Posted on 04/30/2019 4:06:09 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
President Trump sent certain segments of population into outraged spasms on Friday when he described Robert E. Lee as a "great general." Trying to lend context to his infamous "very fine people" remark about the 2017 Charlottesville protests, Trump said this:
“I was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general. Whether you like it or not, he was one of the great generals. I have spoken to many generals here, right at the White House, and many people thought — of the generals, they think that he was maybe their favorite general.”
Trump is, of course, completely correct. Robert E. Lee has always been regarded as a military genius, and for good reason. This is not controversial to anyone with a sixth grade education in American history. But surveys show that many Americans don't even know when the Civil War took place, and a sizable number think Lincoln led the Allied Forces rather than the Union Army, so it's no surprise that basic statements of historical fact have become contentious in our age of aggressive stupidity.
I found myself in the crossfire of the controversy when I posted on Twitter in support of Trump's statement and provided my personal list of the best Civil War generals. I give Lee the top spot, followed by Jackson, Grant, Sherman, and then Nathan Bedford Forrest. You could certainly make an argument for Longstreet, Sheridan, Thomas, or Cleburne in any one of those spots. But you cannot make an argument for a list of top Civil War generals that completely excludes all Confederates. There aren't five Union generals better than Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson. There isn't even one, in my view. In his Valley Campaign, Jackson marched his brigade of shoeless farm boys 600 miles through the mountains over the course of a month and a half, winning five pivotal battles against a combined force that outnumbered his 2:1. Grant never did anything quite like that, though he was impressive in his own right — and the victor, after all.
But I was informed by hundreds of people that I am a racist, just like Trump, for daring to give the Rebels any credit at all. We have reached a point where we cannot acknowledge any of the achievements of morally flawed historical figures. We must pretend they never existed. Driving this point home, a number of people insisted that ranking Confederates as great generals is like ranking Nazis as great generals. That's ridiculous, because of course some Nazi generals were great generals. Erwin Rommel was a great general, as anyone who has studied WW2 knows. The fact that he was fighting on the side of abject evil does not erase his military genius.
If we cannot acknowledge the greatness of morally compromised military commanders, then we cannot acknowledge the greatness of any military commander. Not a single one of them would pass muster by the standards of today's anachronizing blowhards. Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great — all must be removed from the history books. Even the Union commanders in the Civil War get thrown out with this bath water. Grant was an anti-Semite who tried to evict all the Jews from his military district. Sherman was a war criminal. Lincoln was a racist who publicly professed his bigotry during a debate with Stephen Douglas:
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”
If we are not willing to see things in their historical context, and to accept that people in the past weren't as racially enlightened as we are today, then we will be left with no heroes, no great men at all. But if we are willing to forgive Lincoln his virulent racism, and Grant his predilection for ethnic cleansing, then we must extend a similar generosity to men like Robert E. Lee.
Nothing will make slavery anything less than a moral abomination. And it is true that slavery was a very significant motivating factor behind secession, as Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina all made abundantly clear in their Declaration of Causes of Seceding States. But it is equally true that many men who did the fighting on both sides did not perceive themselves to be fighting over slavery. There's a reason Lincoln waited two years to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He said early on that if he could keep the country together by keeping slavery, he would do it. To him, and to the Union soldiers on the ground, it was a fight to preserve the Union. The sad fact of the matter is that most Northerners were racist themselves and would not have charged into gunfire for the sake of liberating the slaves, no matter how distasteful they found the institution.
For their part, many southern soldiers thought they were fighting a war of defense against hostile invaders. There's a reason Jefferson Davis did not send his army to capture Washington, even though perhaps they could have done so after the stunning Confederate victory at Bull Run to start the war. This is the reality Robert E. Lee confronted. He was offered command of Union forces but declined because, as a loyal Virginian, he could not march against his home state. He saw it as a choice between defending his home or the Union. He chose his home.
Perhaps you would have chosen differently. Perhaps you would have taken up arms against your own family. Perhaps you would have been more enlightened than almost everyone else and seen the struggle in the same light that spectators in the future would see it. I congratulate this hypothetical version of yourself, in that case. It's true that Robert E. Lee lacked this sort of enlightenment. It's also true that when he was faced with a difficult dilemma, he made the choice he thought was right, and then proceeded to win battle after battle against a foe with superior numbers, superior weaponry, and superior resources. That's why he's a great general.
And again he was blessed by the fact that McClellan was utterly incompetent
McClellan was not interested in winning the war. He sympathized withthe other side.
He ran against Lincoln in 1864 as the Democrats nominee.
"easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 221-21 electoral votes, with 55% of the popular vote."
He said:
"...The real cause of the war was a fight over money..."
Since the South considered the slaves to be property... valuable property... this statement is partially correct.
But the South was fighting to EXPAND slavery into Kansas, Nebraska, and anywhere else they wanted to move their 'money' to.
I don't know that that's true. I think he was a glory hound who wanted to lead victorious armies. But more than that, he didn't want to lose a battle, which paralyzed him. Even with Lee's battle plan in his hand, at Antietam, he was timid.
On the plus side, he did build the Army of the Potomac. The problem was that once he had them, he was afraid to do anything with them. The Peninsula Campaign was a brilliant idea, but once he landed the army, he delayed and delayed getting them moving until Lee was able to get his forces organized.
Custer was Pleasanton’s errand boy and he somehow survived (Custer’s luck) the Brandy Station charge he came to lead because Kilpatrick had either his horse shot out from under him or he fell off of it.
He wasn’t promoted 5 ranks either - it was 4.
Be more specific about what time? June 29, 1863? Farnsworth wasn’t 2nd Dragoons either.
Lee had McClellan so fooled about his troop strength and precise location that it made him hesitate to commit the vast majority of his forces to engagement. I give him a lot of credit for that.
Either Mac was drunk or totally paranoid. He could have and should have won the vast majority of those engagements.
Grant did what Mac should have done, committed his full forces and used his cavalry to confuse.
To: blueyon
Good. They’d be coming after Washington and Jefferson next. Damned God-hating, America-hating Marxist/fascist book burners.
3 posted on 4/29/2019, 5:03:52 PM by Jim Robinson (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God!)
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So which are you X......God hating or America hating....?
C106
c106
That is about the time that Lincoln said to McClellan, “If you are not going to use the Army, do you mind if I borrow it?”
Everyone who applauded [or cared not] about the banning of the battle flag needs to STFU about every other statue being pulled down, now.
They did nothing to stop that and those of us who possess foresight KNEW that flag was just the start of a completel historical purge.
What it ‘represented’ is irrelevant.
It was chosen specifically because defending it made you a “racist, slave loving bigot” when in reality, it was nothing more than a foot in the door, the inch we gave them that will become many miles and the slippery slope we are currently plunging down.
All those who did nothing OWN what’s happening now.
ALL of it.
Ripping Kate Smith’s statue down outrages you?
Too damn bad.
You who allowed the battle flag to be outlawed, YOU did it.
Plus one
At first, the Confederacy simply wanted to survive and defend its right to secede. They had no interest in invading Union territory. As the Union army went on the offense and prepared to invade the South, the Confederate army went on the defense and prepared themselves for attack.
Due to the Confederate army’s small size, Confederate President Jefferson Davis planned to avoid major battles with the Union army to prevent annihilation of his army and instead planned to only participate in small, limited engagements when the odds were in their favor.
“Lee understood from the beginning of the war that the Confederacy’s best hope for independence rested upon the morale of the Northern people. If they believed the war could not be won, or could only be won at too high a cost, then Southern independence became a real possibility. Confederate military successes were the means to erode morale and create this political climate. The fall elections in the North were approaching. England and France stood on the sidelines watching closely, carefully weighing whether they should recognize the Confederacy. Lee sensed a great opportunity was at hand. He believed the Union army was disorganized and demoralized. He also knew that it was receiving many reinforcements in the form of newly raised regiments in answer to President Lincoln’s July call for 300,000 volunteers. Only one move would force the Federals to place their army in the field before they had reorganized and offered the best chance to do further damage to Northern morale: Invade the border state of Maryland.”
By invading Maryland and posing a threat to cities like Harrisburg, Philadelphia and even Washington D.C., Lee believed it would encourage secessionists in those areas and would pressure Lincoln and other leaders to curtail military operations or perhaps negotiate with the Confederates.
Ping
Do you have evidence to back up such a claim? Was this supposed to be jeff davis’s grand strategy or Lee’s? Because it is the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.
An entire community of people set fire to their homes in a game of “poke the bear” hoping that the bear would grow tired of the irritation and give up? Surely they weren’t that imbecilic?!
I must say that I do recall a similar stratagem in my youth where a kid blindsided me while in the presence of a teacher, knowing that the teacher would break up any fight that ensued before things got too out of hand. He got the crap kicked outta him for his trouble too, teacher or no teacher.
All these years battling you morons and I thought you had some understanding of history. This explains a lot. You are stupid, ignorant and refuse to learn.
You actually think the war could possible have resulted in the CSA conquering the North. That is retarded beyond belief.
I wouldn’t. Mill came up with the fallacy that it was “about” slavery despite the fact that the North has offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment and despite Lincoln’s repeated denials and despite the US Congress passing a resolution - after the Southern delegation had withdrawn - staring that they were not fighting over slavery. They could not possibly have been any more clear that slavery was not what they were fighting over.
Yep. Leftist Yankees have always hated the South and everything it stood for. But of course everything the South stood for is what America was founded on. Most of the Founding Fathers were Southerners.
Who does anybody think the PC Revisionists are going for next? Duh.
If the Southern states were poor and a drain on the government, nobody would have cared if they had left. The fact that they were producing almost all the money spent in Washington is why the government would not let them go.
Contrast this with the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, which still has an open invitation to leave.
1. The Secretary of War John B Floyd had informed the people of Charleston that all the forts would be turned over to them shortly. (Union Captain Abner Doubleday, "From Moultrie to Sumter")
2. Spiking guns and burning carriages is what one does if one expects to be fighting an enemy. In case you missed it, the people of Charleston took this to mean that Anderson considered them to be his enemy.
Also, the Southern people paid 73-85% of all the Federal taxes in the United States at that time. You may not believe this, but I love it when i'm presented opportunities to acquaint people with this fact.
*THEY* Paid for the f***ing forts, Not the North.
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