[PeaRidge]

"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".

[x]

Read Freeman's biography, or read what other scholars have written about it over the last fifty years. Like many a hagiographer, Freeman went to great lengths about the "simplicity" of his hero, all the while building him up to superhuman dimensions.

Freeman recycled many anecdotes about Lee that have no factual basis. He not only built up Lee to idolatrous dimensions, he also cut down other Confederate leaders whenever it would help enhance or defend Lee's reputation. He did estimate that Lee owned about a half-dozen slaves or so in his own right after his mother's death, and this is something we hear little about from neoconfederates.

Freeman faced some criticism and much praise for showing his era a more "human" Lee than his precursors in "Lost Cause" historical writing. But what may have struck Freeman himself and other Southerners in the 1930s as a "real" and "human" picture, has been found by most scholars since his day have mythical and unreliable.

We do learn things in history. False assumptions are discarded as time goes on, though they may come back in another guise. So just as Freeman may have corrected his elders errors and mistakes, we needn't be bound to his.

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

Nothing of the kind, just a suggestion that if people put up with charges of "Anti-Southern bigotry" whenever they say that you don't like, you should be ready to be called on "Anti-Northern bigotry" the next time you make objectionable statements about the other side.