I wonder how General Lee would have felt about the statues erected to him all over the South?
He supposedly said towards the end of his life that going to West Point (and presumably, the army) was the biggest istake of his life.
I believe that the lives of his fallen men, as well as the carnage that he had a front row seat to, weighed heavily on his soul.
I prefer to think that he would not have wanted to see statues glorifying his taking part in that war all over the countryside.
Does anyone better educated in Gen Lee’s post-war writings have any thoughts on the matter?
Lee would be happy because those statues are also a reflection on the valor of the Southern fighting man.
When he posed for one of the last formal portraits before he died, the painter wanted him to put on his uniform, but he declined that and would only display his sword and belt on a table in front of him. So, I don't believe that he would be comfortable with all the statues either.
Sept. 1870 Lee to Governor Fletcher Stockdale:
“Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people
designed to make of their victory,
there would have been no surrender at
Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me.
Had I foreseen these results of subjugation,
I would have preferred to die at Appomattox
with my brave men, my sword in my right hand.”
“Those people” were the Yankee aristocrats and moneyed radicalized classes, whose goal was not freeing slaves but utilizing the post war societal chaos to fully disrupt the plantation system, and to make fortunes stealing either from the federal government, or the actual citizens/titled landholders of the South, picking them up from desperate citizens.
Abolition of involuntary servitude, not to mention chattel slavery, is a moral demand. Can also feel pretty safe concluding that, whatever the benefit of the system to slave-owners, its abolition made as much economic sense as anything can.
Lee personally abhorred the spotlight of his war deeds, including his victories in the Mexican War- these being a matter of duty.