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.

[rockrr]

So you don’t mind people firing on US forces? Good to know.

[BroJoeK]

outofsalt: "Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation did not apply to the “border” states that had slavery. Maryland, Missouri, West Virginia, and Tennessee were exempt."

Those states all abolished slavery before the 13th amendment was ratified.

outofsalt: "Delaware and Kentucky ended slavery when the 13th ammendment was ratified in 1865."

Delaware had very few slaves to begin with (<2%) and by the time of ratification in December 1865 both states had already seen over 90% of former slaves freed.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp on Corwin: "Read Lincoln's first inaugural address.
He says it quite explicitly.
Lincoln supported an amendment to protect slavery."

DiogenesLamp has a huge talent for putting his own words into mouths of historical figures.
On the proposed Corwin amendment, some key points:

1. It should be called the Jefferson Davis/Corwin amendment, since Senator Davis first proposed it in December 1860 as a way to prevent states from seceding.

2. It passed with Democrat support, signed by Democrat President Buchanan.

3. Lincoln did not sign it and clearly explained in his inaugural he did not object because he believed Davis/Corwin merely made explicit what the Constitution already implied.

4. Proposed by Ohioan Rep. Corwin, Davis/Corwin was only ratified by Ohio (which soon rescinded ratification), Kentucky, Maryland & Rhode Island.

5. For about a year Lincoln kept open the possibility of ending the war without emancipating slaves, but by summer of 1862 that ended in Lincoln's mind and so did any remote possibility for ratification of Davis/Corwin.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "The two emancipation proclamations were the Dunmore's and the Philipsburg proclamations.
If London had defeated the 'traitors' then slavery in north America could have ended 90 years earlier."

Nonsense, those British proclamations only offered freedom in exchange for army service, not general freedom for all African slaves.
And you well know why Lord Dunmore's tactic didn't work against George Washington -- because Washington out African-Americaned the Brits!
Washington did what Jefferson Davis & Co. never could: promised thousands freedom in exchange for service in the Continental Army, in integrated units!
And so many took Washington's offer that one British officer at Yorktown observed one in four of Washington's troops was black.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "“MacArthur on Eisenhower, 'Best clerk I ever had.'
Eisenhower on MacArthur: 'I studied drama under him for eight years' "

My Dad served in both of their commands, had nothing but good to say about either, was especially strong on MacArthur.

[BroJoeK]

Freedom4US: "Oddly, if you read the amendment, congress didn’t explicitly outlaw slavery."

Speaking of Corwin's amendment, right?
First proposed by Jefferson Davis in December 1860, it's purpose was to discourage secession by providing more explicit protection for slavery.
It passed with Democrat support and was signed by Democrat President Buchanan.

Lincoln only transmitted it to the states as required by the Constitution, saying he did not object because Corwin only made explicit what the Constitution already implied.

[BroJoeK]

yarddog: "Who did Winston Churchill call “The most noble of all Americans”?
It was not Lincoln, Jefferson or even Washington. It was Robert E. Lee."

There's no doubt that Lee inspired his troops and Confederates generally as no other general, North or South, did.
So, for "inspirational leader" and "number of devoted supporters" Lee could easily score at the top of most any list.

As for generalship, especially given the South's particular mix of assets & liabilities, well... not so much.

Compared to other Confederates, both Longstreet and Joseph E. Johnson had the right idea -- fight defensively, force your opponents to attack while you defend behind fortified positions.

Nathan B. Forrest was a brilliant cavalry officer who could well have taught his superiors a thing or two.
Patrick Cleburne had the right idea about enlisting black soldiers in the Confederate army.
Union Gen. George Thomas was also a Virginian, but did not desert his country and served capably.

And compared to supposed "butcher" Grant, Lee's armies lost more men than Grant's with nowhere near the victories to show for them.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Of course if he had just let Seward win, there probably would never have been a crises."

Well... Deep South Fire Eaters had threatened to secede in 1856 if any Republican were elected President, so the secession crisis had nothing to do with Lincoln personally, only the fact of being Republican.

Immediately after inauguration in early March 1861 both Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward expected to abandon Fort Sumter, even though President Buchanan had pledged to defend it against attack and never surrender for any reason.
In time both Lincoln and Seward came to see the necessity of defending Fort Sumter and an opportunity to do so in the Doubleday/Fox plan to resupply in small boats at night.
Seward's comment on Lincoln at the time was: "he is the best among us."

So it's not at all clear if or how things might have gone differently had Seward been President.

[miss marmelstein]

You don’t have to include me on your list, thanks.

[BroJoeK]

panzerkamphwageneinz: "It’s one thing to say we will love fight or be exterminated and entirely another to say the men of the South deserved to be exterminated because the fought against lincoln’s invasion."

In other words, like any Democrat speech politzei, you're going to insist that what's OK for you to say is just not OK for me?
In this particular example, Davis was talking about exterminating his own people!
Hyperbole aside, how can that be less offensive than "exterminating" an enemy military force?

These day's, especially since the WWII Holocaust, we don't talk about "exterminating" anyone, but the word was used in the past with less serious connotations, as my example shows.

[rbmillerjr]

Against great odds, Washington won. Lee lost.

He is one of the “greats”, but I’d put both Washington and McArthur’s Inchon brilliance above him.

Also, in the same range as Lee, I’d put Patton and Sherman. Patton understood the German blitzkrieg and adjusted his mechanized forces. Sherman understood that he had to be brutal or the war would go on forever.

[BroJoeK]

"You don’t have to include me on your list, thanks."

I don't, except when you were part of the original discussion I'm responding to.

[rockrr]

I’m constantly amused how he would realign the sun, the moon, and the planet itself (if he only could) in order to make his fancy come true.

Unfortunately (for him) reality doesn’t conform to his whim.

[panzerkamphwageneinz]

The day may come when you have to fire on US forces. We’ll see what you do. You conflate US with good. In the South we damn well know the US hasn’t always been good. I’m surrounded by the graves, the battlefields and the carnage that the US did to our country.

You’re so ignorant you don’t understand what place, country, or nation mean.

You made your point. I totally understand your position. Now live with who you are and leave me alone.

[panzerkamphwageneinz]

No, I’m saying that when someone says that men who fought for the South deserved to be exterminated is wrong. How you conflate that with being Democrat is your problem.

If a Southerner says, ‘we’ll fight for victory or we’ll be exterminated.” is a far cry from a Southerner saying, “The Northerners all have to be exterminated,” The first is a will to fight or die. The second is a desire for holocaust. It’t not my fault you don’t know the difference.

You can use Saul Alynsky all you want to try and demonize my values and defense of the men in grey, but you’re the one being exposed, not me. You lost the argument when you slandered me as a Democrat...what’s next NAZI? HOMOPHOBE? RACIST? My God don’t to the distance and claim I’m a TRUMP SUPPORTER!

What a tool you are.

[Captain Peter Blood]

This whole thread is way too subjective. You can’t really have on true great field general or field marshal.

If you only take W.W. II into account, there were several outstanding field generals, many you don’t even know as they didn’t get the press others got.

Go below MacArthur, Patton, Montgomery, and even Bradley and you will find a number of excellent field generals that could and should have had more credit.

You can’t pick the Civil War and then say that Lee was the absolute best General for the ages in American History, it just isn’t so.

One can make a good case that top Generals like Pershing and Washington were pretty good, but below them are others worth of consideration.

[RFEngineer]

“Except he wasn’t “our” greatest general”

This will be a hard pill for you to swallow, but swallow it you must.

Lee and Lee’s Legacy are American. More American than you and any legacy that you are likely to leave.

Every Confederate soldier is seen in the eyes of American History, and as a matter of law, as American Soldiers.

So if you are putting “our” in quotes, then you are sitting on the outside of America, looking in. You’ve got lots of company, so you won’t be lonely, but you and all your “America deniers” are just wrong.

You are so wrong, you should make reservations at “The Red Hen” to be with your fellow comrades and THEN take a 1/4 mile stroll to Lee’s burial place. Maybe you will learn something. Maybe not.

[Lagmeister]

Look, shovel up your own rationale if you want. Bottom line, if you have three times the number of your opponent and simply drive them forward to die in vast numbers for the sole purpose of reducing a few of your opponent... you are a damn butcher.

And no, Lee's losses at Gettysburg and Antietam did not amount to the nearly 70 thousand that Grant pissed away in the Overland Campaign.

[sailor76]

So you don’t mind people firing on US forces? Good to know.
==================

I hate to get involved in this thread but if you're talking about Fort Sumter, the facts are clear. They were Asked Politely to leave after being told that South Carolina was no longer part of the Union.

They could have walked away, but they stayed as unwanted interlopers. The rest is history.

[DoodleDawg]

Actually, it's the complete opposite - the South didn't need to invade the North, didn't want to fight a war at all, they just wanted to be left alone.

And yet they went and started the war. Silly of them given all that.

It wasn't a civil war, it was a succession.

Secession, or succession, is not a war. A rebellion is.

In order to 'win', the South needed to do merely nothing.

Including not bombarding the ever-living crap out of a Federal fort. Yet they chose to do so. Does that mean the South chose to 'lose'?

War and invasion was his only option.

Davis started the war. Lincoln fought the war he forced on him.