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The "real Lee" is exactly the way the quotes of Freeman and Grant depict him.

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."

"I reposted the two quotes as a contrast. Freeman is presenting a myth. Grant saw the real man."

I know that your re-quotes were couched to be contrasts, but they are not. Grant plainly wanted Lee to be seen as a mortal, not a superhuman foe. Differing in motivation, Freeman says the same thing...that he was a plain, human gentleman, "no enigma", motivated by "simplicity and spirituality."

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

That one quote from John Ford's, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, seems to demonstrate your appreciation of Freeman.

Don't you think it is a bit cynical to characterize Freeman's work as only meaningful when it agrees with what the 'reputable historians' want to believe. "Never let the facts get in the way" seems to be your opinion.

You would deconstruct Freeman's work of Lee into distortions, exaggerations, and misrepresentations that were simply in defense of Lee's detractors.

It is obvious that you have a problem with Freeman, and certainly feel free to continue on with your problem. But do not use your imagination as to whether or not I agree with him, or characterize the comments of others here on the history of Lee's contributions to American history as re-cycled anecdotes and uninformed assessments.

"Maybe that should change, and someone should call you on these things when you stumble into prejudice or hate speech."

I see you are throwing an incendiary in order to "bolster your weak arguments".