Posted on 06/22/2014 1:52:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
All the time I was growing up in Atlanta, the face of Robert E. Lee was taking shape on the side of an enormous granite mountain just outside town. He loomed like a god above us, as much a presence as any deity, and God knows he was accepted as such. It was only much later that I began to question his sanctity, and then to hate what he stood for.
When I was in elementary school, the face of Lee on Stone Mountain was a rough-cut thing, weathering and wasting as the generation that began it in 1912—a generation that still included veterans of the Civil War 50 years before—gave way to generations with other wars to focus their attention.
Then the carving began again in 1964 in a centennial haze of romantic memories about the Old South and frenzy of fear and defiance provoked by the civil-rights movement. As Martin Luther King Jr. was marching on Washington, Confederate battle flags floated above state houses and sculptors using torches began again to carve the granite features of Lee, along with Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, taking up three vertical acres on the mountain’s face.
It is this sort of image—the bas-relief nobility of memorial sculpture—that Michael Korda chisels through in his massive and highly readable new one-volume biography: Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee. But, as Korda clearly recognizes, Lee himself could be almost as impenetrable as stone.
He was not cold. He was very loving with his wife and many children. He enjoyed flirting (harmlessly, it seems) with young women. He had the self-assurance of a Virginia aristocrat, albeit an impecunious one, and the bearing of a man born not only to be a soldier, but to command....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Yeah, “good night”....IOW, “I’m done, because I painted myself into a corner with my own stupidity.”
Too bad you won’t explain how Lee created the Confederacy. That would have been an interesting history less, Rg.
LOL, you are funny. What corner? Are YOU drunk? I never ANSWERED your snarky question. Next time try being more cordial and you’ll get a different response. I don’t answer snarky questions.
I AM quite done with you and your ugly pointless snarkiness.
Have a nice night now, bye!
I know you didn't. Why not?
" Next time try being more cordial and you’ll get a different response. I don’t answer snarky questions."
I was cordial enough the first time around, but you still refused to explain because you knew you couldn't. You deserved the ensuing snark.
"I AM quite done with you and your ugly pointless snarkiness."
You said that a few minutes ago, yet here you are.
Post 70 would be of supporting interest, I think, to your point.
“George Thomas proves that Lee had a choice”
There was no other choice for Lee. There was no other option for him but to serve Virginia.
“Had Lee as ably served the Union as Thomas, the war would most likely have ended sooner, with far fewer Confederate deaths, especially those of his most beloved Virginians.”
There is no doubt that you can construct a list of hypotheticals to come to whatever conclusion you wish. But if your hypothetical includes Lee turning against Virginia, it’s among the most far-fetched of fantasies.
Military leaders come from around the world to study Lee. I doubt they’ve even heard of Thomas.
Lee was among the greatest of Americans.
It wouldn’t be Lee turning against Virginia - it would have been Lee turning against those lunatics who steered Virginia into the abyss.
The more I read, the less impressed I am with Lee as a military commander. Mostly, I think he was blessed with a handful of good subordinates (Jackson and Longstreet, especially) and with a series of bumbling idiots for opponents, until Grant came along.
Lee and Thomas were both Virginians, and close friends.
Lee was nine years older than Thomas.
When the time came, Lee chose his state while Thomas chose his nation.
Today Lee is idolized beyond his merit, while Thomas' sterling record is usually ignored.
But I think it insults Thomas to say he was merely the Union's equivalent of Confederate General Longstreet.
Thomas was better than Longstreet.
Both Thomas and Lee died in 1870.
RFEngineer: "But if your hypothetical includes Lee turning against Virginia, it’s among the most far-fetched of fantasies."
But the fact is that Lee, like Thomas, had a choice, and had he chosen differently results could well have been a shorter war with far fewer Virginians killed.
So, as I said: Lee chose poorly.
Indeed. Most of that history is ugly to the bone and nothing worth any pride.
Those are outright lies, suggesting a certain psychopathology in people who continue to tell them, and tell them -- perhaps under guidance from Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals?
The truth of this matter is that Sherman's "March to the Sea" in November-December, 1864 was no more destructive than Confederate General Jubal Early's earlier complete burning of Chambersburg in July, 1864.
Indeed, whenever Confederate forces operated outside the Confederacy, they left trails of destruction while sending home all the "contraband" they could grab.
Point is: by war's end there was little sympathy for civilians on either side.
As for alleged mass murders, rapes & kidnaps, there's just no real evidence of it, certainly none condoned by military authorities -- on either side.
Finally, as DoodleDawg & others have pointed out: if destruction of enemy civilian property is a "war crime", then there were no innocent parties in World War Two, since all of them did it to the greatest extent they could.
Of course, Sherman's real "crime" was to help convince Confederates that their war was not a lark, and it was time for them to stop fighting.
Sherman was a psychopathic mass murderer of his own fellow Americans, innocent women and children and thousands upon thousand of innocent animals, when there was no need- except to satisfy his own bloodlust.
He should have been hung for crimes against humanity- but at least he’s roasting in hell.
All anyone has to do is Google the psycho mass murderer woman, child killer, Sherman to learn what he was.
Even his own men thought he was a psycho.
So put a sock in it. I’ve better things to do than spar with the likes of you.
From now on you’re talking to yourself.
(and revealing what kind of person you are by holding a monster like Sherman up as a hero.)
“But the fact is that Lee, like Thomas, had a choice, and had he chosen differently results could well have been a shorter war with far fewer Virginians killed.”
You do not understand Lee. He had no choice but to support Virginia.
“Today Lee is idolized beyond his merit”
His fellow Virginians didn’t agree with you then, and don’t now.
Your problem in understanding Lee is that you place modern standards on 19th century men. You do not discern that a man like Lee could be place loyalty to Virginia above “United States” which by definition had become dis-united.
The modern version of the United States did not exist then.
In fact, the 10th Amendment’s unconstitutional decline was expressly part of the resolution of the Civil War - and his has been degraded ever since then.
In Lee’s time, loyalty to ones state was not unusual. You do not seem to understand that - and that’s the same mistake others make when they make outrageous claims about Lee.
Your position on “Lee’s choice” is absurd. Men died for their state with honor then.
According to your approach, in a couple hundred years we’ll be seen as traitorous scum because if we did not heartily embrace a “United Nations” as our guiding light. Think that couldn’t happen?
Your accusation that "Sherman was a psychopathic mass murderer", remains a psychopathic lie.
As for "holding a monster like Sherman up as a hero", of course I've done nothing of the sort -- yet another psychopathic lie from you, FRiend.
I have merely reflected, accurately, that Sherman was an effective Union general, one of the best, whose contributions were important to ultimate Union victory.
I have also defended Sherman against unwarranted accusations of "psychopathic mass murderer".
So have a nice day, FRiend.
FRiend, you have it all wrong -- it's you who do not understand your own history.
The facts are that for every five Virginians who served the Confederacy (about 120,000 total), two served the Union Army (50,000 total).
Virginia's Union general officers included not only George Thomas, but Admiral Farragut and General Winfield Scott -- over a dozen in total.
So any suggestion that all Virginians automatically chose their state over their nation is just cockamamie nonsense.
Yes, it's true: more Virginians chose the Confederacy over the Union, and those 30% who did chose the Union came heavily from low slave-holding areas of the state, such as Western Virginia.
But George Thomas himself came from Southern Virginia, doubtless high slave area, and yet still chose his country over his state, despite his family's disapproval.
So Lee and other famous Virginia officers -- i.e., Jackson, Stuart, Johnson, Hill, Ewell, Early, Pickett, etc. -- all made their choice, all could have chosen differently (as did 40% of all Virginia pre-war officers), and had they chosen differently, the results would surely have been a far shorter war, with far fewer than the 33,000 Virginia soldiers killed.
Lee's choice, along with other Virginia officers, was the worst possible for Virginians themselves, FRiend.
RFEngineer: "The modern version of the United States did not exist then."
Oh, sorry FRiend, but it certainly did.
That's why 30% of Virginia's soldiers and 40% of it's pre-war officers served the Union.
RFEngineer: "In fact, the 10th Amendment’s unconstitutional decline was expressly part of the resolution of the Civil War - and his has been degraded ever since then."
All blame -- 100% of it -- for all Civil War related "degradation" goes squarely on the shoulders of those who started the war, and number one in line is: Jefferson Davis.
RFEngineer: "In Lee’s time, loyalty to ones state was not unusual.
You do not seem to understand that - and that’s the same mistake others make when they make outrageous claims about Lee."
Again, it's you are utterly confused & disoriented.
You look facts straight in the face, and still deny them, because they don't fit what you believe.
The fact is that many Virginians considered the nation a higher value than their slave-owning state's secession.
Lee himself abhorred secession, and was willing to sacrifice slavery itself to save the Union, if that could be done peacefully.
Now we don't know what all conversations went on, but one is highly tempted to think that had those been more skillfully negotiated, perhaps a deal could be worked out, and Civil War, if not averted, shortened & minimized.
Again I say: Lee chose poorly, and Virginians suffered the most.
“RFEngineer: “In Lee’s time, loyalty to ones state was not unusual. “
You: “Again, it’s you are utterly confused & disoriented.
You look facts straight in the face, and still deny them, because they don’t fit what you believe. The fact is that many Virginians considered the nation a higher value than their slave-owning state’s secession.”
Perhaps ‘many’ did but many more did not.
The federal government well after the Civil War understood and respected states and their right to be sovereign and this was reflected in the People and their loyalties. . .hence the ‘states rights’ argument as justification for the war.
Post 70 is from the 22 Jan 1897, Congressional Directory, 2nd Session, 54th Congress (the oldest directory I have in hand).
This directory states clearly and in plain language that the president would not directly communicate with state’s governors but instead would use the Sec State. . .just like he would when communicating with foreign governments.
Even after the Civil War the state and People were respected by the federal government, as the federal government kept its distance from them.
The federal government played a very central role to the states and how they related to each other (no doubt), but the federal government recognized its limits and respected the people as citizens of the US, but also sovereign citizens of their state.
Ergo, state loyalty was strong, much stronger that we can appreciate today when most people can’t explain why we have state governments in the first place and always default to the federal government to solve issues and problems.
States as sovereign affects greatly the question of loyalty to the federal government over your own state.
Some chose their state over the federal government, some did not. Regardless, it was NOT an easy decision at the time.
Men respected each other for their decision they made, federal vs state, and identified with them for having to make such a difficult (and deadly) choice.
Your quotes show that even as late as circa 1890, the old relationships still were recognized.
Of course the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments did change everything, but the federal government did not begin its explosion from 2% of GDP to now over 20% until the 16th gave it unlimited revenues and the 17th freed it from states’ control over the US Senate.
Agree.
Nice to have a civil discussion, isn’t it?
I think you overstate the case, or that the document you cite simplifies it. If you actually read the 1789 act of Congress establishing the duties of the secretary of state, you find this:
Chap. ⅩⅣ.—An Act to provide for the safe-keeping of the Acts, Records and Seal of the United States, and for other purposes.So what it appears is that as part of his role as the keeper of the Great Seal of the United States, the Secretary of State has the job of making sure that the laws passed by congress are published and propertly distributed, included to the state governments. It doesn't mean that he's sending ambassadors to each state capital, or treating them as individual foreign powers. It just means they're on his mailing list.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That whenever a bill, order, resolution, or vote of the Senate and House of Representatives, having been approved and signed by the President of the United States... the said Secretary shall, as soon as conveniently may be, after he shall receive the same, cause every such law, order, resolution, and vote, to be published in at least three of the public newspapers printed within the United States, and shall also cause one printed copy to be delivered to each Senator and Representative of the United States, and two printed copies duly authenticated to be sent to the Executive authority of each State;Act of March 2, 1799, ch. 30, sec. 1. and he shall carefully preserve the originals, and shall cause the same to be recorded in books to be provided for the purpose.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.