You completely beg the Constitutional questions--still unresolved;--and thus which side--if either--caused the bloodshed.
General Grant, the Union General who received Lee's eventual surrender, venerated Lee even at that time--and personally interposed himself, to prevent a mean spirited plan to go after Lee, thereafter.
Your mean spirited comments do not serve any Conservative purpose, in today's very dicey times. We need to pull together to fight the current attempts to subvert what still remains of American principles in Washington.
William Flax
I thought Joshua Chamberlain accepted Lee’s surrender.
You have to understand, from his point of view it is OK to deny Southern WHITE people THEIR freedom to come and go as their states so chose, but not OK to deny freedom to a people sold by their own people into slavery, an institution (even if wrongly so) deemed LEGAL by the United States of America.
Venerated is a bit strong. I think it's safe to say that Grant respected Lee, both as an opponent and as a fellow officer.
Lee wasn’t drawn’’ into anything. He only had to remain loyal to the Union, to America. He made a choice, a bad one. Nobody was holding a gun to his head. Lee invaded the North in 1962? Wow. How did I miss that bit of history? ‘’Mean spirited’’? I should think the folks in Gettysburg today aren’t singing his praises. And how is condemning a Dixiecrat equate to being less of a Conservative? And’’ pulling together’’ to fight the current state of affairs in the nation? Sounds rather ironic in light of what Lincoln was trying to do.