It's precisely the reason the myths about the man propogated. It's the reason his reputation was besmirched after the war. People repeated it, and it spread, and no one care whether it was true or not.
So yeah, I feel an obligation to step in when I see it or hear it and refute. That's not obnoxious. Say whatever you want about him, but I'll defend him and refute your statements each and every time.
As to the comment about owning slaves, I stand by it when it comes to southern sympathizers. Because there's no excuse for it and it is the reason they were fighting the war. All the rationalization in the world doesn't change the fact that in the end, they were fighting to preserve an agrarian aristocracy that sustained its existence by turning other men into beasts. You're confusing indignation with "hysteria" but that's your problem.
Sorry, I don't let any southern sympathizers or "Lost Cause" adherents off on that one. I'll call it exactly as I see it. And anyone who wishes the south had won, or supports the southern cause, in the end, is wishing that slavery had remained an institution. Period. There isn't any escaping the fact, no matter how "obnoxious" anyone thinks it is to point that fact out, or how much they don't want to hear it.
Godwin's Law /prov./ [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups.
Ah, so if I call you a Nazi, I lose, while if you are a Nazi, you win...
This variation in Godwin's Law is apt since you have accused me of being PRO-SLAVERY! All because I said the that General Grant drank! (And we didn't even get to his terrific job as President of the US).
So, you've lost (but many on this thread knew you were a loser already...)