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 ...
Lee was a traitor, who resigned from his teaching position at West Point to fight for the Confederacy. I see him the same as the deluded Americans that have gone to fight for the Taliban.
Lee should have been hung, and his army decimated, in the Roman sense of the term.
Which one? His home in Arlington or Lexington? I assume you mean Arlington because his home in Lexington isn’t what I would call small, but he died in Lexington, which is also where he is buried.
His neighbors there are also some of the best and brightest in America, because his home sits on the grounds of Washington and Lee University...
And here’s yet one more SCV member who agrees.
Remember also. Lee was a major reason that the South didn’t rise again. He went on a speaking tour advocating reconciliation after the war, and was much loved by all.
This would have been a colossally stupid decision if the goal was to end the fighting. Fortunately, folks who understood this were calling the shots.
I heard that the yanks started using his home for a graveyard for soldiers even before the war was over. I hope I am wrong about that.
Arlington.........an absolutely beautiful place..........Even tho the Northern Army attempted to humiliate Lee by burying their dead in his yard, they actually made an everlasting honor to him and those like him..........
“Lee was a traitor, who resigned from his teaching position at West Point to fight for the Confederacy.”
You really should learn about a person, and his life, before making such statements.
This sentence is completely and totally False.
Lee resigned his commission in the United States Army. His last post was in Texas before the Civil War. He had left West Point YEARS before.
If you want to attack the man, at least use facts, in short.
Only because they created a National Cemetary around it.
No, you are not wrong. It was an attempt to humiliate Lee.....
“Here’s one that ought to PO the Yankees out there....
Lee’s home is now the greatest and most hallowed shrine in ALL of the DC area...............”
Not me. He was an amazing man, one I would have been honored to have known if it was possible.
No, and it was deliberate. They wanted to make the property unliveable.
The Lee family eventually got some money, but it took a lengthy court battle that lasted over a decade, as I recall.
“Remember also. Lee was a major reason that the South didn’t rise again. He went on a speaking tour advocating reconciliation after the war, and was much loved by all.”
Yep. Lee’s leadership qualities never shined brighter than they did in April 1865.
” heard that the yanks started using his home for a graveyard for soldiers even before the war was over. I hope I am wrong about that.”
Its true.
Different United States then. Lee thought that he was in fact fighting for his country, Virginia. In his mind, he would have been a traitor if he had stayed with the U.S. Army and fought against his “homeland”. You’re applying a presentist analysis here onto an individual (Lee) and a country (the U.S.) that had fundamentally different worldviews in the 1860s.
It’s a comfort to know that so many of us loyal southerners can team up on FR and fight with our yankee friends against the people who are actually destroying our way of life. The loss in our struggle for freedom some 140 years ago pales to the struggle we all face today, not only with the Islamomaniacs but with traitors within.
I have not seen much honoring of the South among non-Southerners in my lifetime.”
I believe that the legislation to make Arlington House a national park service monument (Arlington House was Lee’s home) was introduced by a U.S. Rep. from Ohio. In my mind, that is significant and is in the spirit of Lincoln.
So many praises of Lee on his 200th year have made my day today. Thank you!
What is really ironic about that is that Arlington was built on Lee's property out of spite, for the role he played n the civil war. Now, I can only think of a few more beautiful and austere places to be laid to rest, than amongst those gardens of stone.
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