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 ...
Viscount Garnet Wolseley was probably the greatest soldier the British Empire ever produced.
He spent some time during the war with both Union and Confederate officers. His description of Lee is basically fantastic.
He said that Lee was the best man he ever met and no one else was worthy of even being compared to him. He said that Lee was better in every way than any.
From everything I know of Lee, he deserves every bit of that praise.
That’s how many describe George Washington, as well.
Lee was an honorable man, period. He was on the losing side of a great national crisis, therefore he is defined by people unworthy to tie his shoelaces.(By the way all of my ancestors fought for the Union as would I.)
I don't think many people, certainly no reputable historians that I'm aware of, say that the U.S. aim in the war was to end slavery. It was, as you said, to preserve the Union.
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”
~Abraham Lincoln, Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858
No, I would rather be more like Washington, a man who thru great sacrifice helped found this country and its Constitution.
But you go ahead and idolize a man who created the Confederate States of America and lost it.
I have no problem with you saying Lee was an honorable man or great general. But he was not an honorable American.
Robert E Lee was a great American. The CSA was not about slavery, but state’s rights.
What does that have to do with Lee? Do you have a quote from him indicating he had the opposite view from Lincoln?
“But you go ahead and idolize a man who created the Confederate States of America and lost it.”
You are set on maximum stupid today.
Be more like Lee.
The Civil war was a great American drama and all involved were Americans. All involved were honorable men. They themselves felt this was true. The war was approached with all the legality and ethics possible to human beings. I’m not saying they were perfect men but I am saying all involved were honorable men and that includes Lee.
The Civil war was a great American drama and all involved were Americans. All involved were honorable men. They themselves felt this was true. The war was approached with all the legality and ethics possible to human beings. I’m not saying they were perfect men but I am saying all involved were honorable men and that includes Lee.
Lee did not "reject America" but refused to take up arms against Virginia, his state. This is a key distinction. At that time there was no such thing as a generic US citizen, as an American was a citizen of his respective state. It was the outcome of the war that destroyed federalism and shaped the modern concept of an omnipotent central government.
The left wish they open up on the Stone Mt. carving with howitzers.
The other two posters who disagree with me do so with intelligent well crafted responses you don’t so stop pinging me.
“If you want to hate, nobody deserves it more than William T Sherman.
Because he won?”
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/sherman.htm
“Oh God, the time of trial has come!”
Dolly Sumner Lunt was born in Maine in 1817. She moved to Georgia as a young woman to join her married sister. She became a school teacher in Covington, Ga. where she met and married Thomas Burge, a plantation owner. When her husband died in 1858, Dolly was left alone to manage the plantation and its slaves. Dolly kept a diary of her experiences and we join her story as Sherman’s army approaches her home:
November 19, 1864
Slept in my clothes last night, as I heard that the Yankees went to neighbor Montgomery’s on Thursday night at one o’clock, searched his house, drank his wine, and took his money and valuables. As we were not disturbed, I walked after breakfast, with Sadai [the narrator’s 9-year-old daughter], up to Mr. Joe Perry’s, my nearest neighbor, where the Yankees were yesterday.
ADVERTISMENT
Saw Mrs. Laura [Perry] in the road surrounded by her children, seeming to be looking for some one. She said she was looking for her husband, that old Mrs. Perry had just sent her word that the Yankees went to James Perry’s the night before, plundered his house, and drove off all his stock, and that she must drive hers into the old fields. Before we were done talking, up came Joe and Jim Perry from their hiding-place. Jim was very much excited. Happening to turn and look behind, as we stood there, I saw some blue-coats coming down the hill. Jim immediately raised his gun, swearing he would kill them anyhow.
‘No, don’t!’ said I, and ran home as fast as I could, with Sadai.
I could hear them cry, ‘Halt! Halt!’ and their guns went off in quick succession. Oh God, the time of trial has come!
A man passed on his way to Covington. I halloed to him, asking him if he did not know the Yankees were coming.
‘No - are they?’
‘Yes,’ said I; ‘they are not three hundred yards from here.’
‘Sure enough,’ said he. ‘Well, I’ll not go. I don’t want them to get my horse.’ And although within hearing of their guns, he would stop and look for them. Blissful ignorance! Not knowing, not hearing, he has not suffered the suspense, the fear, that I have for the past forty-eight hours. I walked to the gate. There they came filing up.
I hastened back to my frightened servants and told them that they had better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection and a guard. But like demons they rush in! My yards are full.
To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar, like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in my smoke-house is gone in a twinkling, my flour, my meat, my lard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds - both in vinegar and brine - wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys, my hens, chickens, and fowls, my young pigs, are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were rebels themselves. Utterly powerless I ran out and appealed to the guard.
‘I cannot help you, Madam; it is orders.’
...Alas! little did I think while trying to save my house from plunder and fire that they were forcing my boys [slaves] from home at the point of the bayonet. One, Newton, jumped into bed in his cabin, and declared himself sick. Another crawled under the floor, - a lame boy he was, - but they pulled him out, placed him on a horse, and drove him off. Mid, poor Mid! The last I saw of him, a man had him going around the garden, looking, as I thought, for my sheep, as he was my shepherd. Jack came crying to me, the big tears coursing down his cheeks, saying they were making him go. I said:
‘Stay in my room.’
But a man followed in, cursing him and threatening to shoot him if he did not go; so poor Jack had to yield.
A family flees the approach
of Sherman’s Army
...Sherman himself and a greater portion of his army passed my house that day. All day, as the sad moments rolled on, were they passing not only in front of my house, but from behind; they tore down my garden palings, made a road through my back-yard and lot field, driving their stock and riding through, tearing down my fences and desolating my home - wantonly doing it when there was no necessity for it.
...As night drew its sable curtains around us, the heavens from every point were lit up with flames from burning buildings. Dinnerless and supperless as we were, it was nothing in comparison with the fear of being driven out homeless to the dreary woods. Nothing to eat! I could give my guard no supper, so he left us.
My Heavenly Father alone saved me from the destructive fire. My carriage-house had in it eight bales of cotton, with my carriage, buggy, and harness. On top of the cotton were some carded cotton rolls, a hundred pounds or more. These were thrown out of the blanket in which they were, and a large twist of the rolls taken and set on fire, and thrown into the boat of my carriage, which was close up to the cotton bales. Thanks to my God, the cotton only burned over, and then went out. Shall I ever forget the deliverance?
November 20, 1864.
About ten o’clock they had all passed save one, who came in and wanted coffee made, which was done, and he, too, went on. A few minutes elapsed, and two couriers riding rapidly passed back. Then, presently, more soldiers came by, and this ended the passing of Sherman’s army by my place, leaving me poorer by thirty thousand dollars than I was yesterday morning. And a much stronger Rebel!”
How can all involved be Americans when some swore allegiance to the CSA and voted for a CSA govt?
The CSA wasn’t apart of the USA.
You mean it wasn’t. “Know new taxes?”
Although I think Lee might have done such a thing if confronted with the circumstances, it makes me wonder.
Although Ken Burn’s documentaries are enjoyable...he sometimes steps WAY far away from reality.
I can’t believe that a black man would be in a white church at that time in history. I’m not being racist...it was just how it was.
One of the reasons Lincoln went out of his way to make this statement was do to the democrat smear of the Republican party (yes, it goes back THAT far) was to say:
Anti-slavery = Negro Lover.
Republican = Negroes marry your daughter
Abolitionist = Negroes with white slaves
None of it was true, because back then, everyone believed racial superiority was vested in the white, Christian race; and that was the way it was. You couldn’t call Lincoln a racist for those words as that was what people then believed.
As I stated above, God has tempered us over the centuries: Hammering, heating, plunging us in cold water, to make us better and stronger.
600,000+ AMERICANS died: Slave holders, abolitionists, slaves, freemen and those who didn’t give a dang. All part of the tempering.
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