[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

"When you start wars, yes, the blood is on your hands."

Robert E. Lee didn't start the civil war. To insist that he did is illogical on many levels.

"...could turn against his country and fight to preserve slavery."

The civil war wasn't about slavery. It was about whether individual states or the federal government had the right to decide whether it should be legal or not. It could have been any issue -- the argument was over who was the final authority in determining legality within state borders.

"...go to war against a numerically superior foe who could produce more of the weapons to fight a war, and how brilliant is it to go to war with virtually no navy to speak of?"

And yet the south still managed to put up one hell of a fight. Sometimes, there are things worth going to war over, no matter what the odds.

[Delhi Rebels]

The civil war wasn't about slavery. It was about whether individual states or the federal government had the right to decide whether it should be legal or not. It could have been any issue -- the argument was over who was the final authority in determining legality within state borders.

I don't think you're correct in that because neither Lincoln nor any other Republican running for the nomination in 1860 advocated ending slavery where it currently existed. They realized that they didn't have the power to do that, and I'm not aware of any quotes that indicated they wanted to change that.

[Lee'sGhost]

As I’ve said many times, the rebels were out numbered 4 to one and the union had an endless supply of immigrants to enslave...I mean, enscript...and they brag ab kicking reb butt? Lol. How pathetic.

[donmeaker]

The south went to war to further and extend the institution of Human slavery, and the rapes, and kidnappings, and child abuse that that that institution required and supported. Slavery was “The Cause” for the south. For the United States, it was about whether a small minority of slave owners should be permitted to destroy the Union. And the answer was no, they couldn’t. Colonel Lee resigned his commission in the US Army. His service before that was exemplary. His service to the insurrection were horrific, and he destroyed the deluded men who served in the pretended Army of Northern Virginia, murdering many as ‘deserters’ to that illegitimate and pretended organization.

[jmacusa]

Spin it anyway you want. The South started the hostilities with it's attack on Ft. Sumter. And the war WAS about slavery and I'm bloody well fed-up with the revisionist nonsense saying it wasn't.Yes, it was not Lincolns original intention to end slavery. Among his reasons was that if he did the border states were it existed but where loyal to the North might go against the Union. And it certainly can't be said that the South was fighting to free them . Putting up a ;hell of a fight; was really the South running out the clock. When Lee was beaten at Gettysburg and Vicksburg fell , with the Confederacy split in two and the North in control of the Mississippi any general, any man possessed of the qualities you attribute to this man would have seen the strategic impact of this and realize the situation was hopeless and seek an end to the bloodshed. Instead Lee and Davis and his government dragged the slaughter on for two more bloody years.