No, there aren't. There are a few who think of Lincoln as something close to Hitler, though.
The point the posters you criticize are trying to make may be that the idea of an American Army officer turning his back on the country to lead an army against it isn't something that we can wholeheartedly celebrate. It's at best morally very ambiguous, and perhaps worse than that.
If something like this happened today, and the former Superintendent of West Point took up arms against his countrymen we wouldn't just celebrate his character and victories, would we? We'd wonder about him, maybe condemn him. You don't have to. But it would help if you recognized that there's more than one side to the question.
Your analogy isn’t relevant, actually.
The very nature of the understanding of the “United States of America” was fundamentally transformed by the Civil War. Simplistically but accurately represented as a change from “these United States” to “The United States”.
People simply cannot discount that change, can’t legitimately draw any sort of analogy between then and now. The idea that we are one nation, indivisible as opposed to a confederated republic made up of sovereign states is a product of the Civil War, was something decided by the Civil War.
Good reads on this point are the books “April 1865” and “Lincoln at Gettysburg” by Gary Wills.
If George Washington hadn’t won you’d be saying the same about him?
... LOL!
The depths of dishonesty people reach on the topic of the Civil War is astounding.
But the view of “country” vs. “state” is very different now than it was in 1860. Lee did not do what he did lightly, in fact, he shocked his own wife (who was apparently pro-Union) by resigning his commission and accepting the position of commanding Virginia militia troops. When one of Lincoln’s advisors offered him the job of commanding the defense of Washington DC itself, Lee told him: “Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?”
Many, if not most, people in those days owed their loyalty to their home state first and the United States second (and maybe even possibly their hometown or county above all). That’s why Lee did what he did. He considered himself a Virginian first and an American second, because in 1860, this country was still a collection of the “several States” instead of a monolithic Federal beast.
I think that’s one of the reasons Lee’s legend grew down here even over and above his tremendous skill as a general and his gentlemanly deportment. He didn’t want there to even be a Civil War, he didn’t want Virginia to secede, he thought the whole thing was stupid, but nevertheless he did his duty as he saw it and served his home state to the best of his considerable ability. There’s a hint of the romantically tragic about it.
}:-)4
x: No, there aren't.
How about this one from an FR Lee thread of yore:
"Robert E. Lee, along with Jefferson Davis, were directly responsible for the deaths of more Americans, over 600,000, then Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, COMBINED!"