Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Non-Sequitur
George Thomas and David Farragut and John Gibbon were fighting for Americans, not for Pennsylvanians or New Yorkers. They were fighting for their country, not their state. Yet you contemptuously dismiss their actions as those of gold-diggers seeking rank and privilige regardless of who is offering it.

Well, we know that Lincoln made sure Lee was brought to Washington DC so that Scott could offer him the Unionist command. Why did he do that, unless it was politically useful to him to have a Virginian, a Southerner, at the head of his columns?

And he did offer him rank. Lee was a colonel -- and Lincoln offered him three stars, just like that.

And as I thought I explained about Lee's choice, he made the honorable choice to go with his neighbors, whom he always mentioned as the real reason he resigned his Union commission as soon as Virginia voted secession.

If other Southerners didn't go with their states, then either they were now citizens of Northern States, or else they let their politics overcome their loyalties. And they must bear the mark for having done so.

All you did was cast slurs without offering the slightest bit of support.

Did not. I quoted Lee down the line and explained his timing and motives in refutation of Wlat's slur, that Lee was two-faced and a traitor. I expounded Lee's loyalties, and how he let his loyalties determine his direction, even though his personal political opinion appears to have been fairly strongly opposed to the majority of his fellows.

But that cuts no ice with you, I see -- the South's scalawags must be lionized and comforted because they fought for the Union; and as for the Confederates -- get a rope!

Well, excuse me for demurring.

639 posted on 05/29/2002 8:01:21 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 602 | View Replies ]


To: lentulusgracchus
But he never waged war on his own, in order to receive high rank from a constitutional adventurer the way Admiral Farragut did, or some other prominent Union generals we could talk about.

Demuring is one thing. Accusing is another and in your above reply you accused Farragut and others of remaining with the Union solely for promotion, when, in fact, all these men could have received equivilent or higher positions down south, serving a man with less respect for constitutional law than you accuse Lincoln of having. They followed a higher loyalty, one which I have no doubt George Washington would have approved of. But instead of respecting their decision you find some ulterior motive for it. And then you have the gall to take offense when someone does that you your marble saint.

649 posted on 05/29/2002 9:30:36 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 639 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson