Jim Moran (D) calls Bobby Lee a patriot.

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

As I understand it, he took a good, long time to come to his decision to side with Virginia over the United States.

It’s easy to side with the USA when it doesn’t require you to side against your homeland.

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

You can tell where he stood on America by his choice of surrender instead of melting into an insurgency.

Mike gamecock DeVine

the United States.

Mike gamecock DeVine

ocleverone

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government…”

mbecker908

A “Kowalski” requires that you hit the “REPLY TO THIS” button.

You’ve done what shall forever forward will be known as a “Neil”.

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

I hope he’s alright by the way. If anybody knows how he’s doing and is OK to share, please let me know.

$peciallist

lol

Doc Holliday

He resigned his commission and openly defended his home and family. If he invaded his home and people, what would he have been then? A patriot?

I think we should not be discussing Lee here, it is Moran who should be criticized. And Moe, I come from states that contributed units that kicked yours around for a few years

Skanderbeg

So hopefully I’ll get to finish this.

Perhaps Ulysses S. Grant said it best in his memoirs, regarding the southern generals such as Robert E. Lee – just winging it from memory, it was something like “Never have nobler and more honorable men fought more bravely for such a horrible cause.”

That’s ultimately the best summary of the situation.

But if we want to look for true patriots, let us never forget that so many southern men went north to volunteer to fight in the Union Army that state-level volunteer regiments from every state in the Confederacy (except perhaps one) served in the Union Army.

And that might be the best exposition of the situation. Based on happenings like that, and careful readings of the copious volume of letters that were sent home by Union soldiers, the war was fought – successfully – to eliminate an aristocratic class in the south that could no longer be accommodated without discarding basic notions of pluralism.

Indeed, Lee (and the other southern generals) deserve credit for discouraging – explicitly by personal statement – the resort to guerrilla warfare by southern remnants. However, it can be argued that large parts of the south were able to maintain a very, VERY low-level insurgency against the full writ of the Constitution for another one hundred of so years.

As a related aside, when one walks around the Chickamauga (sp.?) Battlefield Park in NW Georgia, one can’t but help but note the large number of Kentucky (*) regiments engaged – on BOTH sides. One of them was commanded by President Lincoln’s brother-in-law (he was killed in the battle).

(*) Just to be complete, one of four “slaves” states that remained in the Union.

http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

First, I think we all can agree that Robert W. Lee acted honorably. And Moe and his critics both have completely valid arguments; it’s ulitmately that they are operating from somewhat different definitions of patriotism.

Now when you come to patriotism, that has to do with love of and loyalty to your chosen nation.

What makes it more confusing is that Lee had two patriotic duties to contend with:to his state (Virginia) and to the Federal government (the U.S.)

For the initial years after the adoption of the Constitution, these patriotic duties were in concert in each other, and no one was forced to determine which duty was primary – until the matter of secession up.

Indeed the fundamental question around secession was indeed a dispute over which loyalty was primary: were citizens primarily citizens of a particular state which had voluntarily joined in compact with other states to form a federal government, or were they primarily citizens of an indisolvable union of states within which individuals happened to be a resident of one particular state.

Like every other citizen in those states that seceded from the U.S. and joined the Confederacy, Lee had to make an agonizing choice between two two patriotic duties, as they were now irrevocably opposed to each other.

Which means that he had to decide to which he had a higher (or primary) duty – and Lee chose his state (which in turn evoked a patriotic duty to the Confederacy).

Thus, if we look at motivation, it is reasonable to call Lee a patriot in the general sense of the term, as he acted in accordance with his conviction as to what constituted his patriotic duty.

However, when you get to specifics, you then would have to modify the term “patriot” to observe that Lee was a patriot to his state, which he determined was his primary allegiance. He was also a patriot to the Confederacy by derivation.

However, with respect to the United States of American, Lee was ultimately not a patriot because he took up arms against it. So Moe is correct within the boundaries he delineated – which was patriotism with respect to loyalty to the U.S.

But his motivations in doing were honorable and came out of a sense of patriotism to a different entity. Which means if you put the emphasis on the inner motivation, he was acting with patriotism – just not to the U.S.

And I have no idea what Jim Moran meant or what thought process went behind his statement – if indeed he was thinking.

Doc Holliday

first of all, it was Robert E. Lee not W. I am sure that was just a typo and you know that. Secondly, I think Lee’s critics in this thread may be suffering from failure judge people by their own times, not our times. We don’t have to assume Lee’s feelings at the time, he wrote them down, and others wrote down what he said. Lee said VIRGINIA WAS his country. Even when leading men from many Southern states, Lee would say his duty was to Virginia, and the others of his kind fought to defend their country’s/states.

The historian Shelby Foote said that prior to the Civil War, The United States was a plural, after the war, and as a result of the war, The United States became a singular; a true single nation. One last thing, both sides said they were the heirs to Washington and the Founders, both sides believed they were the ones defending the ideals of our nation.

WilliamR

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Robert_E._Lee_(SSBN-601)

http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

We’re so used to thinking that the U.S. is our country that we forget that before the Civil War, many or most viewed their State as their primary country (if push came to shove), as you note. Which I’m sure is why we have two terms for that very conflict.

The North viewed this war as an internal conflict within a single nation in which a group of state rebelled against the federal authority – a Civil War.

The South viewed this as a conflict between sovereign states which had joined together into two entities, which was resolved by the Union militarily defeating the Confederacy and imposing its unitary view of the nation upon the other states – hence the term “War between the States”.

And yes, that “W” was a typo – it’s next to the “E” key. I find that I’m usually good for several typos in my comments, becauseI just don’t quite see them at the time. Indeed I often spot an error about one second after I push the POST button.

I usually don’t post typo corrections because then I’d spend all my time posting corrections – and then I’d be posting corrections to the typos in my corrections, as so on.

WilliamR

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1543

mbecker908

http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

Doc Holliday

and I am the king of typos. I only mentioned it for the record, because Lee is a hero of mine and it is a proper name. I also never correct typos for the same reason you do not.

Doc Holliday

and who was in the right, I saw both sides were. The Brits had a right to stop the revolt and we had a right to revolt. In the end, we were most right because we won.

Mike gamecock DeVine

mbecker908

Doc Holliday

as a semi-rehabilitated Rebel, I am still glad the North won. I bleed Red, White, and Blue because this nation has been the greatest force for good ever created by man. I have respect for those who fought on both sides and I see why the war had to be fought. I do not impugn Southerners nor Yanks for their reasons.

It is true that Lincoln did many things that were not in the name of liberty. The way he kept his heel on top of Maryland was completely unconstitutional. Of course, were I in his shoes, and if I believed as he did, I would have done the same thing, he could not allow his capital to be surrounded by a foreign power.

In the end, I hope we as a people can still settle our differences at the ballot box. This nation is in trouble as we speak, the ideals of our Founders have never been less in the hearts of our people. If we can take down the NEA and other anti-American cancers, we will never need to consider the idea of secession again.

mbecker908

Mr. Williams settled the question in his first two sentences…

Do states have a right of secession? That question was settled through the costly War of 1861.

He goes on to note…

Thomas DiLorenzo marshals abundant unambiguous evidence that virtually every political leader of the time and earlier believed that states had a right of secession.

And, for sure, what they “may” have believed prior to 1861 – really, it would be prior to 1865 when the issue was finally settled – doesn’t matter beyond being a topic fit for mental masturbation or the death of a decent bottle of single malt scotch.

http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

…and the fatal flaw of modern liberalism.

The ironic truth is that the Rule of Law rests upon the Force of Arms.

There is no natural law that gives us Rule of Law; it’s something that we had to gain by war and not something that just dropped into our lap. Not is an entitlement.

But more relevantly, it’s something we need to defend, by force of arms as the final defense – when our nation grounded on the Rule of Law is challenged/attacked by others in the world who do not recognize our Laws as binding upon them.

9-11 was a wake up call to remembrance. We go to sleep again as though nothing is different at our great peril.

Ultimately, he who survives make the rules.

Doc Holliday

look at so many of the Army bases in the South, they are named for former Confederates. Lee, Bragg, Hood, Jackson, the list goes on.

Doc Holliday

it is good to be the king

Doc Holliday

in some ways we are a victim of our own success. So many today take their rights for granted and forget that they were written in ink, but protected with blood.

mbecker908

we really should be talking about Moran.

Doc Holliday

Moe knows I respect him. He is a top dog here and I am just a reader. But I would have thought seeing that no one recommended this, one would see we are not on board. My opinion is worth no more those of others, but I am going to address this directly and let it lie.

I believe it is a mistake to try to rev up RedStater’s to impugn the integrity of a person revered or at least respected by so many in Red States, simply to try to score political points against a worm such as Moran. I know I will play no part in this; Moran is not worth it. Furthermore, I find the implied attack on Lee to be lowbrow and possibly hurtful to many here. This party and website needs another issue to split on like a hole in the head.

Moran has been shown to be a gun grabber, anti-semite http://judaism.about.com/library/2_antisemitism/bl_moran_iraq.htm and basic bag of trash. We do not need to muddy the name of a beloved figure to try to stain a man who has proven to be teflon. Enough said on my part, if this becomes a cause celebre, fine, but count me out.

Doc Holliday

nt

Achance

Moe can post directly to the Front Page.

Doc Holliday

then to later put it on the front page after the negative reaction I found to be a bit inflammatory or hard headed. I really should say no more, I have said my piece. I respect Moe and like him. He thinks this is a way to hit Moran and I do not. If you look at Moe’s top ranked diary I was one of the first to recommend it.

http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

It’s been perfectly civ… err, polite.

Doc Holliday

-nt

http://deafconservative.wordpress.com Cheetah772

Enough said….

Dencal26

Moe I disagree totally. As a Northerner ( Native New Yorker) I feel Lincoln pushed the bounds on what was contained in the Constitution. There was no prohibition against secession. His own ego caused 650,000 American Deaths, Brother fighting brother. This in a nation of only 30 Million. Could you imagine 6.5 Million Dead American today dying in a Civil War? Would the President be considered successful? Lincoln is very overrated. Robert E Lee was on the side of the US Constitution. Lincoln was not. I believe ALL Civil War soldiers should be treated with equal respect whether they were from North or South.

Achance

Let the record show that I DID NOT START this re-fighting of The War.

farstar99

Frankly, if the upper east coast and the left coast were disintegrated tomorrow, I would not shed a tear.

You “moderate” people, and the treasonous cancer known as Democrats are the cause of all our problems.

You’re arrogant and bigoted toward southerners and “flyover country” and it’s gone on long enough.

We’re tired of you dictating to the rest of us, especially since you have no clue about how to live outside your little, pampered greenhouses.

Three days without Starbucks or cable TV and you’d go fetal in a puddle of your own urine.

youthgrunt

But in this case, I do.

The answer to the question of whether or not States have the right of secession was not answered in the Civil War, but rather in the Revolutionary War. The Declaration of Independence lays out for us that it is a legitimate thing for a people to throw off the bands that tie peoples together.

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

I do not propose that it is time for this to happen. I do not propose that we should look to do so. But I can imagine a day that the only way for the people of the United States to regain the liberty that we have shed so much blood for is to engage in the breaking of political bands again.

In the meantime, we have the political work of expanding freedom to deal with.

Doc Holliday

i find it beyond the pale. I understand why Moe might not love Lee, it is his right. What you have said is anti-American and anti-RedState.

Achance

did, I have the utmost respect for the Northern common man. In the last great reunion at Gettysburg in the ’30s, the old soldiers ran towards each other on Cemetery Ridge and embraced on that once bloody ground. I think that we now three or more generations removed should be able to find the same sentiments.

As to the leaders, the only justice for the Civil Era would be for the political and economic leaders of the North and the South to have met on the Field of Honor and then to have had the local sheriff hang the survivors. I don’t feel much differently about today’s so-called leaders.

http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

Not to mention millions of other innocent people.

http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

I’m a bit of an admirer to R. E. Lee and realize times were different then.

The relevant point to this post, and the reason I encouraged Moe to front it, is because of the left’s reaction to Moran’s comments.

http://theminorityreportblog.com David Hinz

n/t

mbecker908

The Constitution is. There is no precedent – or language – in the Constitution that supports secession. And the DoI was the document that fundamentally declared war on Britain.

You will never see another Civil War. Last time around 500K men out of a population of 30MM died. Next time the percentage would be significantly higher. Plus, just how do you plan to raise an army? Every major police department in the country is militarized and you couldn’t even put up a good battle with the Phoenix PD let alone a US Marine Corps MEU which could be fully deployed and in action from several places in less than 24 hours.

The Civil War lasted five years. Your little crap shoot would last about about five hours and it’s utterly senseless to even discuss it outside of a compound populated with total moonbats.

http://deafconservative.wordpress.com Cheetah772

And finally….never say never. Anything can happen. I’m pretty sure people back then never thought a civil war would break out in the United States. I’m also pretty sure none of us ever thought that America would be attacked on 9/11.

I’ll say this one though. if people nowadays have so little respect for the Constitution, then it stands to reason that it can be torn apart should some major event push enough of people to initiate a second civil war, however futile it may be. When the Constitution is no longer respected, then with all due respect, anything can happen by then.

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

Stare Decisis is fo’ suckas!

mbecker908

That’s the only point you’re right about though.

1. In the 1850′s there was not a true “centralized” federal government. And the secession talk in the South went on and grew for several years.
2. Had it not been for Lincoln, the South would have been successful. See the NY draft riots, etc. See also the suspension of habeus corpus.
3. As far as 9/11 is concerned, anybody who could put two rational thoughts together knew long before 9/11 that this country is an easy target for a terrorist attack. And, it still is. But terrorism isn’t revolution by any matter or means.
4. The end of the story is that we will simply look like Europe without the “regional” differences (Germany, France, etc.).

Next93

Lee was fighting against a federal government that had begun to act like an imperial government. As someone mentinoed upthread, he was fighting for the consitution that his opponents seemed to see as nothing more than impediment to a desired social outcome.

I would have thought that you of all people would be able to appreciate a man like that, given our current circumstances.

We may find, four years from now, that Obama’s unholy alliance of unions, government, and government-run corporations, coupled with a de-facto state news agency and effectively mandatory union membership, will make the ballot box meaningless. At that point, I’d guess that many northerners will suddenly develop a whole new understaning of what southern patriotism was really all about.

http://deafconservative.wordpress.com Cheetah772

I think a lot of people back then vented their anger and talked plenty of a bloody war with each other to settle the issue once for all. But I honestly think nobody really THOUGHT HARD that a civil war could occur at all.

Before 9/11, I knew there was plenty of talk about the possibility of terrorists launching some sort of devastating attack. But I always assumed that terrorists could be stopped or that their attacks wouldn’t be on the scale like 9/11 attacks which did occur. Except for security and military professionals, I think nobody thought that type of terrorist attack would become a new reality for America.

Let me put this another way, I confess that I never thought the type of economic collapse as we are now experiencing was even remotely possible. There were plenty of warnings through past years, but nobody really THOUGHT hard about it. Talking about it is vastly different from actually thinking about it.

My point is that prior to the Civil War, there were plenty of talk, but very few people really thought hard about the real possibility of a long and brutal civil war.

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

I’m sorry. I like Lee but I think your first sentence is ridiculous, and is nothing more than CSA propaganda.

Further, I see no evidence that Lee fought for politics. He fought for his home.

reaganite23

have addressed this in the above comments but you need to understand that at that point in our history the state was more involved in the day to day lives of its citizens than it is now. People fiercely identified with their states and, while the federal government obviously still existed, the states were more like a loose confederation of mini countries. As that was the case, Lee’s choice to “raise his sword one last time in defense of Virginia” was indeed an act of patriotism.

http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

And of course, any effort to raise a state army of secession would be detected well before such an army could be mobilized – and quickly neutralized.

Not to mention the little matter of aircraft and cruise missiles. Military technology has changed just a mite since 1861.

Your only hope would be a defense shield from a foreign power. And that cure would be worse than the disease.

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

And in this case, use them on Americans.

mbecker908

No sale.

Virtually the entire officer corps of the southern armies were graduates of West Point and had sworn an oath to protect and serve the Constitution. Many, if not most, had served in combat commands in the US Army. Pretty much to a person they considered their actions to acts of treason and most expected to be hung if the war was lost.

Decisions like that are taken neither lightly nor quickly.

I don’t know what the military men thought about the possibility of a drawn out war, but “the people” on both sides of the divide certainly thought it would be over in a few weeks or months.

As far as 9/11, I don’t know anyone who was surprised and I’m just a mortgage banker. The actual act was a little surprising only because of the coordination and planning involved. I had had many discussions about terrorist attacks against soft targets long before 9/11 with multiple friends. I won’t go into any detail, but those targets are still soft, require next to no coordination and just a little planning and would make the aftermath of the Towers coming down look like kindergarten.

mbecker908

if you’re referring to the government using weapons against civilians, that is a no-brainer. Put together a growing group of armed civilians and the local cops would take them down in a heartbeat.

If you’re referring to armed civilians raising up, the issue isn’t so much “guts” as “training”. An armed rabble of a thousand against a combat ready Marine or Army platoon wouldn’t last an hour.

http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

such that secession was seriously being considered, I am sure that the federal government would have military leadership and a loyal coterie of forces who would be perfectly willing to slaughter as many people as it took to preserve their privileged position of power.

Just look at any other totalitarian state – they all have ruthless internal security forces.

Doc Holliday

if there was ever a need for a revolution in this country, there is no reason to believe the military would automatically support a leader who pushed his people to such an extreme. There are many historical examples of soldiers who refused to fire on their countrymen.

Yahuti

Regardless of whether or not this issue should be banged against Moran.

The only argument that has any credibility in justifying Lee’s (and others) taking up arms against the US is that southern American military officers were placed in untenable positions by southern politicians by creating a political climate that forced them to chose between either their country or their state.

Lee’s best move under those circumstances would have been to resign his US commission – and go home and farm his wife’s property. Lee and the others were – simply – traitors who turned against their country during an armed insurrection. Reluctant traitors – yes; but traitors nonetheless according to any definition of the tine anywhere, any time.

What is especially egregious in Lee’s case and in the case of so many other southern insurrectionists is that they had taken ‘the oath’ as US Army officers to protect and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. There was no caveat stipulating ‘unless in the case of a southern insurrection’.

Pierre Gustaf Toutant (sp?)Beauregard had already ordered the shelling of Sumter and a southern Army was taking the field before Lee resigned. (By the way: Who gave that southern BG the authority to initiate a shooting war at the time he shelled Sumter?).

In other words, by the time Lee had become a reluctant insurrectionist, Fort Sumter had already been attacked by DOMESTIC enemies. He (they) broke ‘the oath’ by deciding rather than to assist in quelling the enemy attacks, he (they) abandoned their country to join its enemies.

That is traitorous conduct no matter how much and for what reasons his defenders put spin on it.

600,000 unnecessarily dead young Americans puts the lie to any defense of those responsible for causing their untimely deaths – no matter the reason or rationale’.

Moe is right. Sorry to say.

GEB

mbecker908

The force that would put down the next rebellion would be the police. And they would absolutely shoot.

Doc Holliday

In fact, Southern Officers were given leave to travel freely to the South even though Union forces knew they would be taking up arms. I am tired of this discussion, as I predicted, it would do more harm than good. All one needs to see is that nobody in this thread is talking about Moran in relation to his comments about Lee.

Next93

He wouldn’t have had to fight for his home if the Congress and the newly-elected president weren’t planning to take the government in a totoally new direction. Sound familiar?

True, the south had a bad case of sour grapes over the fact that its power in Washington was at its lowest point since the revolution, but it wasn’t just “CSA propaganda” that raised a confederate army, and that army wasn’t fighting to protect the “southern aristocracy” that Skandberg mentioned. Nor was it fighting for slavery (the number of slaveholders was actually fairly small, and the large plantations were in direct competition to most smallholders). Southerners were fighting because the small federal government of limited power that they thought they’d joined, was becoming something much more comprehensive and powerful.

http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

The WAPO comments I saw seemed to focus on Moran’s on willingness to house terrorists in Alexandria if called upon. A mixture of attacks on Moran, questions as to his authority to speak on behalf of Alexandria, and BDS.

Curiously, I didn’t see any comments reacting to his speaking in the same sentence of George Washington and Robert E Lee as patriots. And this was what Moe highlighted in his diary here that has provoke this “civil” discussion.

In other words, as far as I can see, the this reference to Lee as a patriot seems to have flown under the left’s radar.

Next93

Most southerners were fighting because thier states had been invaded. The invasion happened because the Northerners refused to recognize the Secession, and the Secession happened because the North was going to use it’s new-found control over the government to abbridge the rights that the states THOUGHT they’d retained when they became part of the USA.

The Secession might be considered an act of treason (though no one’s ever really addressed the legality of secession), but the federal government’s cavalier response (“we don’t recognize that right, so it never really happened”) can certainly be described as “imperial”.

Doc Holliday

I told them, long before it hit the front page. I hope this does not stand at the top forever.

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

I said fighting for his home.

Look, I think the historical record clearly shows the CSA to be the aggressor, a popular name for the war down south notwithstanding.

But once it was on, it was *on*. And a top West Point graduate like General Lee could not very well tell his fellow Virginians that he was busy. Nor could he lead the Army of the Potomac (as was offered to him) and shoot up his own neighbors.

Once Virginia seceded, his role in the war was set.

The idea that there was genuinely an ‘imperial’ power in Washington trampling the South all of a sudden, because their years of throwing hissy fits in party conventions came back and bit them for once, is simply laughable.

DerKrieger

For those that believe Lee’s actions traitorous, or at the very least unpatriotic, what will you do if the US reaches a point where the Democrat agenda simply cannot be defeated and we find ourselves in a country that resembles the Soviet Union? This is similar to the point the Founders were when they decided it was time to declare independence.

Do we soldier on under an increasingly oppressive and socialist federal government or do we follow the Declaration of Independence and revolt?: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government?”

How much oppression are you willing to tolerate in order to not be branded a traitor or unpatriotic?

I love this country more than I can express. I’m a Navy vet, my mother and father are Navy vets. My brother, sister, and ex-wife are all Navy vets. I grew up watching John Wayne movies in the garage with my dad and building models of WWII planes and ships. I can’t count how many times I’ve watched the Blue Angels on Navy air bases. I wear my patriotism on my sleeve. But I will not become an indentured servant to any man or any government.
If circumstances create a situation similar to that faced by our Founders I will follow their path.

McKinley

There are still a few patches of “real Virginia” in Fairfax County. Ken Cuccinelli is a conservative to watch.

Doc Holliday

I wish he was running for Governor, but Attorney General will have to do.

Doc Holliday

I don’t think he meant to praise Lee in any way. In fact, it is good our community is spread far and wide, we can help each other out. For example, I know for a fact Moran has no positive feelings for the Confederacy or its heroes. In fact, as Mayor of Alexandria, he lobbied to remove the statue commemorating Confederates after it was knocked down by a drunk driver. The Alexandria City council overruled the Carpetbagger Moran. This is an example why I thought this argument would not fly.

BlueLandRed

most treasonable action one could… he was on the losing side.

Obviously, had the South won Lee would have been considered a “Founding Father”.

Of course, this all smack of moral relativism.

Anyways, I’m glad Lee lost and too bad the South didn’t have a more incompetent leader… fewer lives would have been lost.

McKinley

Drawn from around page 284:

An army officer, Lee wrote in 1860, “was taught that he belongs no longer to section or party but, in life and all his faculties, to his country.”

Secession, for Lee, was anarchy and revolution. He disparaged the extremists on both sides of the political spectrum for bringing the country to civil war.

Stationed in Texas in early 1861, the normally reserved Lee grew visably upset around the talk of secession, to the point where a friend later recalled “his look of astonishment, trembling lips, and eyes full of tears,” when Texas seceeded.

“From the start of the crisis,” Pryor writes, “Lee knew that his destiny was to follow the fortunes of Virginia.” “I shall never bear arms against the United States,” Lee wrote an intimate, “but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in defence of my native State, Virginia, in which case I shall not prove recant to my duty.”

He claimed he had been educated to see Virginia took precedence over the Federal Government, though his father and brother were both staunch supporters of Washington’s nationalist principles. Indeed, it was Harry Lee who led the army to put down the Whiskey Rebellion and had remarked, “our happiness depends entirely on maintaining our union, in point of right, no state can withdraw itself from the Union.”

Lee may have agreed that secession was illegal, but he sympathized with every other aspect of the secessionist ideology. He was a racial supremacist disinclined toward egalitarianism. He supported the Crittenden Compromise, which would have allowed for the permanent existence and expansion of slavery. He worried growing numbers and industrial might of the North and West would render the South impotent.

Pryor raises several contradictions in Lee’s thinking. If this decision was as clearcut as Lee later tried to make it seem, why did he spend several days anguishing over the matter? If he were so adamant that Virginia remain in the Union, why did he not use the considerable influence others afforded his opinion to lobby against secession? It was not foreordained that Virginia would secede, even though it had the largest enslaved population in the country. Forty percent of the officers from Virginia stayed in the Union Army, including several of Lee’s immediate relatives, while others decided to sit out the war. George Thomas, a Virginian who stayed loyal, lost his family as they never again communicated with him, except to ask him to change his name. Those officers who retained their commissions suffered lifelong social ostracization from family, friends, and peers. In sum, Pryor concludes, Lee’s claim to be acting out of solidarity with a like-minded group of relatives and comrades would never be borne out.

Honor, as it was understood at the time in the South, was closely correlated with local reputation, family, and the avoidance of public shame. Lee claimed in his correspondence that only concerns of honor could keep him from staying loyal to the Union, though given the actions of his family members, one wonders whether the ideal cult of southern honor applied in his setting. Certainly, officers are bred to see resigning over an order one disagrees with as the height of dishonor. For Lee, Pryor writes, perhaps honor intermingled with pride to render secession palatable, and even attractive, as it asserted independence and self-protection in the face of humiliation.

Even at the time, many felt that “those who swore easy oaths in fine times, and then abandoned them, not only shamefully betrayed the country, but had no honor.” After hearing of Lee’s prayful days of anguish over his decison, one of his Unionist cousins remarked, “I wish he had read over his commission as well as his prayers.”

Pryor believes Lee’s example sheds some light on the grey spaces that make questions over loyalty, honor, and even truth the universal and highly subjective.

I am more inclined to agree with Moe – and I say this as a great admirer of Robert E. Lee who devoured literature on the Civil War as a kid and probably the only person on this site to go trick or treating as Marse Robert for halloween when he was 8.

DONTREADONME

but for what he saw as his cause, I still respect the man for his courage as does Moe. General Lee did have Honor.

Lee would have been held in a different esteem if he would have won the war or fought for the winning side.

Anyway, when I read about Robert E. Lee I can not hold some ounce of respect for the way he carried himself after the war as an example to ex-confederates. Honor was something I would definitely respect, for that he sits as a General worthy of admiration.

Please do not hit me after what I just wrote.

McKinley

Not an academic treatise, but a good airplane read.

DONTREADONME

hold some ounce of respect) with “I can hold an ounce of respect” Sorry… long drive home tonight.

McKinley

and not central to the argument he is making, namely it would be an honor for Alexandria to come forward and offer to be a shining city of justice. I am surprised Moran wrote this piece for the Post. Obama or someone must be giving him something nice in return for offering his district as the detention center.

Also, Lee’s boyhood home in Alexandria closed a few years ago, unfortunately. I went there as a kid number of times.

Doc Holliday

try more accurate biographies such as Douglas S. Freeman. To claim Lee could have prevented Virginia’s secession is absurd. Lee detested slavery and he thought Virginia made a mistake in secession. He took his role to defend his homeland with a heavy heart. Lee loved the US Army, he agonized over the decision to resign. In fact Lee was offered full command of Union Armies, something he was NEVER given in the Confederacy, even though many assume this to be the case.

Doc Holliday

in 1865 when the war was all but lost. He still had no real control of more than the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee surrendered his Army prior to the surrender of Joe Johnston and other holdouts. I misspoke when I said he never had full command, but he did not get full command until the last months of the war.

ocleverone

From 1789 to August of 1862, the oath of office for a military officer simply stated:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”

In August of 1862, Congress (Northern) added the words “against enemies both foreign and domestic”.

I am by no means an expert on the War Between the States, but I do know that one must look to the years of economic implications to take a broad view of the conflict.

The Panics of 1837 and 1857 shattered Northern economies while leaving the Southern economy basically untouched. Congress had passed ugly tariffs on Southern goods to try and “level” the economic trading fields. The South sought to expand it’s overseas trading while Northern shipping lines wanted the monopoly on shipping the goods to the North.

At the time, the political boneyard was littered with a succession of one term Presidents. The meaning of the constitution had been bantered around for years. Buchanan felt that the power of the country resided in the states hands while Jackson felt that the Federal government was the most powerful of entities. The pendulum swing of the Presidential viewpoints did little to provide a cohesive picture of which was “right”. Federal vs states.

When Lincoln was elected, it wasn’t a landslide. There were three other candidates in the race and they split the vote and Lincoln was elected. Lincoln ran on the the Republican ticket and ran on the platform of abolishing slavery. Really few people expected him to win.

When he did win, because of the platform, the South did cede.

Did the cession violate the Constitution? From our perspective yes, but from theirs no. As pointed out, until the War, the United States was viewed as a collection of sovereign states, plural not one. It was the thinking of the time and it was who they were.

Putting aside the issue of the morality of slavery, the South did view the Feds as overreaching and usurping their rights as a state. There was a sense of betrayal on the Southern side – it was not just relegated to the North.

The diverse viewpoints of the North and South represented those of many of the thinkers of the day. Do states rights come before Federal?

When Lee resigned his commission he had a simple letter of resignation. It read “I cannot raise my hand against my birthplace, my home, my children.”

He was not violating his oath of office because the oath did not at that time include enemies both foreign and domestic.

Moran could learn a lesson from Lee’s resignation letter. I cannot raise my hand against my home.

bk

I figured you had to be an anti-Semite to be a hero in Moran’s eyes.

bk

I figured you had to be an anti-Semite to be a hero in Moran’s eyes.

McKinley

I never said Lee could have prevented secession, but that strong Union sentiment existed in Virginia and Lee could have joined many of his Virginians in arguing for staying in the Union. While we can empathize with Lee’s time, not everyone in position made the choice he made, as Pryor demonstrates.

All Pryor does is look at Lee’s personal correspondence and draws from them to make claims. These are his words and those of his contemporaries.

I am not sure what an “accurate” biography is as Pryor works with Lee’s correspondence and those of his friends while drawing from seventy years of scholarship Freeman did not possess. Freeman was a great and prolific writer, he was a journalist by trade He, like the David McCulloughs and Doris Kearns Goodwins of the world, are not academic historians and their works are of the great man vein geared toward a general audience, like Pryor’s. For the most part, they, like their audiences, seek to know whether or not their subject was a good man.

Mike gamecock DeVine

Treason is defined in the Constitution. Just as it was defined under King George under English law. Our definition is much narrower on purpose, given that the founders felt their treason justified, as do I.

So that treason per se may or may not be wrong simply because it is legal. It must be measured by the relative morality, i.e. god v evil of the nation one commits the act against.

Mike gamecock DeVine

not just those that didn’t resign commissions

ZootSuit

I am very hesitant to get into this debate but — aside from the divergence of opinion, which I can and do respect — a lot of people posting here are factually incorrect.

First of all, I am most definitely not a fan of “southern tradition” nor of the men who fought to uphold it. Yet even still, I do not wholeheartedly condemn Robert E.Lee for his action and in many way (althoug definitely not in all way) he was a man of good character. However, this idea that Lee was somehow forced to follow Virginia in succession and that at the time, a Southern officer’s first loyalty was to his state is just one of the lies and historical rewrites of the “Lost Cause” myth.

As has been pointed out, even in the 1800′s, officers were sworn to protect and defend the United States, and not their individuals states. In resigning his commision and, more to the point, taking up arms against his country, Robert E.Lee was a traitor. Furthermore, as has also been pointed out, a large and significant percentage of officers from the state of Virginia remained loyal to the Union: Lee would not have been alone or unique if he had remained loyal to the oath he had given to defend and protect the Union.

Also, while it is true that Abraham Lincoln only won a plurality of the popular votes in 1860 and not a majority, if you combined the popular votes of all three of the other major candidates and gave them to one, Lincoln still would have won the electoral vote, 169-134. And in actuality, he did win 180 electoral votes, more than all the other candidates combined.

And finally, to address another myth, Lincoln and the Republicans did NOT run on a platform of abolishing slavery. Lincoln himself, although (correctly) thinking slavery to be a moral evil, was only a reluctant abolitionist. His goal and the goal of the Republican Party in 1860 was only to prevent the spread of slavery to new territories. The South, fearing that if it could not spread it’s “peculiar institution” to the new territories would further fall behind the North in political cloat and economic power, took it upon itself to rebel. But the fact remains that, for better or worse, Abraham Lincoln nor the Republican Party had any plans to free the slaves and/or give slaves the right to vote or whatever. The arguments saying that they did was and remains just more Southern lies and propoganda.

ZootSuit

I agree with you, too.

The funny thing is, I do not consider myself a “Lee-hater” or whatnot. But this rewrite of history to justify his actions, and the actions of the South as a whole, is ridiculous.

ashland_avenue

I almost said, ‘speaking of traitors’ Not sure that it rises/falls to that level but decide for yourself:

The Army has issued a recall of more than 34,000 advanced-combat helmets that failed ballistics tests, a move certain to attract scrutiny on Capitol Hill.

But an added element of intrigue that may also catch lawmakers? attention is the firm that lobbied on behalf of the helmet?s manufacturer: the PMA Group.

http://thehill.com/the-executive/lawmakers-may-give-recalled-combat-helmets-more-scrutiny-2009-05-06.html

mbecker908

I’m honored that you’d think I actually **have** friends.

Plus, if I was all that concerned about it – which I’m not – I’m sure I could find some subject somewhere we could disagree about. 8)

Swamp_Yankee

- Lee never wanted secession. He just couldn’t bear the U.S army marching on Virginia.

“With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty as an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I therefore, have resigned my commission in the army and save in the defense of my native state, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed”

- I also consider Lee a Patriot for the way he conducted the war. He never waged a scorched earth strategy when he could have. He could have waged a guerilla war and he could of disbanded his army and waged an insurgency. Lee was determined to fight and win, pitched army versus pitched army. When citizens of the North and South wre adversely effected, it troubled him.

- Once defeated, he worked to foster good will between the North and South and told the many who idolized him to become good Americans again

http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

ever since the Civil war the federal power has grown, the military has grown, states and individual rights have decreased.

Just as Lincoln manufactured a war,(no it was not inevitable, he could have allowed secession) and trampled rights in the process of that war it has been an increasing federal leviathan.

We have been programmed by history to look upon the results as something wonderful because of one issue, Slavery.

Granted that is a big issue, but IMO Slavery was a doomed institution anyway. It was raising moral repugnance even in the south, and was increasingly uneconomic. The eventual populist push against the wealthy planters would have included some sort of emancipation plan.

That is all speculation I understand, but history is full of what if’s, The truth is that the outcome of the civil war was not an unalloyed good.

farstar99

At least for now, before the coasts have compromised us all into Obama’s “utopia.”

Smugness and elitism breed anger.

When it comes the “Civil War” (northerner’s term) one man’s traitor is another man’s heritage.

So everybody needs to “watch it.”

ocleverone

Until 1862, officers swore an oath to support the constitution and that is it. It was well into the Civil War that the oath was modified similar to the oath today.

Lincoln did run with the support of the abolishionist movement, or the Radical Republicans who represented around 3% of the total population.

I am not disputing the horrors of slavery – no man should be held in bondage.

What I am disputing is the notion that this was the main concern of all Northerners. This war started as a tariff war. In Lincoln’s own inagural address he said:

“The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts…”

The South refused to pay the average of 47% tariffs that had been levied on them for a thriving economy.

There were a great many people on both sides who wrestled with the interpretation of the constitution on Federal v. states rights. The Federal won.

To assume that the North was waving the flag of preserving the constitutional, I have to ask, why was habeus corpus suspended, a fiat issued that citizens that practiced “disloyal behavior” would be tried by military tribunals and over 13,000 people arrested without being tried? Can one destroy the constitution in order to preserve it.

As I said, the Federal viewpoint won. Since then we have begun our march to the all powerful, all controlling Federal government with states rights being bastardized along the way.

mbecker908

It’s a privately owned forum.

ocleverone

I guess a question would be, how does one measure the treason’s justification?

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

Seriously, read the Constitution. Search it for the word ‘rebellion.’

There’s no ‘programming’ here. You sound like a Bush basher.

ZootSuit

1) The swore allegiance to the United States Constitution, the Federal charter. It was an instrument of the Federal government that they swore allegiance to, not that of a state.And indeed, very many of Southern offciers expected to be tried and hanged for treason if they were lost the war. At the time, they understood what they were doing. It is only now, long after the fact, that many today want to exonerate them.

2) No one argues against the fact that Lincoln ran with the support of the abolitionist movement. However, Lincoln himself and the Republican Party as a whole were NOT for the abolition of slavery.They simply wanted to cease its spread. Even as you somewhat tacitly admit with your 3% comment, abolitionist were but a small part of even the Republican Party.

3) For the record, I never accused you or anyone else here of disputing the horrors of slavery.

4a) While there were many issues underlying the cause of the Civil War (as there are always many issues involved with any war or political controversy), by far THE PRIMARY ISSUE WAS SLAVERY! Read the cotmporaneous accounts of even the Southerners who would later claim that tariffs or state’s rights or “Yankee imperialism” or whatever was the cause, during the 1860′s and before they all argued that they were protecting the institution of slavery and the rights of slave-holding. The idea that issues other than slavery was the underlying issue among Southerners was something other than slavery only started AFTER the Civil War when the South was defeated as part of the “Lost Cause” mythology of Jubal Early and others.

4b) As for the North, yes again, there were other issues; one being the idea of seccession itself. Indeed, I even agree with you in that slavery was a bigger issue in the South than it was in the North. But you are tacitly acknowledging that the South was the aggressor in succeeding and taking up arms (e.g. the South initiated hostilities against Fort Sumter). If anyone wanted a war, it was the South, and they wanted a war primarily to protect the institution of slavery.Again, read their cotemporaneous accounts, they acknowledged that they were fighting for slavery. They may not have personally liked slavery but they knowlingly and purposefully fought to insure that the instution of slavery would continue to exist. (Of note, much the same way that many pro-abortionist say that they are personally against abortion but fight to insure that there are never any restrictions to it.)

5) Again, tariffs were not the issue, especially with the South. Again, please read what they wrote before they lost. That will give you a much more accurate idea of their positions and the true causes of the Civil War than what they wrote afterwards.

6) As people wrestle even now about Federal versus states’ rights.But again, that was not the primary issue, particularly among the South.

7) As for Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and the like, I will not defend the constitutionality (although I am exceedingly glad that he took whatever steps necessary to win the war). However, please be aware that the CSA also began to abridge the rights of its own citizens during the course of the war,including its own tribunals, arrests and takings of private property. Indeed, there was one particular Confederate congressman (and I confess that at the moment I remember neither his name nor the state he represented) that was so outraged by the central government of the Confederacy that he began to talk about succeeding from the CSA. So please, if you are going to decry the legitimacy or righteousness of the cause of the Union because it abridged its stated limits and powers, please be so kind as to also decry the legitimacy and righteousness of the cause of the Confederacy because it did the very same thing.

ZootSuit

Robert E.Lee had many admirable qualities and we should admire him for those qualities.And indeed, you mention two of his finest in your post.

However, his taking up arms against the Federal government in “defense of Virginia” is not as clear cut as many would like to believe and even within the context of the times can legitimately be viewed as traitorous. Furthermore, in trying to “defend” Robert E. Lee, many are rewriting the causes and history of the Civil War itself. Robert E. Lee was a man; like most men he had many admirable qualities and many dishonorable ones. We, neither Yankees nor Southerns, need to lie to make him something he was not.

farstar99

Enjoy your freedom while it lasts.
It would be a shame if exercising that freedom meant silencing someone before the forum itself is silenced.

And yes, Lee formally resigned his commission before entering service with the CSA.

George Washington never formally resigned his commission in His Majesty’s Service before engaging in hostilities against the crown. He resigned his post with the Virginia Regiment, which had effectively been split and dissolved, anyway, but not from service.

Does that make George Washington a traitor?

farstar99

Just want to make that clear.
He’s a hypocrite, a liar and a moron.
He’s obviously trying to curry favor with the people getting set to kick him out of office.

McKinley

Lincoln set it well in his Second Inaugural:
“Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease.”

Or John Singleton Mosby’s words:

“The South went to war on account of slavery… South Carolina went to war as she said in her secession proclamation, because slavery would not be secure under Lincoln…don’t you think South Carolina ought to know why it went to war?”

The Lost Cause revisionists need to stop looking at trees and see the whole forest.

mbecker908

McKinley

that’s more southern revisionist nonsense scholars have debunked over the past forty years. Read Fogel and Engermann’s “Time on the Cross,” Slavery was many things, but economically inefficient was not one of them.

http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/weiss

pilgrim

Washington won the War of Independence from the British Crown . Had we lost the war to become an independent nation, then we would not today look at Washington as a patriot.

Lee lost the War of Independence of CSA from the USA.

Two things that confuse is how at the beginning of the Revolutionary War the colonists who supported the British Crown were called Loyalists, and the colonists who supported independence were called Patriots. The other point is that there was no geographical divide between Loyalists and Patriots.

6eorge Jetson

and why slavery didn’t take hold in the North.

The North had 1) the Puritans, 2) revolutionaries that couldn’t reconcile their complaints with England and owning slaves, and 3) Freed slaves aligned against slavery. But they also didn’t have to contend with an economy largely based on plantations, where, say in today’s dollars, the owner could make $10 million with slaves or $1 million with free workers.

Swamp_Yankee

The Deep south really didnt have a contiguous border or much interaction with the North. Those states along the Mason Dixon that were so heavily influenced by Lee had a direct relation with the Northern states. One place with such a relationship outside the influence of the Army of NoVA was Kansas/Missouri. Its amazing had long the Bleeding Kansas resentments of such incidents as the Lawrence masacre lasted and how they hate each other even though that theater was so small. The Deep South often took out their reconstruction resentments against blacks. But much of the South, especially those areas under the control of Lee, agreed to a state of re-assimilation and respectful disdain. Imagine if Lee burned Maryland and New Jersey and if burnt towns in Penn and went guerilla after the war. This country would never have recovered.

http://www.zazzle.com/kansas_keeping_america_safe_from_missouri_tee_tshirt-235033313019177830

If for no other reason, if actions at Appomattox and after the war should be hearlded.

noainc

deep on this site. Red State is an awesome resource and source of news and current issues, but it is apparent what an uphill battle conservatives face if ever to reclaim values and rights in this Republic.
Reviewing comments on the Civil War era indicate the typical ignorance many Americans have from generations of liberal revisionism. To place in perspective, all the original American founding fathers were “traitors” in the view of the British Crown and American loyalists.
The first Southern states that left the Union did so on sound and Constitutionally sound reasoning. Lincoln and the radical Republicans were the Democrats of their day. Many states, like Virginia left the union because they did not want Federal troops using their sovereign soil for access to rape and pillage the original seceding states.
Free blacks supported their own states in the South and many willingly gave their lives in the cause. The facts of history make the Orwellian liberal version confusing for the apologists of the Lincoln genocidal maniac regime.
When the current regime in Washington silences free speech, confiscates private property and wealth, and begins to forcibly confiscate firearms, I, for one, will not count on the support of paper “conservatives” as evidenced by many of these comments.

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

Go peddle that junk at stormfront.

G’bye.

youthgrunt

The Declaration of Independence draws its authority from a higher authority than the Constitution. It draws its rights from God and the Laws of Nature. These do not change, where the Constitution can.

You are making a practical argument that I cannot particularly disagree with. And I am not suggesting a crap shoot. What I am saying is that it is inconsistent with our history to say that the Union is sacred above all else. This nation is founded upon liberty and if it comes to a point that it no longer defends that liberty, then it has forfeited the mantle of the Constitution.

youthgrunt

from a Federal government that believes that it has the right to tell the people of these United States all that they must do and beyond that what they think?

ocleverone

accuse me of anything. I was trying to be as respectful and reiterative as I could.

This is an issue that while I believe we can agree on the outcome of unifying the country as a whole, we won’t disagree as to the beginnings.

My question would be if the Northern economic conditions and the tariff of 1828 had not been put in place, would this war ever have happened.

I apologize but I cannot remember where it is in the constitution that bans secession. That is one of the areas I always though was gray.

As far as any sitting President suspending the Constitution in order to save it, I worry. That time, constitutionality was restored, but how many times before it isn’t?

AKSteveB

and certainly not slavery (and I agree, there has been an awful lot of revisionist history designed to minimize the role of slavery in the war). What I think a lot of us see is the loss of a Republic of semi-autonomous states and the beginning of a Federal Leviathan.

AKSteveB

to William Faulkner, who was quite sympathetic to race issues, and who wrote extensively about discrimination. In an interview at the time (1957 I believe), he stated that if the Federal Government “invaded Mississippi” he would be out there “fighting even if I had to kill Negros in the street.”

I think we all agree that it was a tragedy that the identity of the South became so tied up in segregation and discrimination, but the fact is, the history of 1861-1970 was about an Urban, Egalitarian and Puritan Society, conquering a Traditional Rural Scots-Irish Society. “Patriots” fight for their kin and way of life. To a great extent the “Culture Wars” of today come from all this. It’s good that discrimination, Jim Crow, and all of that is gone, but a lot was lost as well.

GreyCloak

Moe … My ancestors fought with the 1st Wisconsin and faced my wife’s ancestors in Waul’s Texas Legion at Vicksburg. One died in Andersonville although his brothers survived.

Lee and Grant both graduated West Point. They took different sides, Lee being for States’ Rights … and Lee’s estate is now known as Arlington National Cemetery.

George Washington was technically a “traitor” to the British, but he won (with help from another ancestor who got off the boat from Ireland and joined the Continental Army).

Not only The Declaration of Independence, but also much of the 2nd Amendment discussion in The Federalist Papers deal with the rights of The People to defend themselves against despotic governments.

Your argument might be construed to say that anyone for limited government or States’ Rights could also be considered unpatriotic. That is a tough row to hoe.

I might note that Wife’s many-times Great Uncle, a Vice President of the United States, shot and killed a former Secretary of the Treasury … in part, because the Secretary wanted to establish a Federal Bank.

http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

What I said was that Slavery was INCREASINGLY uneconomic. It certainly would have continued to lose ground with mechanization. Furthermore the costs of slavery were born by the general populace in the increasing threat of slave revolts which would have only gotten worse, fueled by abolitionists.

http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

that the left accused G W Bush of. Lincoln actually did them.

Diogenes314

Actually slavery was becoming increasingly obsolete, except in the cotton belt. Several of the border states (Virginia for one) were basicly baby factories because slave labor was too inefficient for tobacco growing, the only way to turn a profit was by breeding and selling slaves. And even the deep south was on the losing side of history. The cotton gin had kept them riding high dor a generation, but several countries inclufing the Netherlands had caught up to them by 1860, which was why Britain and France were able to sit the war out. Cotton may have been king, but abdication was in the air.

And yes, Lee, Davis and the rest were patriots as defined by the spirit of Lexington and Concord and Philadelphia. For that matter, both Jefferson and Madison wrote in favor of the right of secession in the Virgina and Kentucky resolutions. And it is interesting that after the war, Davis was imprisoned for over a year-but never tried. The vicorious imperial Fed wanted no part of a legal case on the validity of secession.

As far as who was the aggressor…

If Lincoln hadn’t ordered the states to supply troops, the border states never would have seceded. And if he hadn’t tried to resupply the forts in Confederate territory, they wouldn’t have been fired on. And in either case, there would have been no war.

ZootSuit

If the Northern economic conditions and the tariff of 1828 had not been put in place, then YES, there still would have been the Civil War!

ocleverone, you are rewriting history when you say it was tariffs or anything besides slavery that was the cause of the Civil War. At the time, the South was quite clear that they were seceeding and fighting for slavery. Read just about anything they wrote both before and at the start of hostility: almost universally they said — and I want to emphasize that this is their own writing and not the words of the victorious North — that they were fighting for slavery, both its continuation and its expansion.

It was only after the end of the war, when the South was defeated and the moral support for slavery had diminished (after all, the side that fought in support of slavery had lost), only then did some Southerners try to retcon the reason for the war. But again, before the defeat of the South, just about everything and everyone in the South, in both private correspondence and public proclimation, freey admitted that the reason for their actions were to support the establishment and expansion of slavery.

Even in the North, slavery itself was still a primary issue exceeded only by the idea of the Union itself. But note, the North was not the aggressor, the North never had a plan before the war to manumit Southern slaves. The idea of Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party was simply to limit slavery to the states and territories where it was already permitted but this was still too much for the South. And the North definitely were not planning to invade the South to collect tariffs or whatnot. The South thought that the expansion of slavery was necessary for their survival and therefore, for that reason, to support and exand the practice of slavery, the South rebelled.

Quite frankly, ocleverone, you are factually wrong when you try to assert that it was tariffs or any other reason besides slavery itself that was the primary cause of the Civil War. This is not a matter of opinion: you are factually wrong. You are as factually wrong as if you were asserting that 2+2=17.

And where is it within the Constitution that permits secession?

The idea behind the Constitution is that it is a compact: a binding agreement between multiple parties. Normally, within a compact, all sides are bound to the terms of that compact unless all sides agree to the terms of the nullification of that compact. One side may initiate proceedings to abandon the compact but ultimately the resolution is an agreement between all parties and until that agreement is reached between all parties, the compact is still considered to be in effect. Basically, in (admittedly oversimplified) legal terms, the South wanted to abandon the compact but could not reach an agreement with the North on the terms for the abandonment. Thus, the North was within its legal rights to try to enforce the terms of the compact.

And no, I do not like a President suspending the Constitution but you seem completely blaise to the fact that the same thing was happening in the South. The CSA was violating its constitution almost literally from the moment it was written. If your argument is that the South was escaping the tyranny of an Administration that suspended many constitutional rights, then why did the CSA almost immediately begin to suspend the constitutional rights of its citizens, too?

It is unfortunately true that constitutional principles are among the first things to go when armies are literally at your borders (and even moreso when they are within your borders). At the risk of getting into another argument on a different subject, even some consrvatives would argue that this is what is happening under the Patriot Act (and President Obama’s frightening expansion of the justification for it).

Nothing personal, ocleverone, but please read what was written before the South lost and the “Lost Cause” revisionism was started. You know, the stuff that was written while the South was contemplating and actually seceeding.

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

However Lincoln could point to the Time of Rebellion to trigger the Constitution.

ZootSuit

I honestly do not take my disagreement with ocleverone personally. In fact, I have no problems with those who want to deem Robert E. Lee a “patriot”; although my evaluation of the man and his actions leds me to a different, more nuanced conclusion.

I am just addressing the factual inaccurate statements that he and others are making.

Yahuti

and many others on the theme. Am writing a book about the pragmatic effort to deify Lee (after his death) by mainly former Virginia officers ; done by demonetization and vilification of James Longstreet’s efforts at Gettysburg and the post-war years – and how that act skewed the history of the battle (and many others).

Lee was not always the icon he is today. He (and Jackson) just had really good PR men after their deaths. The same people who manufactured Lee, the infallible, also gave us the fabricated concepts of: “The High Tide of the Confederacy’ at Gettysburg and the “Lost Cause’ lamentations. Each of which are so interwoven into the historical fabric of the entire Civil War as to appear today to be axiomatic – rather than the falsehoods they truly are.

ZootSuit

By the time Lincoln was inaugurated on 4 March 1860, the seven states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had already formed the Confederate States of America.

Diogenes314

There is absolutely no evidence that the new Confederacy had any interest in waging war on the North. They just wanted to be left alone, to not have the industrial North waging economic warfare on them via the tariff, navigation laws etc. And if Lincoln hadn’t pushed the border states into seceding, it is doubtful they could have maintained economic viability in the long run once the demand for coton tapered off due to increased competition from Europe.

Not that Lincoln wanted war. He was just that clueless.

Yahuti

could be living proof that I am NOT full of excrement – but I wouldn’t say such a thing.

Oh, and FYI:

April 12th, 1861: Date Insurrectionists fired on Sumter: An act of war/rebellion/insurrection performed by the nation’s self-proclaimed enemies.

April 18th, 1861: Virginia secedes, joining the ranks of America’s self-proclaimed enemies.

April 20th, 1861: Date Lee resigns from US Army:

BTW: All the while Lee watches and waits on events to unfold he has in his pocket a letter written March 15th, 1861 by L.P. Walker, Confederate Secretary of War, offering him a commission as a Confederate Brigadier General.

The point I made was that Lee betrayed his oath and his country by resigning from the US Army after the country had been attacked by its self-proclaimed DOMESTIC enemies. This is correct (see above).

Others claim that Lee cynically shopped his services between the South and the North, waiting for the best deal: By I am NOT.

He betrayed his oath and the country to which he gave it, and in the process Lee left behind with his broken oath the ‘honor’ that he said made him fight for the South. There is much more but let’s not get in to it here – if you wish to continue the argument.

GEB

Yahuti

been discredited as sycophancy.

Doc Holliday

I have said more than my piece on the subject. If one reads what I posted from the beginning, they will probably agree I was right that this would A) not fly and B) not help. Furthermore, the small handful such as yourself that believe Lee to be a traitor will not change your minds, so further discussion will not be fruitful.

The thing that amazes is that you can’t see the forest for the trees. Anyone could make an argument whether Lee was a patriot or not on a blog, but it is much easier to see how the man is remembered by his countrymen. Lee was respected by soldier North and South and today is still the most beloved Civil War figure. The United States honors Lee with a military base in his name. Countless schools, sports teams, roads, and parks are named for the man. And I have found that he is the most revered alumnus at West Point by the Cadets Today! This is mentioned in this interesting article Smagar linked in another thread, on another subject. http://www.newsweek.com/id/81232

ZootSuit

Bluntly, you do not know history. Not every state that seceeded gave a reason for their secession in their proclamation of secession but every state that did, without exception, listed support of slavery as the reason. Not “economic warfare,” not tariffs, not navigation laws, but slavery. Moreover, the Vice President of the Confederacy (Alexander Stephens?) in his infamous “Cornerstone Speech” declared the slavery was the foundation or “cornerstone” of the Confederacy. To quote him:

Our new government [the Confederate States of America] is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

Again, this is what Southerners were saying before and during the early stages of the war. It was only after the South had lost that the idea was retconned that the primary issue in the South was not slavery.

Moreover, neither Abraham Lincoln nor the Republican Party (excepting only a very small minority at the time: the “Radical Republicans”) wanted to end slavery in the South. They simply wanted to stop its expansion into the new territories. But this was unacceptable to the South, particularly the Deep South. Again, the South wanted an expansion of slavery because, rightly or wrongly, they believed that the expansion of slavery was necessary for their continued existence.

These are all historical facts. Indeed, historical facts authenticated even by the Southerners of the time. This is not something the North said but is what the South itself said. Why do so many today — dare I say, especially “conservatives” — want to either lie or at least remain willfully ignorant and rewrite history?

Diogenes314

Bluntly, you do not know history.

Well I guess I can just ignore Shelby Stelle and Bruce Catton since you have the corner on historical knowledge. Thanks for the update.

Not every state that seceeded gave a reason for their secession in their proclamation of secession but every state that did, without exception, listed support of slavery as the reason. Not ?economic warfare,? not tariffs, not navigation laws, but slavery.

And which ones didn’t mention tariffs?

Moreover, neither Abraham Lincoln nor the Republican Party (excepting only a very small minority at the time: the ?Radical Republicans?) wanted to end slavery in the South. They simply wanted to stop its expansion into the new territories. But this was unacceptable to the South, particularly the Deep South. Again, the South wanted an expansion of slavery because, rightly or wrongly, they believed that the expansion of slavery was necessary for their continued existence.

The fact is, they couldn’t have ended it if they wanted to. The Republicans in 1861 had a minority in both fouses of Congress, the only reason they gained a majority was because of Southern secession. The reason they wanted a monoply on the West, and the South found that unacceptable, was precisely because it would give the industrial North a stranglehold on the balance of power in Congress and allow them to pursue their protectionist policies with impunity, to the detriment of the South.

And for the record, after the South seceded Lincoln was content to ignore them with two exceptions: Resuppling forts in Confederate territory-and collecting the tariffs.

But then I forgot-nobody really cared about tariffs. And I don’t know history.

Jack_Savage

But I am sure that is also southern revisionist nonsense, so I look forward to you refuting it.

Achance

It was doomed by political and economic pressure from GB, France, and The North. Mechanization would not have fazed it any more than it has fazed the stoop labor that still exists where labor that will do it exists, e.g, California’s fruit and vegetable agriculture.’

Tobacco is a great example. In my youth, it was the “money crop,” and the differences between present and presents at Christmas. It was totally muscle labor. We kept a mule to pull a tobacco sledge between the rows long after we’d gone to tractors and trucks for everything else. All the cropping and tying was by hand and the scene could have just as easily have been in the 1850s as the 1950s, early ’60s. The conventional wisdom was that tobacco was a hand labor crop and that was the only way you could do it. The closest tobacco got to mechanization was the “tobacco picker” that would mount on a row crop tractor that allowed you to crop more rows by hand and a little faster by having the croppers sit on seats and benches mounted to the tractor.

Fast forward and the Civil Rights Bill and the Great Society programs cause a diaspora of Black agricultural labor and within a decade, tobacco is totally automated with bulk barns and all the accutrement. Once the cheap labor was gone, it automated, but not until. I’ll guarantee you that had slavery survived, farmers in the South would still be hoeing and picking cotton by hand and tobacco would still be a hand crop. The only thing mechanization would have done would be put more land in cultivation, the real limitation of slavery was that the hand labor and caused relatively little land to be put into production. Mechanization by putting more land in cultivation would have caused a demand for more slaves, not less, just as the cotton gin gave a rebirth to slavery when at the Founding it was presumed to be dying out.

ZootSuit

Because you really don’t.

Here is a link to the actual text of the Causes of Secession for the state of South Carolina:

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/secession_causes.htm

Notice that “tariffs” are not mentioned even once. In fact, “taxes” are only mentioned once and then only to say that they are slaveholders are taxed for their slaves.

Doc Holliday

I have read more on the war than you two have not read on the war.

Doc Holliday

it is not a serious biography. There are many good ones besides Freeman’s, but to have not read Freeman’s work is to not be versed in the subject. There are countless other books, including first hand accounts if you want to actually learn about the man and the times.

For those interested, and I doubt you are, Porter Alexander ( a real Civil War General lol) wrote a first hand account with critiques of all the major leaders in the Army of Northern Virginia. http://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Confederacy-Personal-Recollections-Alexander/dp/0807847224

The people that think Pryor’s book is a good biography of Lee are the same type that think Joseph Ellis wrote a good biography of Washington with his trash book “His Excellency”.

This is my last post in this thread, stupid is as stupid does.

Achance

Like most complex characters, I don’t think there is any one book that gives a complete picture.

Jack_Savage

“Lee was not always the icon he is today. He (and Jackson) just had really good PR men after their deaths.”

A lie, pure and simple, refuted by countless first-hand accounts of the time.

Doc Holliday

memoir, yet have not read it to date. There is certainly not one book that one can rely on for the complete picture. Much can be learned from studying primary sources, learning from professors, writing your own papers, discussion, etc.

It would be fun if we had a thread to discuss the subject of Lee but this is not the place. People are throwing around epithets and unfounded commentary such as “Lost Cause” myths etc. These people know nothing about me, you, or anyone else. They don’t know what we have read and whom we study. Do they think I only like Lee? Do they think I have not studied Grant, Sherman, or Union artillery genius Henry Hunt?

The point is this diary was intended to damage Jim Moran, it did not. I love history but arguing with people who would not know Walter Taylor from Andy Taylor, nor want to learn, becomes tiring.

Achance

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Years-General-Walter-Taylor/dp/0253210747/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242086246&sr=8-1

Robertson is the editor. I find him dry but honest. Moxley Sorrel’s, Longstreet’s aide, memoir is also a good read. He’s a bit defensive of his old boss, but since all the Virginians were busy blaming Longstreet for the defeat of the Confederacy, one can hardly blame him.

This is where I agree a bit with Yahudi; the Virginians went to war after The War. They made a charge made mostly by Pendergasts men into “Pickett’s Charge.” They invented the myth that Longstreet dallied on the Second Day. If anybody failed on the Second Day, it was those Gallant Virginians, Ewell and Early. Had the attack on the Confederate left DONE ANYTHING, the right and center would have not been so heavily defended. Even so, had that Gallant Virginian “Little Billy” Mahone not twice defied Anderson’s orders and refused to move, Wright’ts Brigade would have been supported on its left and made good its breach of the Yankee line on Cemetery Ridge late on the Second Day. Had that Gallant Virginian A. P. Hill done ANYTHING to make himself look like a general officer on the Second Day, there would have been no need for the desperate charge up Cemetery Ridge on the Third Day. I can go on awhile.

My g/grandfather (Pvt. Amos Riner, Co. F, 48th Georgia, Wright’s Brigade, Anderson’s Division, Hill’s Corps, Lee’s Army) took a .69 caliber ball in his left shoulder on Cemetery Ridge on the evening of the Second Day as Wright retreated because his left was exposed because of Mahone’s inaction and the Yankees counterattacked on his left flank. Amos was treated in a field hospital and walked back to Richmond, fighting in the battle at Manassas Gap along the way where his brother, James, was captured. He was finally admitted to Chimborazzo Hospital on July 16, 1863, two weeks after he was wounded. He went home on 30 days leave to recover and as a part of his recovery made the line of the family that made me. He finally “died of his wounds” in 1914.

Doc Holliday

I know people like to pick on the Virginians since they held so many top commands in the Army of Northern Virginia and some made a point of casting blame elsewhere after the war. You illustrate the point of how important it is to read many sources to come to your own conclusions. And one thing for sure is that no one to this day has proven the Virginians right about Gettysburg, nor those in the Longstreet camp.

Since I am a contrarian by nature, I admire and have studied Longstreet. For so many years, Longstreet was persona non grata in the South. He did several things to offend his former comrades, he criticized Lee, he became a Republican, and he joined he Catholic Church. Yet he also made mistakes on the battlefield and he too spent much of his time after the war pushing his version of events, with he himself shown in the best possible light.

And for a generation who learned their history from the movie Gettysburg and the book “The Killer Angels”, the Longstreet view has become the new standard. The problem is that the book and movie were based almost solely on Longstreet’s biography. To me, the truth is in the middle, but the absolute truth may never be fully known.

Did Longstreet delay on the second day? I think there is evidence that he did delay. He was not insubordinate, but he wanted time to convince Lee to change plans. And let’s not forget, the attack on the second day did almost succede. In fact I believe that Lee was sucked in each day by the fact that he came so close to victory each time. Also, many argue that Lee did not fully trust his new corps commanders as he did Jackson. He did trust Longstreet, but Longstreet was simply not fully on board at Gettysburg. Another problem was that Lee gave his commanders too much latitude.

The issue with Lee, in my opinion is simple. Was he the greatest tactical General of all time? The answer to that is no. His audacity was the source of astounding victories and some inane repulses, such as at Malvern Hill. Yet, could any man have inspired his men such as he and keep the war in the East alive so long? The answer is no. Like Washington during the Revolution, Lee was “the indispensable man”.

BTW, I think you give yahooti too much credit, he is simply trying to bash Lee, he has not made a serious point about Lee as a General. My Virginian ancestors served as well, some as enlisted men, others as officers. I know of two who were captured in a skirmish about the time of Cold Harbor.

Achance

around much lately. I think he has a military background and has written some thoughtful posts. I think you two just sort of set each other off on this one. Something I’ve never done, of course.

I’ve done a lot of research on the Second Day, especially on Wright’s Georgian’s part in it. Coddington totally dismisses Wright’s claim that Wright’s Brigade broke the Yankee line late on the 2nd Day. He even goes so far as to claim that the Yankee units at the wall on the 3rd Day were using .69 smoothbores thrown down by Wright’s Brigade as extra weapons. Trouble with story is that Wright’s Georgians didn’t have .69s, the whole unit had always had Enfields, musketoons for the NCOs and rifled muskets for the men. The only exception was there were undoubtedly some men who preferred the .69 loaded with buck and ball or buck alone so they could use it as a big shotgun in close quarters fighting.

Anyway, I set out on a research project to try to vindicate the old soldier’s story that they made it to the top of the hill and stayed there awhile. One of the things you have to do is rationalize time. ’63 was before Standard Time and the Yankees and the Confederates commonly had different times. Most of the times in the anti-Longstreet pieces are taken from Fremantle’s account and I believe they even misrepresent that. You get the impression from Fremantle and those who follow his timeline that the meeting you see in “Gettysburg” with Lee and Longstreet took place in the very early morning, even before sunset, but it couldn’t have. For Hill to have been there, it would have been somewhere between 8 and 10 in the morning. If the final orders weren’t worked out until mid-morning, the rest of the day makes a lot more sense. I don’t dispute that Longstreet disagreed with Lee and thought attacking the Yankees there at all was ill-advised, but Longstreet was far too long-serving and dedicated a soldier to have been willfully dilatory. Longstreet was never fast, but he was steady and dedicated. If you look at ANV offensive actions, you’ll be hard pressed to find ONE that started anything like on time or in good order, see, e.g., Jackson’s failure to appear in the Seven Days or his very late attack at Chancellorsville, or, Longstreet’s belated arrival at 2nd Manassas. Somehow disorganization always seemed to make it a close run thing. As an expatriate Southerner, I fully understand how Southerners aren’t so much into that time thing; I’ve just adjusted to the Yankee clock better than some have.

Fundamentally, Gettysburg was a failure in command. It was the first outing of the new three corps structure imposed after Jackson’s death. Lee really didn’t realize how much his beloved Army had changed and gave general orders that he expected his subordinates to carry out independently and with independent judgement. They weren’t up to it. If you look at any subsequent battle, you’ll see Lee at the front looking over his subordinates shoulders and sometimes trying to lead himself. “Lee to the rear” happened more than once. The men knew how vital he was, and that probably is his most powerful legacy.

Achance

ocleverone

Diogenes314

Epic. I guess nobody in the south was concerned about it at all. They must have all been trully worried that Lincoln and his minority of Republicans in Congress was a threat to slavery.

And all the pesky facts and stuff in the following link probably don’t mean anything either.

http://www.etymonline.com/cw/economics.htm

ZootSuit

That’s the point, AT THE TIME no one mentioned tariffs and whatnot as the reason for secession. Everyone knew that support for and expansion of the institution of slavery was the reason for secession because the South was consistently adamant and forthright in stating that the reason for their secession and rebellion was slavery. It was only after the Civil War and the South had lost did many argue that they were fighting against tariffs or “Yankee imperialism” or whatnot.

Even the Georgia Declarations of Causes for secession mentions economics factors (relatively briefly, at that) in the context of the North expanding its power over the Federal government to prohibit slavery. Here is the actual text:

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Georgia_Secession_Causes.htm

The fact remains that, at the time every Southern acknowledged that the reason for secession was slavery. Yes, there were other regional issues of dispute — as there always are and as I acknowledged previously in this thread — but THE reason for secession, as argued consistently and adamantly acknowledged by just about every Southerner at the time, was slavery!

This is really getting ridiculous. Arguing with you Diogenes314, is like arguing with a liberal. You simply refuse to look at the facts and evidence. I’ve had enough.

ZootSuit

and my sincere apologies.

ZootSuit

Robert E. Lee was very well regarded by his contemporaries with but very few exceptions. However, I must say that this hagiography that has sprung up around him — such as the reasons he lost the battles he lost (such as Gettysburg) were due to his subordinates — is a result of post-war propoganda.

Interestingly enough, Robert E. Lee himself always took responsibilities for his failures in combat. This is one area of the “Lost Cause” revisionism that he did not buy into or promote. And, perhaps interestingly enough, this is indeed on of his admirable qualities that I can praise him for.

Doc Holliday

“around much lately. I think he has a military background and has written some thoughtful posts. I think you two just sort of set each other off on this one. Something I?ve never done, of course.”

I will stipulate. It happens to some people in this format, particularly on touchy subjects. Of course you have never done this, nor I

I agree with pretty much everything you posted about the Second Day. Though I have not studied Anderson’s and Wright’s efforts as you have, I find nothing with which I can cry foul. I agree that Lee’s orders were not finalized until probably 11am. Of course that still leaves many hours unaccounted for, I don’t think Anderson attacked until 6pm, right? In the end, the timing hurt, particularly in Hood’s case and the Little Round top, but that is the way war goes. I have heard it said that a battle plan is something you follow until the first shot is fired.

I think Lee DID understand how huge the loss of Jackson was. As you know, Lee said: “He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right arm”. Yet, as you say, he still gave his new corps commanders the latitude he have Jackson and Longstreet. And you are right that after Gettysburg, Lee became more hands on, particularly with Hill and Ewell.

Though I do not believe blaming Longstreet for the loss at Gettysburg, I do have little more blame to assign to Lee. The Longstreet crowd and the Killer Angels crowd made Lee out to be stupid, stubborn, and overly confident. They say Lee should have moved to the South-East and find new ground in order to fight a defensive battle.

The problem with this is no one has ever explained how such a thing could have been done. Would Meade simply allow a 50,000 man army to flank it when it was looking down one that army from the high ground? Any such maneuver would have been extremely dangerous and possibly fatal. Also, Lee knew he did not have time on his side, he needed to force the action. He was in enemy territory and did not have good intelligence, his army could have had its communication lines cut. And lastly, the attacks on the first day SHOULD have worked and the second day attacks COULD have worked. I think we all agree that the attack on the third day was a gallant yet desperate move.

one last thing, just as history often ignores Anderson and Wright on the Second Day, general histories give short shrift to one of Lee’s greatest military feats. We are taught that Pickett’s charge ended the battle of Gettysburg as if there was a whistle blown and everyone went home until the next battle. Of course the reality is Lee’s damaged Army, teeming with thousands of injured, was still in extreme danger after the third day of battle. The feat of getting that Army safely back into Virginia was military 40 percent genius, 40 percent fortitude, and 20 percent Meade’s wimpiness.

This has been an enjoyable discussion Achance

Yahuti

as a ‘Lee basher’. I am not really.
In fact, concerning Lee, I am much like a Jeckle and Hyde.Lee’s image today and during many past decades is a product of the Early, Pendleton, Rooney Lee cabal; the same merry fellows who tainted CW history with the manufacture of the ‘High Tide’ at Gettysburg, the Lost Cause and the ‘Longstreet did it’ fantasies. They had their reasons for poisoning history; and the reasons were mainly personal, I believe.

The fact that these Virginians who decided to create self-serving myths about Gettysburg waited five long years until Lee died – is significant.
Why?
Because they knew that if Lee were alive he would have roundly refuted their efforts; two especially: first was their (successful) efforts to deify Lee. Lee would have been mortified, and they knew it. Second was their efforts to demonize Longstreet. Lee would not have permitted it.

My problem with Lee has nothing to do with Lee himself. I am simply sick and tired of Lee being held up as a great American hero – often held on the same plane as Lincoln and often above Grant. Lee was not an American hero. He was an anti-American hero, a hero of the south, not America. His actions and his words are simple proof of it.

Another thing is the manufacture of the dynamic duo Lee-Jackson. Lee was fond of Jackson, to be sure, but he certainly didn’t lin arms with him. In fact Lee kept company with Longstreet most of the time, often confiding in him. Lee promoted Longstreet on day ahead of Jackson thus making Longstreet the senior of the two, his 1st Corps commander and his second in command of the Army of Virginia. These are facts than many folks have difficulty swallowing – but facts they are.

I am a very serious student of Longstreet and, in fact, am just finishing a manuscript of a fiction-based novel on his and his colleagues’ travails at Gettysburg. I am not a Civil War historian. I am a political historian – and yes, I have the degrees to prove it; a political historian who happens to be a writer.

Lee made many egregious mistakes as an Army commander at Gettysburg. This is not because he was stupid or inferior. Lee’s errors probably occurred because he was not at the top of his game. He was physically ill, seriously ill. He was almost overwhelmed with personal/family tragedies, and from his later correspondence it can be inferred that he might have been losing a little self-confidence.

No Doc, I am not a ‘Lee basher’. I am simply trying to see the man as he actually was, and place him within a real context of time and place.

I’m with you. We have already hijacked too much of the original posting, and ought to stop.

If you, or others on this string, would like to engage in further conversation on the topic we can use another medium.

GEB

RS

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Jim Moran (D) calls Bobby Lee a patriot.

Oh, how I will get yelled at for this.

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