Posted on 01/18/2005 5:57:53 PM PST by wagglebee
All the South has ever desired was that the Union, as established by our Forefathers, should be preserved, and that the government, as originally organized, should be administered in purity and truth.
--Robert E. Lee
Why do Americans continue to remember their past?
Perhaps it is because it was a time when truth was spoken. Men and women took their stand to give us the freedoms we now enjoy. God bless those in military service, who do their duty around the world for freedom.
The Hall of Fame for great Americans opened in 1900 in New York City. One thousand names were submitted, but only 29 received a majority vote from the electors. General Robert E. Lee, 30 years after his death, was among those honored. A bust of Lee was given to New York University by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Let America not forget January 19, 2005, the 198th birthday of General Robert E. Lee.
Robert E. Lee was born at Stratford House, Westmoreland County, Virginia, on January 19, 1807. The winter was cold and fireplaces were little help. Robert's mother, Ann Hill (Carter) Lee, was suffering from a severe cold.
Ann Lee named her son Robert Edward after her two brothers.
Robert E. Lee undoubtedly acquired his love of country from those who had lived during the American Revolution. His father, "Light Horse" Harry, was a hero of the revolution and served as governor of Virginia and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Members of his family also signed the Declaration of Independence.
Lee was educated in the schools of Alexandria, Virginia. In 1825, he received an appointment to West Point Military Academy. He graduated in 1829, second in his class and without a single demerit.
Robert E. Lee wed Mary Anna Randolph Custis in June 1831, two years after his graduation from West Point. Robert and Mary had grown up together. Mary was the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington and the adopted son of George Washington.
Mary was an only child; therefore, she inherited Arlington House, across the Potomac from Washington, where she and Robert raised seven children.
Army promotions were slow. In 1836, Lee was appointed to first lieutenant. In 1838, with the rank of captain, Lee fought valiantly in the War with Mexico and was wounded at the Battle of Chapultepec.
He was appointed superintendent of West Point in 1852 and is considered one of the best superintendents in that institution's history.
President-to-be Abraham Lincoln offered command of the Union Army to Lee in 1861, but Lee refused. He would not raise arms against his native state.
War was in the air. The country was in turmoil of separation. Lee wrestled with his soul. He had served in the United States Army for over 30 years.
After an all-night battle, much of that time on his knees in prayer, Robert Edward Lee reached his decision. He reluctantly resigned his commission and headed home to Virginia.
Arlington House would be occupied by the Federals, who would turn the estate into a war cemetery. Today it is one of our country's most cherished memorials, Arlington National Cemetery.
President John F. Kennedy visited Arlington shortly before he was assassinated in 1963 and said he wanted to be buried there. And he is, in front of Robert E. Lee's home.
Lee served as adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and then commanded the legendary Army of Northern Virginia. The exploits of Lee's army fill thousands of books today.
After four terrible years of death and destruction, General Robert E. Lee met General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, and ended their battles. He told his disheartened comrades, "Go home and be good Americans."
Lee was called Marse Robert, Uncle Robert and Marble Man. He was loved by the people of the South and adopted by the folks from the North.
Robert E. Lee was a man of honor, proud of his name and heritage. After the War Between the States, he was offered $50,000 for the use of his name. His reply was "Sirs, my name is the heritage of my parents. It is all I have and it is not for sale."
In the fall of 1865, Lee was offered and accepted the presidency of troubled Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. The school was renamed Washington and Lee in his honor.
Robert E. Lee died of a heart attack at 9:30 on the morning of October 12, 1870, at Washington-Lee College. His last words were "Strike the tent." He was 63 years of age.
He is buried in a chapel on the school grounds with his family and near his favorite horse, Traveller.
A prolific letter writer, Lee wrote his most famous quote to son Custis in 1852: "Duty is the sublimest word in our language."
On this 198th anniversary let us ponder the words he wrote to Annette Carter in 1868: "I grieve for posterity, for American principles and American liberty."
Winston Churchill called Lee "one of the noblest Americans who ever lived." Lee's life was one of service and self-sacrifice. His motto was "Duty, Honor, Country."
God Bless America!
I'm a fourth generation American smarta-s! Just because I tell it like it is regarding the Southern War of Treason doesn't mean I'm a foreigner, just a proud Yankee.
NICE ceremony & HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GENERAL!
free dixie,sw
I don't think he considered defending his homeland against invasion as fighting for the wrong side.
these lads will LIVE & bask in dixie LIBERTY before they die!
free dixie,sw
An uncultured drunk? Your are citing what books that confirm that screed? He was a graduate of West Point, served very well in the Mexican War and was the winner of the Civil War. These are not deniable facts.
Can you recommend a book for James?
On January 8, 1861, United States troops stationed at Ft. Barrancas, Pensacola Bay, Florida opened fire at the local state militia trying to take the fort.
The Federal troops withdrew 2 days later. U.S. troops successfully defended Fort Pickens, Pensacola, Florida, and Fort Taylor in Key West.
There were other episodes where gunfire erupted...Kansas, Missouri come to mind. Next was cannon fire......the Harriet Lane, a federal gunboat in Charleston Harbor, the night of April 11, and cannon fire in Charleston Harbor the next morning.
But war is started by the men that could order the weapons and soldiers into action. No one had the resources or motivation to instigate war at this time other than Lincoln. The war began when real acts of war occurred...the blockade and the state militia troop call ups by Lincoln.
So, the war began in Washington.
Thank you!!
I reposted the two quotes as a contrast. Freeman is presenting a myth. Grant saw the real man. He had much respect for Lee but didn't try to build him up into a marble icon. In spite of his
Do you really think Lee never got angry? That he was never angry at Johnston, or Longstreet, or Ewell, or Hill? He might not always have shown it in the most demonstrative way, but the anger was there.Or that there weren't complexities and ambiguities or difficulties in his relations to his father, wife, brother, children, subordinates, social associates, or country?
Freeman died over half a century ago. His work was an attempt to shore up the mythic popular image of Lee against the first, rather crude generation of psychohistorians. As such he overreacted and hastened to put his saintly version of Lee up on a very high pedestal. There's something bizarre about a man writing a four volume all the while insisting that there are no mysteries or enigmas in his hero's life. Today we can see Lee more in the round as a human, and indeed tragic figure, and don't have to accept Freeman's wooden or marble idol. We no longer hold Freeman's views on segregation, so perhaps it's time to question his world view.
Here's Douglas Southall Freeman writing in 1944:
"You [Negroes] must have justice and we [whites] shall help you get it; we have a common economic stake in this land of sunshine; we must work together to conquer the soil, to develop the mines; and to harness the waterfall; we whites must see to it that you get your part of the profits in generous proportion to the contributions you make; ours is the duty also of seeing that you are not humiliated; but biologically and therefore socially we are different; we are not going to amalgamate; because that is so, you simply are made miserable when you are brought so close to the whites that passion or ambition fires you to seek the unattainable -- a white wife; for this reason we believe you should stay apart, build your own society, improve it, strengthen your family life, combat innate promiscuity, and build up race pride; we do not believe it fair to pretend to equality we have no intention of recognizing. Separation is better than deception."
You may agree with Freeman, but if you don't, isn't it likely that his biography can't be the last word on Lee, and that his judgements are open to question by a generation that thinks in different terms?
Even though your anti-Southern bigotry is veiled in sophistry, it is still apparent that you enjoy flaming the greatest of American heros.
I'd make similar comments if someone posted a quote from Sandburg's Lincoln or Parson Weem's life of Washington. It's better to get at the facts and to attempt an informed assessment, rather than to recycle anecdotes in order to glorify someone. That's particularly true in Lee's case, since his role was so problematic in our history. You have to overlook a lot to state so baldly that he was "greatest of American heros."
This charge of "anti-Southern bigotry" is simply something you throw in to bolster weak arguments. If anyone disagrees with you or has different views about the Old South or the Civil War sooner or later they'll get hit with that. If you're right about what the standard is a lot of what you post would have to count as "anti-Northern bigotry" -- sometimes even "anti-American bigotry." Fortunately for you most Northerners aren't so sensitive and don't have victim complexes. Maybe that should change, and someone should call you on these things when you stumble into prejudice or "hate speech."
Sure. And the real Lincoln is exactly the way the quotes from Sandburg depict him.
Why on Earth would the Union Army post sentries over Jackson's grave?
Yeah he was so intimidated that he almost didn't accept Lee's surrender. </sarcasm>
The legallity of secession is still being debated today as you are about to see on this thread.
"Sherman is not only a great soldier, but a great man. He is one of the very great men in our country's history. He is an orator with few superiors. As a writer he is among the first. As a general I know of no man I would put above him. Above all - he has a fine character - so frank, so sincere, so outspoken, so genuine. There is not a false line in Sherman's character - nothing to regret." - Ulysses S. Grant
"Himself of doubtful military competence, Bragg faced in Grant an able, self-reliant, aggressive adversary who had in Sherman and Thomas two lieutenants of unusual capacity." Douglas Southall Freeman
I guess that the "real Sherman" is exactly the way the quotes of Freeman and Grant depict him, right Pea?
How?
What about the cannon fire from the rebel batteries directed at the Rhoda A. Shannon the week before? Don't those count? Never mind the fire directed at the Star of the West in January. Wouldn't those have been among the first shots fired?
I ran across an old article on the incident. From the Memphis Daily Appeal of April 9, 1861:
The Vessel fired into at Charleston
From the Savannah Republican, April 5
Since copying the article from the Charleston Courier, the vessel fired into from the forts at Morris Island has arrived in our port, and we are enabled to give full particulars of the affair.
The schooner is the H. R. Shannon, Capt. Ments, of Boston, and she was bound for this city with a cargo of ice, consigned to A. Haywood. On Wednesday she was shrouded for many hours in a dense fog, during which she drifted through mistake over the Charleston bar. Soon after the fog lifted, the captain, not knowing his whereabouts, found himself nearly abreast of the fort on Morris island, and while cogitating over his latitude and longitude, he was greeted with a salute from the fort. He immediately ran up his colors -- the stars and stripes -- but that demonstration seemed an unsatisfactory answer to their summons. Several shots (thirty-two's) were fired into her rigging, one passed through his mainsail and another through his topsail. In the midst of this dilemma, not knowing where he was or the object of this hostile demonstration, a boat from Fort Sumter came to his relief, and being made acquainted with the facts, he lost no time in putting to sea.
The schooner suffered no material damage from the shots, though one of them came uncomfortably near the head of one of the crew. Capt. Ments thinks there is no mistake about the Morris island boys being excellent marksmen.
A cargo of ice? I thought people of the times were kidding when they made the point that the summer crop of Massachusetts was granite and the winter crop was ice. Guess not.
>Why on Earth would the Union Army post sentries over Jackson's grave?
I've seen a few citations of such incidents, and it wasn't clear to me in all of them that the sentries were right at the Jackson grave itself, or at VMI in general, or what--but the implication was that they wanted to prevent any celebration of this hero via embellishment of his grave. I'm not sure if there was a single incident of the one black boy's decoration, or if it happened more than once.
And of course, blacks loved Stonewall because he ran a "colored Sunday school," where he taught "Negroes" how to read and how to achieve salvation. Funny thing..they never taught us about such things when I was growing up in The evil Empire State.
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