[Non-Sequitur]

ne day, deButts called Shepard's office from the library. "You have got to come down here," he said, sounding excited. Shepard hustled downstairs and deButts showed him what he'd just picked out of the trunk: an envelope containing three cloth stars -- general's stars -- that Lee cut off his Confederate uniform after he surrendered at Appomattox.

Three cloth stars alone indicated a colonel in the confederate army, all general officers regardless of rank wore three stars in a wreath. Lee, for whatever reason, preferred to wear the colonel's rank on his uniform during the war.

[KC Burke]

great tidbit

[lovecraft]

Wasn’t he a Colonel in the Federal Army before he resigned? If so, maybe that had something to do with....speculation of course.

[Terabitten]

He was a colonel when he left the US Army, wasn’t he?

[TLI]

for whatever reason, preferred to wear the colonel's rank on his uniform during the war.

Could be why his men were so loyal. In his heart and in his actions he was really just one of them, a southern American fighting for his home against an encroaching federalist government.