that of bland mediocrity; it's like saying, "See, we can't have perfection, so to hell with it!" -and the pursuit of excellence goes out the window, in the name of the impossible. The voice that constantly cries "I'm as good as you!" or "I'm as good as __________!" is simply proclaiming its own sense of failure and inadequacy> What that voice is really saying is "Actually I'm not, and I resent it!"

 

[geauxtohell]

He wasn't a hero or a traitor. He was reluctant to join the South and only did so, because he couldn't tolerate the thought of taking up arms against Virginians.

He was, without doubt, an honorable man. His conduct at the end and after the war greatly eased the loss for the south. If Lee would have said: "We will fight to the last man!" as opposed to realizing his position was untenable and surrendering at Appomatix, we might still be fighting that damn war.

 

[The Gadfly]

He wasn't a hero or a traitor. He was reluctant to join the South and only did so, because he couldn't tolerate the thought of taking up arms against Virginians.

He was, without doubt, an honorable man. His conduct at the end and after the war greatly eased the loss for the south. If Lee would have said: "We will fight to the last man!" as opposed to realizing his position was untenable and surrendering at Appomatix, we might still be fighting that damn war.

Quite correct. Lee was one of the few on either side who understood that no matter who won, such a war would be a long and bloody enterprise. He would have preferred , as he said, to step aside, and "....to never draw my sword again, save in defense of my native state". When Lincoln sent an army across Virginia's soil to attack another state, Lee had no choice; he defended the Confederacy, despite his distaste for slavery and his misgivings about the war.

You are correct on the last part as well; there were many, inside and outside the Confederate Army, who wished to continue the struggle, and there were more than enough armed Confederate soldiers ready, wiling and able to disband the army into guerrilla units, and continue the struggle, possibly for decades. Given the minimal requirements for partisan warfare of the type, they could have maintained a viable force-in-being indefinitely; no number of troops could have rooted them out of the backwoods and swamps of the South. The North would have eventually resorted to bloody reprisals against the civilian population in an attempt to stop it, and the whole thing might have gone on until the Union finally had enough, or foreign intervention occurred in the name of restoring some measure of civilization. It would have been a far more barbaric thing than the conventional war that preceded it. Men like Lee and Gen. Joe Johnston saw that and decided against it, ordering their troops to surrender instead. (Had they know what the Radical Republicans would do with their victory, they might have decided otherwise, but as it was, both were old-school officers who cringed at the thought of what such a guerrilla war would entail, and believed that even victory was not worth such a cost). I might add that the abuses, corruption, and low-level terror that accompanied Reconstruction, came very near to igniting a guerrilla war anyway, in a situation even more adverse to the South, so the thing was definitely far from unthinkable. Lee only made one mistake in that regard; he assumed his foes were as honorable as he was, which unfortunately proved to be anything but true.

 

[geauxtohell]

He wasn't a hero or a traitor. He was reluctant to join the South and only did so, because he couldn't tolerate the thought of taking up arms against Virginians.

He was, without doubt, an honorable man. His conduct at the end and after the war greatly eased the loss for the south. If Lee would have said: "We will fight to the last man!" as opposed to realizing his position was untenable and surrendering at Appomatix, we might still be fighting that damn war.

Quite correct. Lee was one of the few on either side who understood that no matter who won, such a war would be a long and bloody enterprise. He would have preferred , as he said, to step aside, and "....to never draw my sword again, save in defense of my native state". When Lincoln sent an army across Virginia's soil to attack another state, Lee had no choice; he defended the Confederacy, despite his distaste for slavery and his misgivings about the war.

You are correct on the last part as well; there were many, inside and outside the Confederate Army, who wished to continue the struggle, and there were more than enough armed Confederate soldiers ready, wiling and able to disband the army into guerrilla units, and continue the struggle, possibly for decades. Given the minimal requirements for partisan warfare of the type, they could have maintained a viable force-in-being indefinitely; no number of troops could have rooted them out of the backwoods and swamps of the South. The North would have eventually resorted to bloody reprisals against the civilian population in an attempt to stop it, and the whole thing might have gone on until the Union finally had enough, or foreign intervention occurred in the name of restoring some measure of civilization. It would have been a far more barbaric thing than the conventional war that preceded it. Men like Lee and Gen. Joe Johnston saw that and decided against it, ordering their troops to surrender instead. (Had they know what the Radical Republicans would do with their victory, they might have decided otherwise, but as it was, both were old-school officers who cringed at the thought of what such a guerrilla war would entail, and believed that even victory was not worth such a cost). I might add that the abuses, corruption, and low-level terror that accompanied Reconstruction, came very near to igniting a guerrilla war anyway, in a situation even more adverse to the South, so the thing was definitely far from unthinkable. Lee only made one mistake in that regard; he assumed his foes were as honorable as he was, which unfortunately proved to be anything but true.

You only need to look at "Bleeding Kansas" to see how the War could have gone after 1865. Out of the Kansas-Missouri guerrilla war, came some of the most notorious outlaws of the late 1800s. Jesse James needed something to do after the war, and he was good with a pistol. So he robbed banks and trains (and not to give to the poor or stick it to the union or any of the other popular folklore. James was simply a criminal.).

I don't think the North was without honor, at least not the fighting men. I think the lust for revenge by those too cowardly to fight in the war led to some disgraceful acts (turning Arlington into the National Cemetary). Men like Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain were honorable men. The hack politicians and newspapermen were not.

On to Richmond!

On to Richmond! Or Not - NYTimes.com

Men like Greely lusted after War, Until Bullrun when the realized the destruction they had hastened this country towards.

That being said, the South started the war when they fired on Sumter. At that point, it was too late for a peaceful resolution.

 

[The Gadfly]

Geaux,
I think that is a balanced view, Most of the Union military were honorable, save for relatively few exceptions, and those are in every army and every war. Chamberlain was certainly a decent and honorable man, as was Thomas of Virginia, (the Union hero of Chckamauga), and Grant, for all his personal flaws, tried to do the right thing. The politicians were another matter. They lusted for vengeance, and once the Confederates had surrendered, they set about achieving it. They succeeded well enough over the ensuing ten years to leave a lasting legacy of hatred which continues unabated to this day, egged on these days by those who see some measure of political revenge in it themselves (as a couple of posts here clearly indicate).

The "Bleeding Kansas" analogy is probably too mild, for what a Southern guerrilla war might have looked like; something like that might have produced even worse men than W.C. Quantrill, on both sides. Given all that has happened since 1865 (Reconstruction conspicuously included), might it have been worth it, from a Southern perspective? It's actually an interesting question from that angle. With the foundations of slavery undermined, mechanized agriculture and foreign pressure from Europe would have ended that anyway, by 1880. Even allowing for more bloodshed and destruction (both considerable), what if the South HAD achieved at least a sufficient stalemate to eventually discredit the radical Republicans and gain independence by say, 1875-1880? What would race relations have been like, without Reconstruction and Radical Rule? How much reconciliation would there have been, between the North, and an independent South? Would they have eventually re-united, or continued to go their separate ways? Fascinating stuff for speculation, but of course, we will never know.

And what of the future? America is more divided today, than at any point since the War, and not just, or even mostly, on regional lines. Will America split again, and along what lines-political, ethnic, religious, regional or some other divide, or some combination of these? Will it be peaceful the next time? A number of futurists have predicted some sort of split in the next fifty years-is it really likely? More food for thought, 150 years after the conflict that defined America as we have come to know it.

 

[geauxtohell]

Geaux,
I think that is a balanced view, Most of the Union military were honorable, save for relatively few exceptions, and those are in every army and every war. Chamberlain was certainly a decent and honorable man, as was Thomas of Virginia, (the Union hero of Chckamauga), and Grant, for all his personal flaws, tried to do the right thing. The politicians were another matter. They lusted for vengeance, and once the Confederates had surrendered, they set about achieving it. They succeeded well enough over the ensuing ten years to leave a lasting legacy of hatred which continues unabated to this day, egged on these days by those who see some measure of political revenge in it themselves (as a couple of posts here clearly indicate).

The "Bleeding Kansas" analogy is probably too mild, for what a Southern guerrilla war might have looked like; something like that might have produced even worse men than W.C. Quantrill, on both sides. Given all that has happened since 1865 (Reconstruction conspicuously included), might it have been worth it, from a Southern perspective? It's actually an interesting question from that angle. With the foundations of slavery undermined, mechanized agriculture and foreign pressure from Europe would have ended that anyway, by 1880. Even allowing for more bloodshed and destruction (both considerable), what if the South HAD achieved at least a sufficient stalemate to eventually discredit the radical Republicans and gain independence by say, 1875-1880? What would race relations have been like, without Reconstruction and Radical Rule? How much reconciliation would there have been, between the North, and an independent South? Would they have eventually re-united, or continued to go their separate ways? Fascinating stuff for speculation, but of course, we will never know.

And what of the future? America is more divided today, than at any point since the War, and not just, or even mostly, on regional lines. Will America split again, and along what lines-political, ethnic, religious, regional or some other divide, or some combination of these? Will it be peaceful the next time? A number of futurists have predicted some sort of split in the next fifty years-is it really likely? More food for thought, 150 years after the conflict that defined America as we have come to know it.

I doubt the politicians in the south would have been any more noble. Politicians tend to evoke the wrath and fury that soldiers don't have the heart or inclination for. It's analogous to the guy in the football stand taunting the other team. It's not as easy to be cavalier when that 260 lbs linebacker you just called a pussy is lined up against you.

I think we are divided now, but I don't think it's at a crisis point. Mostly I think we are divided because we are bored enough to allow our news to become entertainment.