Symposium to honor Lee, villain or 'the noblest ever' ?

Washington Times ^ | April 25, 2007 | Robert Stacy McCain

[Non-Sequitur]

Winston Churchill called him "one of the noblest Americans who ever lived," and Theodore Roosevelt called him "the very greatest of all the great captains that the English-speaking peoples have brought forth." But has political correctness turned Robert E. Lee into a villain? That will be the question explored by six historians this weekend at a symposium commemorating the bicentennial of the Confederate commander's birth. "We were afraid that Lee would not receive the honors he should get because of the prevailing political correctness," says Brag Bowling, a Richmond resident who helped organize Saturday's event at the Key Bridge Marriott Hotel in Arlington. The symposium will be the largest event of its kind this year honoring Lee, who was born Jan. 19, 1807.

[stainlessbanner]

good post

[aaCharley]

G-Bear wrote

Lee was a traitor, who resigned from his teaching position at West Point to fight for the Confederacy. I see him the same as the deluded Americans that have gone to fight for the Taliban. Lee should have been hung, and his army decimated, in the Roman sense of the term.

It has been quite some time since the thought of "knownothing loathsome Yankee" has been caused to cross my mind. Thank you G-Bear for exhibiting the charm those people are known for and for restoring the description to prominence.

[x]

Different United States then. Lee thought that he was in fact fighting for his country, Virginia. In his mind, he would have been a traitor if he had stayed with the U.S. Army and fought against his “homeland”. You’re applying a presentist analysis here onto an individual (Lee) and a country (the U.S.) that had fundamentally different worldviews in the 1860s.

That's questionable.

I have to wonder whether Lee really thought Virginia was his country when he was studying and working at West Point or fighting in Mexico or serving on the frontier.

The idea that Virginia was Lee's country is a feel-good resolution a lot of us picked up in school in the 20th century, but I'm not sure how authoritative that concept was a century before.

[x]

"Lee was a military man, so he very seldom said anything about politics. But after the war, he did."

Lee saw the war as "a continuation of the battle between the Hamiltonian consolidationists and the Jeffersonian decentralists," says Mr. DiLorenzo, referring to the "remarkable correspondence" between Lee and British statesman Lord John Acton in 1866.

What a frigging moron! DiLorenzo projects his own simplistic categories onto everything he examines.

Lee's father had been a Federalist. One could almost say that the Jeffersonians had killed him.

Lee had an emotional loyalty to Virginia, and "went with his state."

But however he rationalized his decision later, it would be wrong to simply enlist him in a political movement that he didn't adhere to.

[BigCinBigD]

“I wish they would “try” Sherman. Lee was a role model for us all.”

I saw Sherman's march on the History Ch a few nights ago. For two hours the only thought that kept floating through my mind was. Will someone please shoot this Son of a B....... :o)

[xxqqzz]

There were a number of southern officers who stayed in the US Army. Most were already in the army and felt they had a duty to remain. There were a large number of southern unionists, but most were poor whites.

Major Anderson, who commanded Fort Sumpter was from Kentucky and his wife from Georgia. Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War under the Buchanan administration appointed all southern officers to command southern military installations, and most handed them over to the Confederacy. Anderson refused, because he felt he had a duty not to surrender the fort without orders to do so. The Confederates fired on it, partly starting the war. Anderson was taken on a recruiting tour of the north, and then retired from the army on grounds of ill health and left the country for France.

I have a picture frame that contains a picture of General Beauraguard, the Confederate commander at Fort Sumpter. It used the contain a picture of Major Anderson, who was a cousin, but it was removed by a Virginia relative during the war.

[xxqqzz]

I think it was less than clear at the time that secession was treason. There are people who still take strong Confederate of Union positions. However, I think the whole business was kind of a sad chapter in US history, and no one was right or wrong.

[izzatzo]

SCV dittos to all-ss, excellent personal profile page.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Well, like I said in an early post, the U.S. was a different country in the 1850s and 1860s. Here's what Lee himself said about his resignation from Federal service and joining the forces of Virginia.

"I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than the dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation."

"I shall carry with me to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind consideration, & your name & fame will always be dear to me. Save in the defense of my native State, I never desire again to draw my sword."

With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army, and save in defense of my native State, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword...

[Van Jenerette]

Good reading. Back to class...

[Ditto]

Will someone please shoot this Son of a B....... :o)

The ironic part of your statement is that "Uncle Billy" saved tens of thousands of Southerners from certain death. His march through Georgia and the Carolina's was a brilliant military action which cost very few lives on either side yet shortened the war by at least one full year.

How many more would have died in service to an already defeated cause were it not for Sherman?

[U S Army EOD]

Like it or not, Sherman did more to win the war for the North as anyone.

[xxqqzz]

In Virginia other southern states that did not seceed initially, there was not a lot of enthusiasm for war or secession, but most people would side with the south if there was war. Lee was put in a difficult position being offered the command of the Union Army to invade Virginia.

[BigCinBigD]

“The ironic part of your statement is that “Uncle Billy” saved tens of thousands of Southerners from certain death. His march through Georgia and the Carolina’s was a brilliant military action which cost very few lives on either side yet shortened the war by at least one full year.

How many more would have died in service to an already defeated cause were it not for Sherman?”

Sherman was a terrorist and a monster. Your attempt at Yankee revisionist history will not change that. The North won. the South lost. The war is over, for now.

[Non-Sequitur]

Yes. Lincoln was a centralizer who was interested in centralizing the Federal government. He started the era of Big Government.

If you believe that then you and Tommy have a lot in common. Little in common with fact, but a lot in common with each other.

[BnBlFlag]

You’re right. I was so P.O.’d at that Dumbass about his hanging and “decimating” remarks I left that out. He was also upset at the poor treatment of the Federals he observed in Texas on his way back home. (But emotions were running high by then).

[Non-Sequitur]

Lincoln never cared about freeing the slaves and said so himself. He only freed those who were not under hsi control — i.e., those in the part of the Confederacy still under Confederate control.

And are you suggesting that Lee believed otherwise?

[Non-Sequitur]

Yep, much better to sit down and watch a literal whitewash of historical fact on the History Channel about a arsonist, murdering, terroristic, and racist war criminal eh?

Or...I can sit hear and listen to you prattle on. Where is that any different than what you say about the History Channel? Or Terrible Tommy D.?

[Non-Sequitur]

Lee’s act to free slaves is merely just another example of his greatness.

It's more an example of his complying with his father-in-laws wishes. As executor of George Washington Parke Custis' estate Lee was obligated to follow the requirements of the will, which required all slaves be freed after 5 years. Lee was, in fact, a few months tardy. But since he was busy fighting in the rebellion it's understandable.

[TBP]

So you’re claiming that Lincoln didn’t run on a program of increasing Federal power for “internal improvements” and other purposes? Yo’ure denying that he planned to increase the size of the Federal government?

Do tell!

Withot your obvious idolatry.