ROBERT E. LEE: OUR GREATEST GENERAL?

[DIRTYSECRET]

That was according to my 8th grade history teacher-retired military. The only one who came close was MacArthur. That brings up the politics of the left. If it is true that Lee was a great General isn't it at least worth acknowledging? This tearing down of statues should stop. Educated persons should acknowledge the truth. It's the left that's the intelligent ones as they would have us believe. I see no conservatives standing up for this truth. The Senate GOP candidate in Virginia should start an 'intellectual' conversation on Lee and let the left react. Don't wait for a baiting reporter to to knee-jerk him into a quick response that they can interpret their own way.

[DiogenesLamp]

So did George Washington. The difference was, when Washington fought the British, there was no question that this was rebellion against the King, but with the Declaration of Independence, they asserted that independence was a natural right given by God.

Presumably this would have been the new paradigm adopted by this nation, because it is the very justification for our own independence.

Fighting against the right of states to become independent is King George III's position. Not George Washington's position.

[DiogenesLamp]

I guess these retards bashing Lee have a problem with the American Revolution too.

Comparisons of the two creates sever cognitive dissonance in them.

[Texas Mulerider]

Probably because the North was much more urbanized, and many of its people had become completely detached from the land on which they lived. If you look at a list of the 50 largest cities of the U.S. in 1860, you'll find the following in Confederate states:

That's a good observation. Cities were pretty much foreign to the average Confederate soldier. That's why they named battles after the closest town, while Union forces named them after immediate topographic features. Thus, to Confederates it was the Battle of Sharpsburg; to Union troops it was the Battle of Antietam (Creek). It was the Battle of Mansfield (La.) to Confederates; to Federals that battle was "Sabine Crossroads." Similarly "Manassas" and "Bull Run."

[Hugin]

So Mac gets credit for all success, and blame for failure goes to subordinates? Compare that to Ike who was prepared to take the failure of D-Day entirely on himself. Maybe he should have left Tokyo and seen for himself. But what he was hearing coincided with his own bias. He foolishly held the ability of the Chinese soldier in contempt.

[Joe 6-pack]

"As for the south, I think Longstreet was their best general. He was cut from the same cloth as Grant, IMHO."

And related by marriage. Grant's wife was Longstreet's cousin.

[Snickering Hound]

So Mac gets credit for all success, and blame for failure goes to subordinates? Compare that to Ike who was prepared to take the failure of D-Day entirely on himself. Maybe he should have left Tokyo and seen for himself. But what he was hearing coincided with his own bias. He foolishly held the ability of the Chinese soldier in contempt.

Almond was a MacArthur crony that called the Chinese a bunch of laundrymen that would run when fired at.

MacArthur wouldn't be the first American general to distrust what his intelligence was telling him and instead trusting subordinates on the ground.

There were massive casualties at The Bulge and Pearl Harbor thanks to that.

[Rome2000]

Yes, a hearty WOMP womp to the low IQ’s that can’t differentiate between the two.

That empty column in Lee Circle is a good example of the idiocy of the Lee bashers across the political spectrum.

[outofsalt]

Grant had one slave and his wife’s (Julia Grant nee, Dent) family had several more in their home state of Missouri. Grant freed his one slave in 1859 but those owned by his wife were retained till ‘65 when Missouri abolished slavery.

Lee freed his slaves in Arlington in ‘62 writing, “There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.”

[miss marmelstein]

As a northerner, it always amazes me how modern unionists are so angry at the south. Truly sore winners.

[miss marmelstein]

That’s gonna leave a mark.

[Bull Snipe]

Of those that served in the Union Army 48.7% listed themselves as farmers. For the Confederate Army the number was 53.7% listed themselves as farmers. If you went 100 miles inland from the Atlantic coast, it was farms all the way to the Mississippi River.

[DiogenesLamp]

Was the war worth fighting for the North? Strictly on moral grounds to end slavery.

It wasn't fought for that reason. It was fought to reestablish Washington DC control over the money stream created by Southern exports to Europe.

Had the South been able to maintain it's independence, most of the European trade would have shifted form New York to Norfolk, Charleston, Mobile and New Orleans. The North was fighting over a pile of money that flowed through the hands of the "elite" in New York and Washington DC.

I stumbled across this map years ago which purports to prove the war couldn't have been about tariffs, because the vast majority of tariffs were paid by New York city.

At first glance, this looks compelling, but when you learn that 74-83% of all export value was produced by the South, you realize those import goods were payments for those southern exports.

Somehow the system had been rigged to send product out of Southern ports, and bring profit in through New York and Boston. I didn't learn how it had been rigged until later.

Washington went to war because 80% of the European trade represented by that pile of coins on New York and Boston were going to be taken away from them by an Independent South. This is why Lincoln was willing to offer them the Corwin Amendment in an early effort to talk them out of leaving.

The war was not about slavery, it was about money. Specifically the money that went through the hands of Lincoln's New York wealthy backers.

This is "Deep State"/"Establishment" stuff, and this is exactly where it began.

[miss marmelstein]

If memory serves, didn’t Lee encourage Jefferson Davis to free the slaves and was rejected?

[Pelham]

Lee’s slaves were those of his wife. She inherited them upon the death of her father, George Washington Parke Custis. The slaves were largely descendants of Martha Washington’s slaves. George Washington’s slaves were freed upon his death but Martha’s were not. GWP Custis was Martha’s grandson, but he had been raised by George and Martha after his father’s death.

GWP Custis’ will instructed Lee to free the slaves within five years of his death. The Arlington estate was in debt and the slaves could be claimed by the creditors if the debt wasn’t paid off. So they were worked until the debts were paid off, which happened a few months prior to Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Declaration.

[DiogenesLamp]

Still fighting that war, are we?

The consequences of it are still with us. Washington DC became a power never envisioned by the founders as a consequence of that war. Pretty much every overreach by Washington DC is tolerated because they established supremacy through that war.

[Bull Snipe]

the four female slaves that were the house keepers in the Grant household belonged to Fredrick Dent, Julia’s father.
The Grant’s never owned them. Dent would not allow those slaves to leave Missouri when the Grants left the state, even on short trips.

[DoodleDawg]

Grant freed his one slave in 1859 but those owned by his wife were retained till ‘65 when Missouri abolished slavery.

Other accounts indicate that the Dent family slaves were all gone by early 1863. Not freed, but just run off. And the slaves were owned by Colonel Dent; Julia Grant did not legally own any of them.

Lee freed his slaves in Arlington in ‘62 writing, “There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.”

He wrote that in 1856 I believe. In 1865, Lee was writing:"Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both."

[Hugin]

The south was threatening to secede before Lincoln was elected, and mostly did before he was sworn in, which was 4 months after the election, not two like now. It wasn’t exactly a secret that war was a possibility. Faced with the possibility of war, why wouldn’t the War Department order their best general to Washington? So no it doesn’t imply what you infer.

[DiogenesLamp]

As deplorable as that was, was it not US Constitutional law that caused this?

[golux]

He was the military commander of an insurrectionist faction that took up arms against the United States of America....

I think you mean the former United States of America. You now live in one State, controlled by your benevolent, ever-growing centralized Federal Government.