A true Officer and Gentleman.
Hmmmm.
Thought I’d ping ya on this one.
It’s all in my tag-line...
I always love these threads. The new South conservatives meet the old North conservatives and the Civil War is re-fought. Lee and others where honorable for their time but the talk about the Confederacy being a noble, freedom-loving government fighting against the tyranical North and “dictator” Lincoln is a twisted fantasy.
The politicians who ran the Confederacy were thugs who wanted to keep the slave system to keep their power and wealth. They were Democrats who oppressed the black man even worse than Dems oppress blacks today. While the state itself is a beautiful place, the government of Virginia circa 1860 was a group of nasty, thuggish Democrats interested in keeping their slaves.
The closest historical parallel to how the military and government interacted I can think of —and this is limited—is Nazi Germany. Officers like Lee were driven by a code of honor like the old Prussian officers. But then the government they served was populated by a bunch of racist thugs.