[Lagmeister]

Lee was offered command of the union army but declined because of his loyalty to Virginia. Remember, lest we forget like the uneducated left, we are the United States of America (emphasis United States). Virtually the entire confederate army never owned a slave. They were just average folk fighting for their state.

It was a sad, costly time of our history. And... a huge number of deaths were the direct result of Grant's complete disregard for casualties in his strategy of 'human waves' against fortified positions.

[Alberta's Child]

Good post.

I would eliminate almost every U.S. Civil War general from consideration as a great military leader. I say this because that war was fought using battlefield tactics that had already been proven costly and ineffective almost 100 years earlier in the American Revolution.

[DiogenesLamp]

Lee was offered command of the union army but declined because of his loyalty to Virginia.

Interesting point I discovered a month or so ago. Lee was stationed in Texas, but somehow he was in Washington DC to be offered command of the Army on April 17th. The surrender of Sumter took place April 13th.

Why was Lee in Washington? Did they send him orders to come back to Washington just so they could hand him command of the army, and if they did, does this not imply that they had made up their mind to be at war with the South prior to April 12?

In that era, one did not simply get word to someone in Texas and have them back in Washington DC in Four days. It took much longer than that.

It implies fore knowledge of war, and who would have that more so than the man with the power and intent of starting it?

[jmacusa]

The deaths were the direct result of the South's violent secession from the Union and it's firing on Fort Sumter.