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This is all a part of the neverending argument. Walt and Company will always feel the way they do. We will always disagree. The most troubling aspect of all this to me is that these threads on FR appear that Reconstruction has never completely gone out of style. The history of the WBTS era will have to be written 4 or 5 centuries later at the earliest...sort of like the English Civil War and Cromwell. It's odd that for nearly 120 years after Reconstruction that historians for the most part were fairly even handed and willing to attribute faults or accolades where they fell to either party. Now here on FR (a Conservative website I'm told) we have FReepers hand in hand with the PC revisionist crowd once again trying to dismatle Southern heritage and place every molecule of blame for that damned war squarely on Southern shoulders. History is NEVER that simple....except to simpletons.

BTW...Cromwell is still a hero or villian to many..LOL

So what you've shown is that you are no different than he is. It's a fact that there were more Northern born confederate generals then there were southern born Union generals. If your contempt for southern men who remained loyal to the Union runs so deep, then what do you have to say about generals like John Pemberton and Josiah Gorgas? Men who were born in the North but fought for the confederacy? I can just imagine what you must think of men like them who turn their backs on their native states just because the south offered a higher rank or a better deal.

He accords him zero respect, none, zippo.

Lee wrecked his own army.

He was a major player in ensuring that a war that was completely winnable was disastrously lost.

Lee also was two-faced.

Robert E. Lee is no proper hero for Americans, saying in 1865 that the best relationship of whites and blacks was that of master and slave. (1) Lee agreed that the system of chattel slavery in the south was a positive good, both rational and Christian, and thus an institution fit to be made permanent to serve as the cornerstone of the Confederate "nation". Too, he was in fact a slave owner, his estate at Arlington being the home of 63 slaves. (2) Lee took up arms against the United States before his letter of resignation was accepted. (3) He was not even a very successful general, squandering his army's manpower in bloody battles that destroyed his opportunity for offensive action and ultimately led to mass desertions. "He failed to rise above local professional concerns and view the war as a whole, displaying little interest or understanding of the overall strategic situation, demonstrating a predilection for Virginia - and Virginians - to the exclusion of all other theaters." (4) If you like losers, Robert E. Lee is the man for you.

And Lee's honor? His statements were inconsistant and self serving:

"The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forebearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession." January 23, 1861 (5)

"All the South has ever desired is that the union, as formed by our founding fathers, should be preserved." Jan 5. 1866 (6)

(1) Lee Considered, By Alan Nolan p. 21

(2) Ibid p. 10

(3) Ibid p. 52

(4) from "A Civil War Treasury" by A.A. Nofi

(5) Lee Considered By Alan Nolan p. 34

(6) Ibid p. 56

Walt