I’ve always held that from from being a ‘’military genius’’ Lee was an absolute idiot as well as a traitor. He threw his lot in with a bunch of racist, seditious slave-owning poltroons who were determined to preserve an economic system based on the use of slave labor, which, aside from a meager amount of capital it took to keep slaves alive reaped the owners millions in savings on not having to pay wages. Further more as a commissioned officer in the US Army Lee took up arms against the duly elected government he was sworn to ‘’preserve, protect and defend’’. he’s lucky he and Davis weren’t hung.
He engaged in a war he must have known his side had no hope of winning and certainly after the debacle of Gettysburg he should have seen the handwritting on the wall and stopped the slaughter. but he didn’t. He and Davis prosecuted it for another two years, causing more misery, death and destruction not only for the South but for the entire country and still to this day. I have absolutely NO respect for this bastard of a man. My ancestors fought to end his war.
I'm not anti-Lee, my opinion on him is similar to that of President Eisenhower, sometimes quoted on these threads.
I think Lee's sometimes overrated and would point to another Virginia General as much underrated -- Thomas, the Rock of Chicamagua.
And everything you say about Lee can be said about any Confederate leader, but all that was forgiven in exchange for Unconditional Surrender, in 1865.
I think it was a good bargain.
Much of my family is Southern, so I know the pro-Confederates who post here are far from a majority in the South.