Posted on 04/25/2007 10:11:37 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
Winston Churchill called him "one of the noblest Americans who ever lived," and Theodore Roosevelt called him "the very greatest of all the great captains that the English-speaking peoples have brought forth." But has political correctness turned Robert E. Lee into a villain? That will be the question explored by six historians this weekend at a symposium commemorating the bicentennial of the Confederate commander's birth. "We were afraid that Lee would not receive the honors he should get because of the prevailing political correctness," says Brag Bowling, a Richmond resident who helped organize Saturday's event at the Key Bridge Marriott Hotel in Arlington. The symposium will be the largest event of its kind this year honoring Lee, who was born Jan. 19, 1807.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
So you’re claiming that Lincoln didn’t run on a program of increasing Federal power for “internal improvements” and other purposes? Yo’ure denying that he planned to increase the size of the Federal government?
Do tell!
Without your obvious idolatry.
In the eyes of the federal government they would have been free. Had Lee's chattel then run off to Union lines they could not have been returned to slavery if caught.
My point is that of these two groups, the Yanks don’t want to honor the Confederate fallen, while the Southerners are willing to honor the fallen on both sides. I had ancestors on both sides. Part of the problem is that the liberal educational establishments encourage the first point-of-view.
Sherman was a good general who defeated his enemy, and his enemy happened to be your side. That's the part you find monsterous.
The war is over, for now.
And forever. Your side gave up, or weren't you aware of that?
“...and I have never seen anyone on FR defend slavery in any way, shape or form.”
I’m with you. I do know (because of my extensive Irish heritage) that the Irish up north were treated as poorly as slaves on many, many occasions.
“I could say the same concerning the North from the Southerners around here.”
That’s not true.
Have you ever bothered to read the platforms for either of the Democratic factions in 1860?
Withot your obvious idolatry.
Or your vivid imagination.
You must not spend a lot of time on these War of Southern Rebellion threads.
“Lee should have been hung, and his army decimated, in the Roman sense of the term.”
Lee was ten times the man you ever be, pipsqueak.
At least take consolation that Sherman decimated enough innocents to make up for it.
Well, revisionist history has if anything else. Besides, if Lee was such a villian, why didn't Grant try him for treason after the Confederacy surrendered?
Because it wasn't his job to? Treason charges would have had to been made by the government. Various amnesty proclamations made by President Johnson, along with the passage of the 14th Amendment, ended any chance of trial even if anyone had wanted one.
But what you did was point out how easily the South got off for their rebellion. I defy you to name a single case of armed rebellion where the losing side got off so lightly or were incorporated back into the body politic so quickly.
Actually, one person who considered it something akin to treason was none other than Robert E. Lee. He did not believe that unilateral secession was constitutional and said so.
And you Lost Cause myth makers are Drama Queens.
Unfortunately, you are right.
“Sherman was a good general who defeated his enemy, and his enemy happened to be your side. That’s the part you find monsterous”
Sherman is a “good general” because his side won. If they had lost, he would have been hung for war crimes.
You are either playing dumb or being dumb.
It is a great and good irony isn’t it, that the National Cemetery at Arlington, is all on the old Custis-Lee plantation. Although his body lies in Lexington, I’m sure General Lee in Heaven is happy about the tens of thousands of heroes’ tombs awaiting the Last Resurrection on what was his land; now America’s most hallowed ground.
Anderson took a leave because of ill health after the recruiting tour and officially retired in 1863. He returned to duty as a brevet Major General in 1865 and raised the United States flag in Ft. Sumter on April 14, four years to the day after he took it down. It was only after that that he went to France, dying six years later.
As I recall, Lee thought the Texans were going to jail him for refusing to sign on with them. They ended up letting him leave, but they did not allow him to take his own belongings with him.
I wonder if they ever made restitution? ;~))
I guess that is what they teach in the schools in New England or somewhere. It wasn’t entirely clear that secession was treason or rebellion. The north certainly could have taken a harder approach of legally prosecuting Confederates.
There were several southern officers executed, including Henry Wirz, the commander of Andersonville prisoner of war camp. Quantrell, the leader Quantrell’s raiders was killed when trying to flee to Mexico and refusing to surrender to union soldiers, and he would undoubtably have been tried if captured. Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders were imprisoned. I am sure Sherman would have been tried if he was captured by the Confederacy.
The parts of the south were extremely wealthy before the Civil War. The south was completely devastated by the war. This was due to the collapse of Confederate currency and Confederate government securities, the freeing of the slaves, the union naval blockade, and the union policy of burning, looting, shooting livestock, and destroying railroads and factories. A large portion of the working age white men were killed or disabled. After the war, the south was exploited under military occupation and rule by northern “carpet baggers”, when most white were prevented from voting.
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