Robert E. Lee: Icon of the South -- and American Hero

Spectator.org ^ | 2007 | H.W. Crocker, III

[GonzoII]

January can be a depressing month. The Christmas decorations come down, the creche is returned to its box (save for those hardliners, like the Crocker family, who leave the nativity set up until 2 February, the Presentation of the Lord), and the tree is dragged unceremoniously from the house. If you've had any time off of work, it ends; the spirit of Christmas can deflate pretty fast, if you're not careful. Even if you are, and you're returning to a desk job, you might start day-dreaming (as I always do) about whether you could, in good conscience, risk the family finances and try your hand at farming or ranching or doing anything that would get you out of an office and away from the corporate crowd.

[Canedawg]

Lee...becomes an affront, a perfect example of Mark Twain's apothegm that "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."

that may also explain why so many libtard infanticiders resent Sarah Palin.

[lentulusgracchus]

[Jubal Madison] We cannot fairly judge 19th century thought from our 21st century...

[You] Sure we can.

"We"? What, are you God? Are all those people on the other thread participating in Spurgeon's devotionals addressing the wrong Person?

Or do you just want a pretext for holding political show trials of dead men? Sounds like an Old Left front-politics enthusiasm to me. Always wanting to put someone on trial. Now they want to arrest Dubya.

[Tax-chick]

And it’s also James’s birthday. He’s 5 today. We’re holding a school day, anyway, but everyone can watch “Gods and Generals” later.

[Hurtgen]

I’m from Mississippi and spent 30 years in the regular army, and then got my PhD in military history so please hear me out.

Plain and simple Lee, and other serving officers who turn in their blue for gray, were traitors to the uniforms they wore and the country they swore to protect (Lee had worn his more than thirty years and had spent very little of that time in his home state. This does not include Jackson and others who were not on active duty at the time of succession.
I quite understand Lee’s aversion to lifting a sword against his home state; but that said I cannot see how in good conscience he could lift the sword against those he had served with. Better for him to have left the army and set in his rocking chair at Arlington.
Lee’s success against his country caused more than 300,000 deaths, both from the north and south, and bleeding southern manhood dry for generations.
My two cents.

[MBB1984]

Slavery had been around for at least six thousand years before Lee. And, during Lee's time the average life expectancy of a white man was only around 45 years old. It was a tough, difficult time where slave and free died young and most to only achieve a meager existence. In light of the extreme hardship, slavery did not seem so bad.

It is too easy to sit back in our warm, comfortable, politically correct world today and pass judgment on men far better than ourselves. Before passing any judgment, you should carefully consider all the circumstances of the situation. In addition, you should know than many of the free soilers held their beliefs to live free of blacks.

[MBB1984]

Lee's country was Virginia. The United States had only been in existence approximately 70 years. Lee lifted his sword because he sought Independence, just as his father Harry had done. If fighting for Independence against a stronger federal government makes one a traitor, we need many more traitors today. "A little revolution now and then is a good thing." Thomas Jefferson.

[Zechariah11]

Does the Churchill quote have a literary source?

I had hoped that this thread might provide some light on Lee's genius apart from that due to the work of Stonewall ackson.

[antisocial]

Happy birthday General!

[CodeToad]

“Still, he did take up arms against the union.”

Wow, that’s like saying a homeowner took up arms against an armed intruder.

[Verginius Rufus]

If Lee had accepted command of the Union forces, the Peninsular campaign of 1862 very likely would have resulted in the capture of Richmond, and although the fall of Richmond wouldn't have been as serious a blow then as it was in 1865, the war might have ended before too long--with slavery still more or less intact. The only slaves who would have been freed were those who had escaped to Union lines. By prolonging the war Lee helped bring about the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of slavery.

Even late in the war, Lincoln had little success getting the loyal slave states to agree to gradual emancipation, let alone immediate emancipation, so it can be taken for granted that the resistance to ending slavery would have been even stronger in the seven states which seceded first, where the slaves either outnumbered or nearly equaled the white population.

[GonzoII]

"And it’s also James’s birthday."

Happy Birthday, James!

[Tax-chick]

James would thank you, but he’s busy playing with the electric guitar toy his grandmother sent him. I wonder why she’s mad at me this time ...

[upcountryhorseman]

Where do you get the idea that the South was “power mad”?
It was the North that was “power mad”. The South was
simply defending their homeland from invasion! Slavery was
not that big an issue until Lincoln got the idea he could
turn the southern slaves into a force against the South
with the Emancipation Proclamation. (he did not include
northern slaves in this.

[GonzoII]

"We should all live our lives with such devotion to duty and selfless service."

Amen.

[GonzoII]

"Posting that for the benefit the public-school educated who probably don't know a thing about either man." Let's hope and pray for better days.

[GonzoII]

"electric guitar"

You're in BIG trouble, LOL.

[Tax-chick]

I figured that out! But James is happy, at least.

[GVnana]

I haven't found the source of the quote yet, but I did come across a very interesting article on Lee that pertains to some of the postings on this thread:

Interestingly, when the Civil War started, Robert E. Lee was offered the command of the Union forces, but after his home state, Virginia, seceded, he resigned from the U.S. Army and joined with the Confederates. Many people wonder why Lee would turn down the command of the Union forces and support the Confederacy. But loyalty was one of Lee’s bedrock traits and he couldn’t wage war against Virginia and the South. Also, recent historians are presenting a more balanced view of the long festering and complex events leading to the Civil War. (An example being inequitable tariffs – the South paid 87% of the nation’s total tariffs in 1860 alone.) The new research contained in these books puts a new light on Lee’s decision to fight for the South.

I suspect that another reason Lee decided to support the South was President Lincoln’s refusal to meet with Southern representatives to try to reach a compromise to avoid war. Although members of Lincoln’s own cabinet as well as newspapers in America and Europe encouraged the President to attempt a negotiated settlement, he remained adamant. Lincoln rejected all requests for discussions that might have led to a peaceful resolution.

Robert E. Lee vigorously opposed slavery and as early as 1856 made this statement: "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil." Lee also knew that the use of slaves was coming to an end. Cyrus McCormick’s 1831 invention of the mule-drawn mechanical reaper sounded the death knell for the use of slave labor. Before the Civil War began, 250,000 slaves had already been freed.

Robert E. Lee did not own slaves, but many Union generals did. When his father-in-law died, Lee took over the management of the plantation his wife had inherited and immediately began freeing the slaves. By the time Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, every slave in Lee’s charge had been freed. Notably, some Union generals didn’t free their slaves until the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/jarvis10.html

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Robert E. Lee chose loyalty for his state of Virginia and against the nation he had previously fought for and swore an oath to. You call him a traitor for doing so.

George Washington chose loyalty for his colony of Virginia and against the British King he had previously fought for and swore an oath to, fighting side by side with British troops in the French and Indian Wars. Do you call Washington a traitor as well?

If your answer is anything other than “but that was different!”, you’ll be able to knock me over with a feather.

[Hurtgen]

General Washington was not in service to the British Crown at the time of the Revolution. Lee was in service to the United States and had been for more than 30 years. Had he not been wearing blue at time of succession I would have no quarrel with his service to the Confederate cause.
Now back at you. Do you, like most, consider Benedict Arnold a traitor? He was wearing Army Blue before he switched to British Red.