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 ...
War is hell, as someone once said.
No answer to my World War II question?
Forget it. He's rolling.
LOL...
“But you go ahead and idolize a man who created the Confederate States of America and lost it.”
Hey thanks for informing me, not. I learned sooo much from you.
Have a good night now.
Thanks Hulka. I did some research and learned Lincoln thought highly of Lee and your point is right which is also why the Founders gave state senates the power to elect Senators.
Sherman was a mass murderer of innocents, his own fellow Americans, a mass murderer of innocent women and children..when there was no need- except to sate the blood thirstiness of a psychopathic killer.
Sherman himself admitted after the war that he was taught at West Point that he could be hanged for the things he did. But in war the victors always write the history and are never punished for war crimes, no matter how heinous. Only the defeated suffer that fate.
Let me ask you again; if the commander of US forces in Iraq ordered his unit to march across the nation and burn every building they come across, strip the land clean of any source of food or supplies, destroy any and all livestock they come across and loot and rape, what would you think of him? War criminal, perhaps? That’s exactly what Sherman did, yet he’s considered a hero.
Sherman was a psychopath who mass murdered his own fellow Americans, raped, looted and destroyed all in his bloody march to the sea- including innocent animals by the thousands and thousands.
He should have been hung for crimes against humanity. But I'm sure he's roasting in Hell for his heinous crimes.
.
there's a lot more union stuff around, hence the lower price...
You are a poosy. (Author)
Exactly which “states rights” did the Buchanan Administration violate so badly that secession was the only answer?
To compare Lee to Benedict Arnold only shows your lack of class.
Which taxes?
This is true. From what I have seen at most military antique and memorabilia shows, Confederate military items generally sell at higher prices than Union military items. But explain why then, at these type of shows, Nazi items generally sell for higher prices than military items of Soviet, British, or American origin.
Higher price being indicative of demand, the answer could be several things. It could be that the supply is more limited. Or, it could be that the notoriety of the entity behind the military collectibles and memorabilia is driving higher demand somehow, despite supply not being more limited.
I suspect supply is not more limited by comparison in the instance of military collectibles and memorabilia from Nazi era Germany. They did understand the usefulness of good design and definitely put it to work for them, for propaganda purposes I suppose. Then, there’s the forbidden fruit aspect, it’s a little creepy therefore more people find it desirable in a perverse way.
Confederate collectibles and memorabilia I suspect are limited in supply in comparison to Union. There’s the whole lost cause thing and a degree of romanticization, there’s a somewhat captive audience in the descendants of Confederate soldiers wanting specific items, and then there’s a great deal of historic international interest as well. There was more variability and visual interest among the various states of the Confederacy in comparison to Union states, so there’s that. The Confederates were the exception rather than the rule and represent a way of life that has largely vanished. It’s more valued than what are essentially just old US military items for these reasons.
Bttt
Wow, you’re boring as hell.
Why not?
Sherman was a mass murderer of innocents, his own fellow Americans, a mass murderer of innocent women and children..when there was no need- except to sate the blood thirstiness of a psychopathic killer.
Mouth-foaming hyperbole aside, so were Hap Arnold, Arthur Harris, and Curtis Lemay. They deliberately targeted civilians of the countries that were engaged in war against the United States. They bombed cities to the ground, fire-bombed them in some cases. Their acts were just as deliberate as the actions you attribute to Sherman were and were responsible for hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian dead. They had no remorse for their actions; it was war and in war you win in part by destroying your enemies capacity to wage war and the willingness of their people to wage it. So by your own definition the commanders of the allied air forces were filled with blood thirsty psychopathic killers.
Sherman himself admitted after the war that he was taught at West Point that he could be hanged for the things he did.
I would be very interested in seeing that quote.
Let me ask you again; if the commander of US forces in Iraq ordered his unit to march across the nation and burn every building they come across, strip the land clean of any source of food or supplies, destroy any and all livestock they come across and loot and rape, what would you think of him?
Now who's resorting to unfair comparisons?
“...Lee was a fine honorable American.”
1) Lee was an honorable man, but the word ‘honor’ expressed a different concept than it does today.
2) Lee considered himself a Virginian before American.
“Since the writing of the constitution the south was worried about slaves having full rights. Look at how they were only counted as a fraction from the beginning.”
Actually, the South WANTED slaves to be fully counted because by doing so this would give the South more representatives in the House.
The number of House representatives is based on the population of a state, and the South had many slaves and wanted the slaves to be counted as full persons so they would then be added to the total population count and generate more House representatives, thereby giving the slave-holding states more power.
The North wanted to limit the influence of the southern slave-holding states and not count fully the slave population, hence the 3/5th compromise.
How old are you? 14?
I'm waiting for you to educate us on how Lee "created" the Confederacy. Can you tell us about it? Details, please.
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