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.
Yes, I believe Arnold was a traitor, because he betrayed all he professed to believe in. He was slighted, and he sought revenge in treason for that slight or perceived slight.
You make a technical distinction I don’t agree with — that treason requires the traitor to be on active duty at the time. By that definition, civilians can never commit treason. I flat disagree with that assessment.
Lee did change allegiance and of course you are accurate in stating that he technically committed treason and in fact he was brought up on charges, as Washington too would have been hung for treason, had the British captured him during the war.
Both Lee and Washington committed treason and were “traitors”. But I won’t label either a traitor as I refuse to adhere to the technical definitions in the case for either of them. Both of them were principled, moral men who adhered rigidly to their moral principles. I can’t apply the term “traitor” to them, any more than I can apply the term “traitor” to those German Generals who sought to assassinate Hitler in WWII for love of country, but technically they were “traitors” as well.
So I surrender the argument, since technically you are correct in that Lee was a “traitor”, as was Washington, and all of the other founding fathers who betrayed the British Crown. I can’t win the argument on those grounds, so I concede. Lee was a “traitor”. I for one would never convict him for remaining morally true to his core principals and the love he had for his state and his countryman. You see a traitor. I see a patriot.