Robert E. Lee and Revisionist History

Old Virginia Blog ^ | 12/22/2008 | Richard G. Williams, Jr.

[Davy Buck]

It's really funny to read and observe those who believe they're the smartest people in the room when it comes to historical interpretation. Modern historians like for everyone to believe that studying history is akin to rocket science. Arrogance is so blinding. The faddish altar at which many CW historians are now worshiping has been christened "memory." Actually, it's a good concept--and a biblical one. The word "remember" is used 148 times in Scripture. It's important for a whole host of reasons. Scripturally, God wants us to remember His works in past generations, the consequences of rebellion, and the wisdom of great men of the past; what Scriptures refer to as the wisdom of "the ancients."

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Spot on correct article! The Lee bashing began in the early 1970s with Thomas Connelly's two-volume history of the Confederate Army of Tennessee and his book "Marble Man", followed later by Alan Nolan's awful "Lee Considered" in 1991. Since then, a whole cottage industry has sprung up trying to redefine General Lee and drag him through the mud.

The fact of the matter is that these arrogant revisionist historians can't overcome the fact that he was immensely successful for three years in holding the Union armies back in the East, and that he was a true Christian and gentleman who was fighting for his "country" Virginia, and the original Constitution as he viewed it.

[Davy Buck]

Thank you Sir!

[groanup]

The great writers did not neglect a fad because they had not thought of it, but because they had thought of it and of all the answers to it as well.”

Ping.

[pburgh01]

Well let me take the contrarian point of view in this thread. Why doesn’t history celebrate Rommel, Napoleon or Attila the Hun? All brilliant military minds who by all accounts fought valiantly, honorably and fought with principal. I like Shelby Foote’s analysis of Lee and his contribution to history. I can’t remember his quote exactly but something to the effect “For the South never has a war been fought more nobly for a more ignoble cause.” I have read extensively on Lee and can honestly never reached the conclusion that he was fighting for the principals etched in Constitution or the Declaration of Ind. I think Lee’s sense of duty was bound by an older pre-Revolutionary War idea of America. I think history has comported Lee appropriately, he should be recognized for his gentility and military brilliance but should NOT be included in the pantheon of the American great generals like Patton, Pershing, Grant and Washington. Regardless of the shibboleth of states’ rights, Ole Dominion, etc. he did fight and sent his men off to die for maintenance of the status quo in the South which included a pseudo aristocracy and slavery.

[Daveinyork]

I agree with you and would add that we conservatives should stop fighting the war between the states, and unite for the next civil war, which may not be too many years away. The best lesson from the “most recent unpleasantness” is how easy it is to start a civil war, and how difficult it is to end one.

[an amused spectator]

I think history has comported Lee appropriately, he should be recognized for his gentility and military brilliance but should NOT be included in the pantheon of the American great generals like Patton, Pershing, Grant and Washington.

I disagree, and I'm a Union man.

[fr_freak]

Well let me take the contrarian point of view in this thread. Why doesn’t history celebrate Rommel, Napoleon or Attila the Hun?...Regardless of the shibboleth of states’ rights, Ole Dominion, etc. he did fight and sent his men off to die for maintenance of the status quo in the South which included a pseudo aristocracy and slavery.

First, every history class I've ever had did, indeed, treat the above military men with a great deal of respect. Their battle tactics are still studied in detail, in the same way that artists still study Michelangelo.

Second, I don't claim to know Lee's deepest personal feelings on the institution of slavery, but it has always been my understanding that in Lee's days, we were much more under a true system of federalism, which is to say that each state was sovereign, and the citizens of each state felt loyalty to their state first, and the Union second. Lee was originally offered full command of the Union Army because he was so clearly recognized as a great man, both in character and military competence, but he refused it because it would have required him to take arms against his home state of Virginia, which to him would have been unthinkable treason.

My guess is that Lee, and most Southerners who followed him, fought more due to the ingrained idea that the federal government had no right to dictate to the states how to run their own affairs. Very few Southerners could probably have given any real defense of the institution of slavery, either on moral or Constitutional grounds, but they could all have spoken quite eloquently on the view that men within sovereign states should not allow themselves to be dictated to. It is unfortunate that the issue of slavery was the basis for the conflict, but as we can see today, failing to defend successfully the rights of States to self-governance in such a distasteful matter has led to being unable to refuse the federal government anything, ever, even in the most righteous of matters, as is the situation we have now.

[ContraryMary]

Robert E. Lee was a brilliant general and, by all accounts, a gentleman. However, he also violated the oath he took as an officer in the United States Army and took up arms against his country. He was a traitor and should have been treated as such.

[Tallguy]

You had me in agreement until the last few lines where you stated that Lee should not be included a list of great American generals, then you ticked-off Patton, Pershing, Grant & Washington.

I would take Patton off that list. My reason is that Patton did not command at the same level as the others mentioned. Pershing, Grant, Washington & Lee were all either theater commanders or Generals-in-Chief, Patton commanded a single field army. He did it well, but history is loaded with examples of generals who were superb at one level and disasters at the next. We can only guess how good Patton may have been.

[NTHockey]

>>Robert E. Lee was a brilliant general and, by all accounts, a gentleman. However, he also violated the oath he took as an officer in the United States Army and took up arms against his country. He was a traitor and should have been treated as such.

Spoken like a true Yankee who can’t stop bashing the vanquished.

Sort of like today’s Libs, eh?

[Tallguy]

Why doesn’t history celebrate Rommel, Napoleon or Attila the Hun?

It does. You're just not thinking like a military historian. As to general historians, Napoleon is still well thought of in France. I would venture a guess that Rommel is pretty well regarded in Germany. Attila is remembered as a worthy adversary but there is no modern Hunnic Empire to record his memory. He comes down to us through Roman & Church history.

Returning to Robert E. Lee: Lee was both highly regarded & highly criticized during the War by his own countrymen. His stature grew along with the "Lost Cause", so it should not be surprising if his warts & failures were glossed-over. But there's no denying he was a great strategist & combat leader.

I also think that the revisionist history on Lee has gone too far. It speaks more to the poor quality historians that we've been turning out. Historians who can't set aside their modern agendas & fairly evaluate historical figures within their own time.

[Phlyer]

[Lee] should be recognized for his gentility and military brilliance but should NOT be included in the pantheon of the American great generals like Patton, Pershing, Grant and Washington.

I certainly think Lee should be respected at the same level as Patton (though not necessarily the others), but instead of getting into a "who's who?" of American generals, your basic point is worth considering. Was Lee brilliant in a truly momentous way, or was his leadership flawed in some way that lowers him from the ranks of America's greatest?

There is a book - Grant as General (I forget the author) - which makes the point that while Lee was an excellent tactical general, he never functioned effectively as General-in-Chief. This is due to a weakness on strategic perspective. Where was the true center of gravity for the North - what was the real strategic opportunity that might achieve the South's objectives? This point is also raised in an issue of Military History from a few years back (I don't have that in front of me as I write this, either).

At the highest level, success for the South would have required recognition by the major European powers. If they had decided to aid the South and force the blockade, then independence would have been achieved. And the strategic center for the South was their agriculture strength flowing along the Mississippi river. So their strategy needed to be to show that they could maintain their territorial integrity, produce sufficient agricultural product to have a valid basis for trade, and get that product to ports that were within reach of European navies if they chose to go there.

None of those objectives were supported by Lee's raid into Pennsylvania.

And his generalship at Gettysburg was - by the cruel but objective judge of results - a failure. Based on actual judgment, Longstreet, who saw Vicksburg as the key strategic battle, and who saw the flaws in Lee's approach at Gettysburg, was a better general.

On the other hand, Lee was truly matchless at motivating men to fight. His sterling personal character, including his honest Christian faith, was so far superior to others that even his opponents respected him deeply. Even Washington - who had that effect on the nation as a whole - never had that sort of personal engagement with the troops under his command.

So, does Lee belong in the first rank, or the second, or somewhere else in the list of American Generals? It's an interesting question to consider. There are no right answers because the ranking depends on what one chooses to prioritize. I think he was, in the end, an excellent but not perfect general. In my own list, he is in the second rank with Patton and MacArthur, but behind Washington, Pershing, and Marshall. But that is because at the very highest levels of leadership I value strategic insight more than tactical.

[auusn]

Try again.

Lee loved Virginia more than his country. That’s why he fought.

Read this book and educate yourself.

http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Lee-Leadership-Executive-Character/dp/0761516808

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

As an Arizonan, and thus beside, if not above the fray, there are a few observations I would like to make about General Lee.

First and foremost, by all accounts he was a gentleman, in the truest sense of the word. As such, he stands out from both sides in the conflict in trying to maintain honor at the cusp of a more genteel age and the insane brutality of the industrial age.

He was seriously handicapped in many ways. First and foremost, his age, which also penalized much of the command staff of the Confederacy, compared to the Union command staff, who on average were far younger.

The political organization of the Confederacy, as well as the military, left much to be desired, and severely hindered Lee’s war effort. Learned, professional soldiers were still a rarity on either side, and only long after the war did W.T. Sherman found the Command School to train senior officers in the arts of war. During the war, many senior officers on both sides were eccentric, unstable, and incompetent.

A very strong argument can be made that Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg, however, can be attributed to Lee’s scholarship. Specifically, when looking at the battleground and distribution of forces, it was irresistible to Lee to see the comparison with the Napoleonic battle of Austerlitz, perhaps the most studied battle of all time, and regarded as a masterpiece of tactics and maneuver.

Despite the very determined advice of his capable subordinates, who kept their objectivity, and had little doubt that to carry out Lee’s orders would be disastrous, Lee, who was exhausted, decided to repeat history to devastating effect against the Union forces.

And Gettysburg was not Austerlitz.

[Pistolshot]

Patton, Pershing, Grant & Washington

All started as small unit commanders. Each had qualities and deficiences.

Washington made many tactical errors before he had the right kind of army to fight the revolution. Grant, made a lot of mistakes that cost him men needlessly. Wilderness and Cold Harbor just to name two. Pershing chased Villa all over northern Mexico handcuffed by BOTH US and Mexican governments.(even though Villa was recovering from wounds near Agua Caliente the whole time)

Patton was not only an aide to Pershing in Mexico, but found his future in Europe during WW1 commanding 1st Tank Brigade. His theories on armor tactics as a deep thrusting weapon in place of horse cavalry and the saber was as novel a concept as the laser is to weaponry now. And he carried the notion a soldier should LOOK like a soldier, from dress and decorum, from Pershing.

What got Patton in trouble was his mouth. He said what a LOT of officers only thought. He was a soldier, not a politician, and he only knew one way to fight. The Germans feared him, his men loved him, because he loved them. He was the most dangerous general we have ever had. He didn't make very many mistakes, the race to Messina was one, needless losses at Palermo just to beat Monty to get there.

[BenLurkin]

Gettysburg was not Austerlitz.

Indeed it was not. A bit more like BOrodino actually.

[ClearCase_guy]

Patton was a tactician. Stonewall Jackson was a tactician.

Washington, Grant, and Lee were strategists. It's very rare to find someone who is both a strategist and a tactician. Napoleon certainly qualifies. But I would argue that Washington and Lee were poor tacticians. Even Grant -- the best strategist of the ACW -- was not really good with tactics.

[Pistolshot]

Pershing was both. He didn't want to be bottled up in the trenches, knew the Saar was the heart of Germany, and would have destroyed it in 1919 had the war gone on longer.

Interesting story was one of Patton visiting Pershing before Patton left for Europe to command 3rd Army. I suspect Patton was there to discuss possible routes into the Saar and what Pershing had had in mind in 1918.

Patton was the perfect cavalryman. Bust through, disorganize, chase until the exhaustion set in, harrass your opponent until he drops. Strategist? He was ready when the call came to relieve Bastogne, and his pursuit into the Saar spelled doom for the German army. He knew that the race to Berlin would end the war. All he needed was the gas.

[stainlessbanner]

Thanks groanup - I’ll hit the ping list in a bit - need to get the list off my storage drive