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Symposium to honor Lee, villain or 'the noblest ever' ?
Washington Times ^ | April 25, 2007 | Robert Stacy McCain

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: bragbowling; civilwar; confederacy; confederate; dixie; north; robertelee; south
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To: ExpatGator

I had family on both sides of The War, and see the convoluted truth on both sides.”

Nicely put. The battle cry of Freedom could legitimately be had by both sides, and could legitimately be scoffed at by the other side. Therein lies the tragedy. And the importance of amnesty and unity going forward, as Lincoln thought.


41 posted on 04/25/2007 11:13:18 AM PDT by ConservativeDude (")
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To: G-Bear

“Lee was a traitor who resigned from his teaching position at West Point... He should have been hung and his Army decimated in the Roman sense of the term”.
In the first place you don’t know what you are talking about. Lee was stationed in West Texas at the beginning of Secession. He took a leave of absence to take care of business affairs at the Arlington Plantation and was home and available for service when the John Brown incident came up. He then was offered the Command of the Union Army which he declined and resigned his Commission.
Only when Virginia seceded did he join the military forces of his Native State. He was not a “traitor”.
And btw, since you would have liked to have had my GGrandfather murdered, I would like to invite you down to Texas and try it on me as he’s not here to defend himself.


42 posted on 04/25/2007 11:13:38 AM PDT by BnBlFlag (Deo Vindice/Semper Fidelis "Ya gotta saddle up your boys; Ya gotta draw a hard line")
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To: abenaki

I just found out last week that Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis are in my family tree.


43 posted on 04/25/2007 11:16:21 AM PDT by MamaB
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To: G-Bear

Don’t like the man much, do you?


44 posted on 04/25/2007 11:17:38 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Save Fredericksburg. Support CVBT.)
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To: Red Badger

Thats the story I heard too. I was hoping I was wrong.


45 posted on 04/25/2007 11:17:41 AM PDT by SWEETSUNNYSOUTH (Help stamp out liberalism!)
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To: G-Bear
"Lee was a traitor, who resigned from his teaching position at West Point to fight for the Confederacy."

Lee was not teaching at West Point when he choose to remain loyal to his home state. Lee was an officer in the United States Army and generally regarded as the best officer in the military. His abilities had recently been put on display when he quickly stopped the John Brown rebellion.

46 posted on 04/25/2007 11:18:00 AM PDT by joebuck
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To: Turbo Pig

I was amazed at how quiet it is there. Even with several funerals going on at once, it was positively silent..........


47 posted on 04/25/2007 11:18:28 AM PDT by Red Badger (If it's consensus, it's not science. If it's science, there's no need for consensus......)
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To: Virginia Ridgerunner

Your understanding of Lee’s decision making reflects my own. It is interesting to remember, too, that “Old Fuss and Feathers” Winfield Scott, who commanded Lee in the Mexican War and himself a native Virginian and resident, presented himself for duty in DC when the War broke out. He was praised and sent home because his time had passed. It seems, that even today, some have a hard time deciding who the enemy is.


48 posted on 04/25/2007 11:23:00 AM PDT by abenaki
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To: rogue yam

I have been here a while, I make a point of clicking on threads concerning the South, and I have never seen anyone on FR defend slavery in any way, shape or form.”

Really?

OK, then, for a recent example of how “slavery wasn’t all that bad” check out post #12 on this thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1521640/posts

The writer says,

“Sorry, but slaves weren’t all beaten and treated badly. The farmers couldn’t afford to have them injured or sickly. If the slaves weren’t able to work, there was no harvest and the owners would be broke. My great-grandmother was glad when the slaves were freed because they were too much trouble to care for.”

I’ve heard it all before, way too often. Slavery wasn’t all that bad, they were taken care of, they were worse off with emancipation, etc., etc., etc.

Personally, I find it tiresome. And it happens here more than I care to recall.


49 posted on 04/25/2007 11:24:42 AM PDT by ConservativeDude (")
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To: SWEETSUNNYSOUTH

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Robert_E._Lee_Memorial_Arlington_House


50 posted on 04/25/2007 11:26:26 AM PDT by Red Badger (If it's consensus, it's not science. If it's science, there's no need for consensus......)
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To: G-Bear

Lee should have been hung”

You could at least argue that he should have been hanged....


51 posted on 04/25/2007 11:27:50 AM PDT by ConservativeDude (")
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To: ConservativeDude

I see it in fairly neutral terms. Lee was a genius, and a gentleman. Lincoln showed incredible civility/compassion at the end of the war (his policies for reconstruction survived his death) after showing ruthlessness to the South and the North during the war.

Sherman got a bum rap. I look at his march through the South in the same light as the firebombing of Dresden or the nuking of Japan: necessary backbreaking warfare. His was actually a genius campaign.

The war was a tragedy. Let’s hope the next one ends as well.


52 posted on 04/25/2007 11:29:50 AM PDT by ExpatGator (Extending logic since 1961.)
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To: MamaB

I just found out last week that Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis are in my family tree.”

By the way, Richard Henry Lee, the member of the Cont Congress who introduced the resolution for independence, was RE Lee’s great uncle (or something like that).

You have a distinguished family tree!


53 posted on 04/25/2007 11:30:08 AM PDT by ConservativeDude (")
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To: SWEETSUNNYSOUTH

Robert E Lee was a great man.


54 posted on 04/25/2007 11:31:49 AM PDT by TYVets (God so loved the world he didn't send a committee)
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To: ConservativeDude

“They said you was hung!”

“They was right!”

(obscure movie quote...)


55 posted on 04/25/2007 11:31:59 AM PDT by T.Smith
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To: G-Bear
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.

I'd ask "what are you, 12?". But when I was 12, I was much better informed than you were.

56 posted on 04/25/2007 11:33:02 AM PDT by Sans-Culotte
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To: ConservativeDude

Lighthorse Harry Lee - a signer of the declaration of independence - was R.E. Lee’s father.


57 posted on 04/25/2007 11:33:27 AM PDT by T.Smith
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To: Red Badger
Lee’s home is now the greatest and most hallowed shrine in ALL of the DC area...............

No, it's actually his yard (inherited only a year or so before the war from his father-in-law) that is the most hallowed and only because of the heroes who rest beneath it.

58 posted on 04/25/2007 11:33:44 AM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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To: ExpatGator

A final thought, then I have to pretend to work again.

IF you find yourself at war (recognizing that generals should not be the ones to decide when to war, but to execute the war), then it should be waged like Sherman (or Patton).

Victor Davis hanson uses him (I think) as an example in a book called “The Soul of Battle” or something like that.

I wish we had a President like Lincoln and generals like Sherman, Grant, Lee and Patton to wage war against Islamists today. The world would be a very different place. (It would help if the Democrats would just disappear, also).


59 posted on 04/25/2007 11:33:49 AM PDT by ConservativeDude (")
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To: ConservativeDude
there is many a Rebel here

The term "Rebel" is offensive to defenders of the Confederacy, because it presupposes the Unionist argument, namely that secession was an unlawful act. In the Revolutionary War, the so-called "rebels" called themselves "Patriots".

60 posted on 04/25/2007 11:34:22 AM PDT by Romulus (Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo.)
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