Posted on 04/25/2007 10:11:37 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
I had family on both sides of The War, and see the convoluted truth on both sides.”
Nicely put. The battle cry of Freedom could legitimately be had by both sides, and could legitimately be scoffed at by the other side. Therein lies the tragedy. And the importance of amnesty and unity going forward, as Lincoln thought.
“Lee was a traitor who resigned from his teaching position at West Point... He should have been hung and his Army decimated in the Roman sense of the term”.
In the first place you don’t know what you are talking about. Lee was stationed in West Texas at the beginning of Secession. He took a leave of absence to take care of business affairs at the Arlington Plantation and was home and available for service when the John Brown incident came up. He then was offered the Command of the Union Army which he declined and resigned his Commission.
Only when Virginia seceded did he join the military forces of his Native State. He was not a “traitor”.
And btw, since you would have liked to have had my GGrandfather murdered, I would like to invite you down to Texas and try it on me as he’s not here to defend himself.
I just found out last week that Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis are in my family tree.
Don’t like the man much, do you?
Thats the story I heard too. I was hoping I was wrong.
Lee was not teaching at West Point when he choose to remain loyal to his home state. Lee was an officer in the United States Army and generally regarded as the best officer in the military. His abilities had recently been put on display when he quickly stopped the John Brown rebellion.
I was amazed at how quiet it is there. Even with several funerals going on at once, it was positively silent..........
Your understanding of Lee’s decision making reflects my own. It is interesting to remember, too, that “Old Fuss and Feathers” Winfield Scott, who commanded Lee in the Mexican War and himself a native Virginian and resident, presented himself for duty in DC when the War broke out. He was praised and sent home because his time had passed. It seems, that even today, some have a hard time deciding who the enemy is.
I have been here a while, I make a point of clicking on threads concerning the South, and I have never seen anyone on FR defend slavery in any way, shape or form.”
Really?
OK, then, for a recent example of how “slavery wasn’t all that bad” check out post #12 on this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1521640/posts
The writer says,
“Sorry, but slaves weren’t all beaten and treated badly. The farmers couldn’t afford to have them injured or sickly. If the slaves weren’t able to work, there was no harvest and the owners would be broke. My great-grandmother was glad when the slaves were freed because they were too much trouble to care for.”
I’ve heard it all before, way too often. Slavery wasn’t all that bad, they were taken care of, they were worse off with emancipation, etc., etc., etc.
Personally, I find it tiresome. And it happens here more than I care to recall.
Lee should have been hung”
You could at least argue that he should have been hanged....
I see it in fairly neutral terms. Lee was a genius, and a gentleman. Lincoln showed incredible civility/compassion at the end of the war (his policies for reconstruction survived his death) after showing ruthlessness to the South and the North during the war.
Sherman got a bum rap. I look at his march through the South in the same light as the firebombing of Dresden or the nuking of Japan: necessary backbreaking warfare. His was actually a genius campaign.
The war was a tragedy. Let’s hope the next one ends as well.
I just found out last week that Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis are in my family tree.”
By the way, Richard Henry Lee, the member of the Cont Congress who introduced the resolution for independence, was RE Lee’s great uncle (or something like that).
You have a distinguished family tree!
Robert E Lee was a great man.
“They said you was hung!”
“They was right!”
(obscure movie quote...)
I'd ask "what are you, 12?". But when I was 12, I was much better informed than you were.
Lighthorse Harry Lee - a signer of the declaration of independence - was R.E. Lee’s father.
No, it's actually his yard (inherited only a year or so before the war from his father-in-law) that is the most hallowed and only because of the heroes who rest beneath it.
A final thought, then I have to pretend to work again.
IF you find yourself at war (recognizing that generals should not be the ones to decide when to war, but to execute the war), then it should be waged like Sherman (or Patton).
Victor Davis hanson uses him (I think) as an example in a book called “The Soul of Battle” or something like that.
I wish we had a President like Lincoln and generals like Sherman, Grant, Lee and Patton to wage war against Islamists today. The world would be a very different place. (It would help if the Democrats would just disappear, also).
The term "Rebel" is offensive to defenders of the Confederacy, because it presupposes the Unionist argument, namely that secession was an unlawful act. In the Revolutionary War, the so-called "rebels" called themselves "Patriots".
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