It Is A. P. Hill FROM HARPERS FERRY

September 17, 1862, the last hour of the bloodiest day in American military history, Lee knew that his beleaguered line must at last give way to overwhelming odds and the Army of Northern Virginia verged on destruction and, with it, destruction of the Confederacy itself.

Through one of history's oddist twists Lee's orders dividing his army had been discovered by common soldier in an open field days before wrapped around three cigars. The normally slothful McClellan was for once animated by the knowledge that Lee's army could be destroyed piecemeal. Lee drew up his army along Antietam Creek near the village of Sharpsburg Maryland to defend itself while he awaited the remnants of his army to come to his aid and rebalance, at least in part, the overwhelming material and numerical advantage of the Yankees.

Shelby Foote in his first volume of Civil War narrative describes the forced march of AP Hill from Harpers Ferry to Sharpsburg:

Jacket off because of the heat, [AP Hill] rode in his bright red battle shirt alongside the panting troops, prodding laggards with the point of his saber. Beyond this, he had no dealings with stragglers, but left them winded by the roadside, depending on them to catch up in time if they could. Not many could, apparently; for he began the march with about 5000 men and ended with barely 3000.

Here was the decisive moment and Lee knew that all would soon be lost. Shelby Foote describes one of the most dramatic scenes of the war:

Observing a column moving up from the south west along the ridge line, Lee called to an artillery lieutenant on the way to the front with a section of guns: "what troops are those?" The lieutenant offered him his telescope. "Can't use it," Lee said, holding up a bandaged hand. The lieutenant trained and focus the telescope. "They are flying the United States flag," he reported. Lee pointed to the right, where another distant column was approaching from the southwest nearly perpendicular to the first and repeated the question. The lieutenant swung the glass in that direction, peered intently, and announced: "they are flying the Virginia and Confederate flags." Lee suppressed his elation, although the words refilled his one hope for deliverance from defeat. "It is AP Hill from Harpers Ferry," he said calmly.

As Shelby Foote wrote about AP Hill, "as was his custom, he struck hard." And so the Army of Northern Virginia was spared, but the North kept the field enabling Lincoln to claim victory and to issue his Emancipation Proclamation thus recasting the whole character of the war.

jmacusa: "...the human carnage of Lee’s treason."

nathanbedford: "Really?
Lee was never convicted of or even tried for treason, rather, his descendents were awarded compensation by the government for misappropriating the Custis Lee mansion overlooking Arlington.
Lee surrendered according to the terms outlined by US Grant awarding parole to those who surrendered."

PeaRidge: "Thank you for an eloquent post, and for exposing jmac for who he is."

More important, Confederates were all eventually pardoned -- that was the tactical deal: no guerilla warfare in exchange for eventual pardons.

However the United States never ever recognized the Confederacy as a legitimate country, which means that, in fact, every Confederate & Copperhead met the Constitution's definition of treason:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

The fact they were officially pardoned does not mean no crimes were committed.

For a modern analogy, consider that President Carter pardoned all Vietnam era draft dodgers, in mass.
Doesn't mean they didn't dodge the draft, only that they weren't charged & convicted for it.

You are correct, Lee was never convicted of treason. And OJ was never convicted of murder.

And you were never convicted of tax evasion.

But by God, Lee broke his oath to the country that trained him and made him the officer he was.

Hardly, actually it was his father and uncle who helped make it the country it was. Lee's behavior was honorable, he declined the offer of command of the northern armies, resigned his commission as he was perfectly entitled to do, and went to the defense of his state, which he conceived to be his "country". You may disagree with that conception but it was after all what the war was fought about.

Descended from these luminous revolutionaries as he was, it is likely that Lee had a better view of his duty to his country, certainly a view more contemporaneous than yours, a view which has the right to be viewed within the context of its time and not by today's standards, a view to which he adhered before he resigned, during the war and entirely without blemish for the rest of his life after the war.

Lee should have been wiped out at Antietam because he really wasn’t that good of a tactician, but only the cowardice and political desires of McClellan saved Lee.

Apart from postmodern revisionists who are animated by political revisionism, virtually every writer would be hard-pressed to decide whether Lee was the more brilliant tactician or the more brilliant strategist.

His calmness and unperturbability, as distinguished from his opposite numbers on the federal side in the unbelievable stress of battle demonstrate what a good tactician Lee actually was. He survived Sharpsburg because he kept his wits about him and made virtually every tactical move required just at the right time when any single misstep would've lost him the battle.

Interestingly, McClellan was regarded by Lee to be his most able adversary remarking to his son after the war when asked who was his best opponent, "by all odds, McClellan."

nathanbedford on RE Lee: "Descended from these luminous revolutionaries as he was, it is likely that Lee had a better view of his duty to his country, certainly a view more contemporaneous than yours, a view which has the right to be viewed within the context of its time and not by today's standards, a view to which he adhered before he resigned, during the war and entirely without blemish for the rest of his life after the war."

Virginia itself (not including West Virginia) provided about 100,000 troops to the Confederacy and notable generals including Lee, Stuart, Hill & Early.
Less often remembered is that Virginia (not including West Virginia) supplied about 40,000 troops to the Union army and about 40% of Virginia's military officers remained loyal to the Union, notably including Generals Scott & Thomas and Admiral Farragut.

So, bottom line: RE Lee's opinion regarding his first loyalty to Virginia was not shared by every Virginia military officer or soldier.

First, thank you for the personal attack, it shows me the level of logic you are incapable of.

2nd, Lee was trained by the USA, sent to Mexico by the USA, educated and raised to a great level by the USA. Everything he was, he owed to the USA. And if he actually had understood what his father and uncle were trying to do, he would have been anti-slavery. And he id understand the difference between country and state, which is why he was an officer in the UNITED STATES Army, not the Virginian army, and he decided to not keep his oath of protecting and defending it.

3rd, no tactician worth their name should have been caught on the wrong side of one river crossing with an entire army, no tactician worth anything would have agreed to Pickett’s Charge, and he should have listened to Longstreet but he was so enamored of his “troops” he thought a few thousand of them dead was worth they try.

And I didn’t say McClellan was bad, I agree he was a good General, but he had political aims of becoming President himself and didn’t want Lincoln to have a victory. Kind of like Trump and the Middle East right now, the media do not want him to have a victory.

central_va: "Lee stopped the idea of guerrilla warfare in the bud.
An that had nothing to do with a pardon which was way in the future."

Well... first of all Lee did not control several Confederate armies in the South & West which could also have decided on their own to wage guerilla warfare against the USA.

But all of those surrenders had much to do with Lincoln's instructions to his generals to: "let them up easy".

And there's this:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."

I'm saying: had Lincoln taken the approach that all Confederates should be tried for treason, then the Confederate responses would have been quite different.

BroJoeK says,"... the United States never ever recognized the Confederacy as a legitimate country..."

Lincoln sent a letter to all the states mobilizing troops to attack one of the states. You cannot commit "treason" by defending your state when your own governor calls you to arms to do it. Recognize this as one of the many ways in which shared and separated powers of the various branches and organs of government create conflict. A high school definition of treason does not apply.

Article 3, Section 2 that you cite uses the plural "states". If one were to say that Lincoln committed treason because he attacked SC or VA that would make the similar legal mistake. When you read "United States" you actually see it in the singular, one country with a single proper name. To others the idea was plural, that the states were nations united for common defense and to secure the blessings of liberty etc. In a courtroom, (or in a legislature) there is so much of this very kind of legal wrangling over definitions that goes on. No point in getting into that stuff. What jury will hear it? What bench will rule on it? What authority will act upon that ruling?

There were confederates who adamantly opposed R.E. Lee's invasion of PA on this basis. They held that fighting a purely defensive war against Yankee invaders was moral and legal, but invading Penna. was no different than what the blue bellies had done. After the war, when it was popular to refer to Pickett's charge as "the high water mark of the Confederacy", it was not uncommon for certain Southrons to point to that invasion as the grave iniquity which removed God's blessing from the glorious cause. You will say this is ridiculous of course, but it is no less applicable than what you are saying. Does this make any sense? Lee fighting in VA is OK, but fighting in PA is wrong?

There was a lot of talk about hanging the confederate leaders like Pres. Davis and Lee after Lincoln's murder. They did their best to implicate the CSA gov't in the crime, but under your rubric, every Johnny Reb could have been legally and morally hanged. The South thought that for the most part (or at least enough of) the northern people were honorable (or at least honorable enough) to make peace.

When the Nazi war criminals were tried, they all claimed they were just following orders. All the talk at the time about the legal validity of such orders was and is only important to salve the conscience of either the Nazi or his hangman or both. Johann Reichart killed 3,165 "enemies of the Third Reich" and earned the nickname "Headhunter". Not only was he not hanged for it, because of his expertise he was utilized by the allies to execute other Nazi war criminals!

When Captain Henry Wirz was hanged at Old Capitol Prison, there was much talk about the legality and morality of it. Pointless on both sides as they proved on the one hand that he had murdered prisoners with his own revolver regardless of the point you raise, and on the other hand a "high cabinet official" told the lawyer, Schade, that Wirz' sentence would be commuted if he would just implicate Jeff Davis. See what was really going on?

There was no "eventual pardon" of Confederates as there were no charges or convictions. There is no point to your point. You press some technical definition of a crime outside of a courtroom as if it matters. Your conscience needs no such salve. Your opponents here will never concede your point.

I think I understand the hostility of those on FR who object to the "lost causers". Some would seem to want to immerse the Confederacy in the holy water of righteous justification. Pointless! I say God will judge. But by the same token, I think you Brother Joe would understand that we here on FR will be friends in the future conflict. I hope you would read again the Second Inaugural Address, (so will I,) understand it, believe that it still applies, now more than ever.

Uh-oh I see I went on too long here Brother Joe. Sorry I don't have time to boil it down, wish I was a better writer. You made your point succinctly and I rambled on. Look forward to any correction and contradiction. Always enjoy you on the forum and kind FReegards to you and all yours!

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