But to be historically accurate, he was against the break up of the US long before the war and only chose to lead the the Confederate army after turning down Lincoln's offer to lead the Union army because he didn’t want to fight against family. Lincoln offered the position to Grant after Lee turned it down. Lee and Grant fought together previous to the Civil War. All these historic details at least put some perspective on these people.

Nothing. The bottom line is, most countries would have killed, or at least imprisoned Lee for fighting against them in a war. the only perspective that needs to be put on lee is that he took up arms against us and LOST, and that he was shown mercy.

Only knowledge. Knowing history isn't a bad thing. Intent, decisions, actions, all affect how we decide to view the past... his or ours. What other countries do.. their intent, decisions, actions affect how the future judges them as well. I can think of a lot of dictators and emperors that killed their enemies after their wars than ones that showed mercy. Was the United States trying to be different than their predecessors? Are we different now? It seems that I need to choose between killing or mercy.

I'm only stating history. No more. I figure judgement of it is according to every person but fact are not.

but the fact that lee and Davis died old rich men who were still at the top of their society means that others could have used that as an excuse to continue the "lost cause."

make an excellent point. I'll think about this.

The exceptions during the Civil War were the people who chose the other side over their state.

General Thomas chose the Union over his state and General Pemberton chose the Confederacy over his state. Those were the exceptions.

We're judging people of the past by the standards of today. That's wrong. In 1860 the federal government was tiny compared to today. There was no income tax, social security, national education system, medicare or medicaid, food stamps, food inspection, minimum wage or national parks.

The average person never had anything to do with the federal government if they weren't an importer or a soldier. The federal government was some far off place that fought Indians and pirates. The union was formed by an agreement of the states, and that's still the way most people saw it. They were citizens of their states first.

Now the federal government is all powerful and the state governments are close to superfluous. Average citizens deal with the federal government constantly and they see it as all-powerful which it is today. It hasn't always been that way.

Also, there was little support for punishing Lee after the war. He was respected as much as any one person north and south. In fact in 1868, a delegation of Democratic leaders approached Lee with the idea of him running for president as a Democrat. He wasn't interested and couldn't anyway as he did not get his citizenship back until Jimmy Carter.

I agree with what you've said but I may or may not fully agree with your fifth paragraph. In essence it may be true but if you are impressing that the federal government should be less involved and states should be more autonomous, as a general statement I would disagree. I think the federal government is essential to most things that affect our lives expecially protecting human rights... It just needs some major fixing. I become more concerned when states are powerful enough to rewrite facts, undermine human rights and claim sovereignty over what belongs to all citizens or even the world.
I apperciate your comments.

I become more concerned when states are powerful enough to rewrite facts, undermine human rights and claim sovereignty over what belongs to all citizens or even the world.

Prime example, the fact that texas textbooks are such a large part of the market they can demand slavery be prettied up .

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/06/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/

...Elihu Washburne, even knew who Grant was. I'm referring to people in high offices.

Many in the small army at the time knew Grant; many thought him a worthless drunk, an unfair characterization, probably based on an episode in California where he was depressed being away from his beloved family and serving under a hostile superior.

Grant became famous for his continuous success, first on a small scale, and ultimately at Fort Donelson where his inspiring brief reply to a request for terms (made by his personal friend Simon Buckner in the traitor army) he replied, ""no terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works."

Coming at a time of repeated Union failure, this response electrified the press and Grant became immediately famous. His resolve impressed Lincoln, who kept Grant in various commands despite huge pressures to remove him, and the jealousy of other officers.

Grant was a great American, and personally, I regard him not only as a great General, I think as President Grant - often under rated by historians on dubious grounds - did more to save America than any other President of the 19th century other than Lincoln.

Lincoln and Grant were profound friends at the end of Lincoln's life, but Lincoln did not promote Grant to General in Chief (or meet Grant) until 1864, and after he did, after a few set backs, the Union success was assured. As President, Grant took Lincoln's legacy very seriously, worked hard to establish and defend the rights of African Americans and as a result, was savaged by historians. (His reputation is now under serious historical review.)

I made some remarks on the internet some time ago about why I think Grant was a great President: U.S. Grant and the Worst President Stuff.

It is disturbing, of course, that in 2017, ten years after I wrote that defense of Grant by comparing him to Bush, we actually have a "President" who is worse than Bush, who actually makes Bush look good by comparison.

That is very, very, very disturbing. Trump is not only working to destroy the legacy of both Roosevelts, Eisenhower, Truman and Obama - men who were vastly superior to him in every aspect, intellectual, moral and in terms of insight and knowledge - but he is also working to trash the work of Lincoln and Grant.

He needs to go.

Maybe I have been too brief in commenting because of the heated debate right now. Yes, Grant is truly underrated as a president. A great leader, with a quiet personality and empathy for the common person. That's how I've read him.

Grant was not offered the job as head of the Union Army until 1864, being the 4th man to hold the position. So while your comment is not inaccurate because in fact Grant got the job at some point in time after Lee turned it down, it is also somewhat deceptive as your wording suggests Grant was the 2nd choice. Rest assured I am not accusing you of intentional deception. Just stating how your comment read to me.

Had Lee taken the job, he would probably be remembered as a failed Union General as the logistics of the early war year did not favor the north in their attempted invasion of Virginia. There is little doubt(in my mind) that if Lee were leading the Army of the Potomac against the Army of Northern Virginia commanded by some of the other capable confederate generals he would have met McClellan's fate. Lee tended to be somewhat ponderous on the attack as did McClellan and the armies of the day. And that war flat out favored the defense. Unless your name was Stonewall Jackson. He was one of the few visionary generals of the war. Unfortunately, he was a traitor. And fortunately he died early enough in the war as to not tip the result in the South's favor. Because a General like him at Gettysburg could have changed the outcome.

But had Lee taken the position, he would now be remembered as a patriot, not a traitor.

Anyway, I am not making any political point here at all, just a fan of history. I always wonder if the events were taught as earth shattering and history changing really were.

Have a nice evening.

I come from a family of staunch small-enders. I'm not crazy about genocide, but when they asked this die-hard small-ender to command their army, I couldn't say no..."

Since they owned slaves.

but either of those men fought and LOST against the US.

I do think there will be further discussion on the subject of how to honor heroes who were also slave owners. It's tricky.

family and friends over our nation, but can we judge a person who helped found a nation that could actually abolish slavery? Not everything in the past can be compared to what we understand now.

The British empire ended slavery long before the USA did.

In fact the British offered freedom to slaves who fought with them against Thomas Jefferson the slave-owner.

A government where the people had the possibility to decide issues and human rights for themselves. I believe the British did not offer slaves freedom because they supported their freedom but because it was a tactic to increase their fighting base as well as to keep their own troops from the more dangerous forward positions. Emperial British warring history isn't one I would tag as an example of exemplary civil rights.

where people had the possibility to decide issues and human rights for themselves..."

Uh, the UK is arguably more democratic than the US, since generally speaking the parties that get the most votes assume office. There is no British equivalent to "the electoral college." British democracy has evolved over time far more than the US, which has the ball and chain of a written Constitution to contend with--state of the art democracy in 1789, but more than a tad reactionary when compared to other contemporary democracies.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, all products of the British Empire, are also arguably more democratic than the US today. And India, while still struggling with the effects of British colonialism, is the largest democratic body politic in the world today.

"Imperial British warring history" is pretty brutal, but I'd argue that "US Imperial warring history" -- against Canada in 1812, against Mexico in the 1840s, against the Philippines freedom movement in the early 20th century, against Vietnamese nationalists in the '60s and early '70s, isn't any great shakes either, as far as human rights are concerned. Then too there are the dozens of Native American nations the US invaded, occupied, and suppressed.

Meanwhile, the British navy in the 1840s and '50s was the single greatest and certainly the most successful instrument in fighting the transatlantic slave trade of the time.

I often wonder what would have happened if the American revolution had gone the other way. There are a lot of things about Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, I wouldn't mind seeing adopted by the US. Universal health care, anyone?

I am not sure I would characterize 31 years as "long before the US did".

Slavery on English soil was unsupported in English law and that position was confirmed in Somersett's Case in 1772, but it remained legal in most of the British Empire until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

in any single life.

I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be a slave, or see my family enslaved, for an extra thirty-one years.

Vermont abolished slavery in 1777, for instance.

and the Dred Scott decision rendered those instances of abolition almost moot.

Hence the victory of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

the fight in New Orleans is moving to cleansing the city of all white supremac monuments, confederate or not. Jackson's statue should come down and Jackson Square must be renamed.

The biggest difference being that Washington won his war.

But according to everything I have read and the law of the land at the time, Lee did not own slaves. His father in law did and Lee lived on and managed some of the estates that his father in law owned, but he had no legal right to free them.

And when his father in law died, the will spelled out that the slaves were to be freed in 5 years. But under the law at the time, Lee did not inherit the people in bondage, his wife did and only she could free them.

And to Lee's credit, he freed them 5 years after his FIL passed as stipulated by the will. The New York Times actually published an letter from Lee at the time where he criticized rumors that he was 'selling the slaves south' in an attempt to avoid losing the value of the by having to release them.

I know I am totally splitting hairs and I risk appearing that I am defending the man. Just wanting to make sure we have the record correct. And I may well be wrong in my facts...I often am!

Now as the point at discussion. His statues should come down, but not because he owned slaves which many early American statesmen did. But because he was not only a traitor to the United States, but was a traitor who killed US soldiers in an effort to continue and even expand slavery.

Have a nice evening.

Lee was professional army his whole life. In fact he was about the top rank engineer in the prewar army.

In that role he traveled all over the place. He fought in Mexico during the Mexican-American War with a high rank. He was posted to New York City for a while designing harbor defenses. He was Superintendent of West Point for a while. He had stints in Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, St Louis and Washington DC. When the secession crisis started he was in Texas.

Add this to a wife who had very poor health and today is thought by some historians as to have been bi-polar. The point is that he had very little time or energy to run any of his family's holdings other than an occasional letter home with some advice. His father-in-law's passing was a real burden on him as he was named executor of the estate including making arrangements for his father-in-law's slaves. You couldn't just give them each $ 10 bucks and say see ya.

I don't even go with the traitor label. He came from the discraced side of the Lee family. His father, Light Horse Harry Lee went to debtors prison and then left the country when Robert was five. He never returned. Robert grew up with a name and no money. The Custis family wanted no part of him entering the family through marriage.

His response was interesting. Some kids in his situation would have rebelled. He made himself into the most proper gentleman possible. He graduated second in his class without a single demerit. He accepted every post, moving to place to place leaving his sick wife mostly behind doing his "duty."

When his state seceded from the Union he again did what was expected of him. He went with his state though he was no secessionist.

I don't accept the traitor label. He did what was expected of him and what almost everyone else in the same position did. After the war was over he was indicted for treason. He was never tried. He was the most popular man in the south and in the north the soldiers of the north and its generals had just as much respect for him. There was no way there was going to be a treason conviction against Robert E Lee.

That's the view from this old history teacher and textbook author anyway. I'm sure many will answer "She's a witch. Burn her."

Last edited Sun Aug 20, 2017, 11:30 AM - Edit history (1)

Winfield Scott took the Commander In Chief role. He was a Virginian, like Lee and like the great Union General George Thomas.

Only the slave holders thought that being a traitor "was expected" of Thomas and Scott. Thomas and Scott, by contrast, saw that the preservation of the Union and the United States was expected and required by their oaths on assuming their commands.

Lee was unabashedly racist, as is post war testimony before Congress demonstrated, when he claimed "Negros lack the necessities" to be full citizens. He regarded his duty under the Washington/Custis will to free his slaves as extremely unpleasant.

Lee is over rated, both as a human being, and as a general.

Montgomery Meigs, born in Georgia, who served as the Quartermaster General with great distinction for the Union Army gave Lee his just deserts, and expressing his unremitting contempt for Lee, by converting Lee's estate into a cemetery for the people Lee killed.

Lee was a butcher who decimated his army with aggressive tactics which were blundering wastes of humanity. In fact, the only one of his subordinate commanders to survive the war was Longstreet, and even he had been badly wounded.

Alan Nolan's wonderful book "Lee Considered" takes down this marble edifice that has been white washed and excused by history.

About the only decent thing that Robert E. Lee did during the war was to surrender to his moral, ethical and military superior, Ulysses S. Grant. He fought for an extra year, killing tens of thousands of people fighting a cause which he knew would fail.

I note he did a lot, with his whiny self excusing letter to his troops after the surrender, to create the "Lost Cause" mythology on which right wing racists have been hanging the hats they take off their empty skulls right up to the present day.

Practically every civilized being on the planet understood by the 1860's that slavery was an awful and terrible wrong.

Lee didn't. He was a disgrace to his country and the honor attached to him by racist historians like Douglas Freeman and Shelby Foote is not justified in any way.

I'll definitely add the Nolan book to my must read list.

but don't let your dislike become nonsense. As example, you said ...

"the only one of his subordinate commanders to survive the war was Longstreet, and even he had been badly wounded."

Using Lee's most famous defeat at Gettysburg as the example of when his army was at its strongest, he divided the ANV into three corps, each of three divisions.

First Corps (Longstreet)

Longstreet died in 1904
Pickett died in 1875
Hood died in 1879
McClaws died in 1897

Second Corps (Ewell)

Ewell died in 1872
Early died in 1894
Allegheny Johnson died in 1873
Rodes died on Sept 19, 1864

Third Corps (Hill)

AP Hill died on April 2, 1865
Robert Anderson died in 1879
Heth died in 1899
Pender died on July 18, 1863

As you can see, most of his principal; subordinates did survive the war. It was indeed a dangerous job especially in the Confederate Army where they were normally outnumbered and outgunned.

I note that most of the deaths were late in the war when generals made desperate attempts to keep things together. Pender died from his wound at Gettysburg.

Hill's death was particularly egregious since it took place when the Lee's armies were on the run.

If Lee had a trace of human responsibility, he would have surrendered at Petersburg, and Hill would have lived.

This is, of course, my point, the "desperate attempts to keep things together" was exceedingly stupid, criminally so.

As for the "outgunned and out numbered" mumbo jumbo, this is the core of the racist "Lost Cause" myth. It's garbage. Lee's military tactics were absurd. His strategy was stupid. Even the "Seven Days" only succeeded because his opponent, McClellan (who Lee actually admired) was a coward. Against a general like Grant or Sherman in that event Lee would have lost the war in 1862. In the actual event, it is a good thing that McClellan was a coward, the only kind of soldier Lee could actually beat, since the war ending in 1862 would have preserved the tragedy of human slavery in which Lee willingly participated.

George Washington won the American Revolution by losing most of his battles in the effort to keep his army intact. He only actually won one major battle, the last one. Any thinking military commander would have drawn that conclusion immediately.

More recently, the North Vietnamese were outgunned and out manned on several orders of magnitude, but won the war.

A materially inferior army can only succeed by effective and wise strategy, which escaped Lee completely. He was more concerned with what he stupidly regarded as "honor" and "courage," and "audacity." As Nolan points out, this was a flaw which marks him as a terrible general, a fool who values tactics over strategy.

As a provincial with a distorted view of the world Lee could not understand logistics. Grant, by contrast, did, having learned as much in the Mexican war where Lee, apparently, learned almost nothing. Lee's ignorance of logistics marks him in yet another way as an incompetent general.

This is the reason that Lee did not raise his voice one iota to point the immediate problem out at the start of the war, when he decided to become a traitor; in this regard he is even inferior to another over rated military figure, Admiral Yamamoto in World War II, who pointed out before the war that defeat on logistics alone was inevitable.

That Lee couldn't see this much is an indication of his weakness as a military commander. His forays into Pennsylvania and into Maryland (the Antietam campaign) were unnecessary, unwise, and useless.

Obviously some people under him survived to hang out in the Ku Klux Klan and the like. (The exception to being a Klan type is Longstreet, who became a Republican after the war in part to expiate for having joined Lee as a traitor.)

Hood, by the way, was another psycho who absorbed Lee's lessons in stupid military strategy, said stupidity having played out at Franklin and Nashville. His arm was blown apart in the stupid battle of Gettysburg, where Lee's arrogance and lack of vision lead to his defeat.

Ewell, a replacement for Jackson was ineffective in part because he'd been partially blown apart in another of Lee's stupid adventures his "victory" at the Second Bull Run, a battle Lee won only because he faced incompetent opposition in part owing to McClellan's egocentric approach to war; egocentrism also being a feature of Lee's behavior. (cf Elizabeth Brown Pryor, "Reading the Man, the Letters of Robert E. Lee.&quot

Mangled men do not perform nearly as well as intact men, but Lee didn't care about who got mangled.

like what was the best strategy for the Confederacy to win the war?

It's really not possible to have that discussion though as you just drip with hatred and vitriol to the point where you just spout nonsense like "the only one of his subordinate commanders to survive the war was Longstreet."

It's too bad because these are questions that historians have been debating for over 100 years and are endlessly interesting.

1. Why did George Washington win and Lee lose?

2 What was the proper strategy for the Confederacy to employ?

3 Was it more likely that the Confederacy would succeed militarily or fail? When other areas of nations rebelled as large as the Confederacy, they were generally successful.

I will give my short answers.

1, Simple answer is foreign aid. Washington did not have any land he needed to defend. He could let the British occupy New York and even Pennsylvania. It didn't matter. There was no land that Washington had to hold. He could have retreated to the Appalachians and it wouldn't have mattered. Davis did not have that luxury. He had to hold Richmond. Forget the center of government. He had to have the Tredegar iron works. It was the third largest in the US before the war. He had to defend it which meant defending Richmond.

2. Quickly taking Washington after Bull Run? Just withdraw and keep armies in the field a'la Washington, guerrilla warfare, defend your nation with regular armies which is what they chose.

The first one was unrealistic. They just didn't have the numbers or organization to accomplish this.

The second was also unrealistic. The southern rebellion was a counter-revolution more than a revolution. They were fighting to preserve and order, not rip one up. If they just backed up and let the Yankees occupy their land, their social order (slavery) would have been overturned and the cause they were fighting for would already be lost.

The third was impossible for the same reason as the second. The Confederates go into the mountains and swamps, the Yankees change the social order, arm the slaves and the war is lost before it's even fought. The order would be overturned.

I think they had to choose the fourth option which is what they chose. I have an unusual opinion on this where I think they were successful. Their goal was to inflict so many casualties and damage on the north that the north would eventually just go home. I believe they accomplished that goal and if the north did not have leaders like Lincoln and Grant it should have been successful. The south inflicted enough casualties that the north should have gone home. It is to Lincoln's credit that he kept the north fighting after 300,000 casualties. I think that was extraordinary leadership.

3. I think railroads were decisive in the north winning the war. Throughout the war, New Orleans was the largest city in the south. The second largest city was wherever the Army of the Potomac was camped that day. In past wars you couldn't keep large armies in enemy territory for long. They would eventually have to return home to resupply. Railroads changed that dynamic. While the AOP's supply bases were already set by the time Grant got there, it is still to his credit that he was able to keep well over 100,000 men surrounding Richmond and Petersburg for almost a year. Lee had much more serious logistical problems and I would argue he dealt with them as well as anyone could. His army never lost a battle based on no arms or ammunition. He diverted men from battle fronts to forage for food and even make shoes. At Chancellorsville, Lee was missing two of his best divisions who were in southern Virginia, northern North Carolina foraging for food. Even under siege, his army though often hungry was never starving. Lee had very different logistic concerns than Grant. I think they both did as well as they could.

All interesting historical discussions.

Any can be answered with "Lee was a poopy head."

It seems that the entire United States has finally realized as much, except for some residual Nazis and related racists. His statues are disappearing, long overdue in my opinion.

He was a loser, morally, militarily and strategically, and the high historical opinion held of him is almost as much of a disgrace as his actions as a traitor.

Your list establishes that some of the idiots who served under Lee did indeed survive the war, although this in no way negates the fact that he was a butcher. In nearly all his "victories," including the victory at Chancellorville, Lee lost a larger percentage of his army to casualties than the "defeated" armies. Many of the generals in your list had suffered grievous wounds, Hood, Longstreet, Ewell,among them. General officers killed under Lee's command include Stuart, Jackson, A.P Hill, Armistead, Garnet, Semmes...

Only Lee's acolyte Hood was better at killing (or severely wounding) general officers.

In fact, Lee's losses among his general officers is often regarded as part of the reason his army failed.

Lee's willingness to accept greater losses than his enemies in his "victories" is idiotic given that anyone who could count could see that the North had a larger population and a larger army. Of course, Lee benefited from the fact that McClellan couldn't count, and thus behaved with what can be regarded as extreme cowardice.

You say that Lee never lost a battle because he ran out of ammunition. He lost soldiers because he ran out food; his desertion rate throughout the war was rather high, particularly because his economic class, plantation owners drafted poor people and lead them off to be killed to preserve slavery. There was a lot of noise among confederates, and loyalists in the South, about it being a rich man's war and a poor man's fight.

Lee was near the end of his ammunition supply after Gettysburg and of course his army was basically disarmed by the time of the Appomattax campaign, a campaign that should have never taken place.

As for making grotesque historical mistakes, this conversation began with the statement that Lee did the only thing he could do by resigning his commission and violating the oaths he took every time he received a promotion in his more than three decades in the United States army. His last promotion, before he became a traitor, was authorized by President Lincoln. This contention that Lee was not a traitor because he did what he had to do is pure nonsense, as recent historical research has demonstrated specifically for Lee even beyond the fact that many prominent Union officers were Southerners. Besides Thomas, another important such person was David Farragut.

Many members of Lee's family served in with the Union. A nice listing of the members of Lee's family who did not become traitors to their country is detailed in Elizabeth Brown Pryor's book based on recently discovered correspondence written by Lee before, during and after the war, "Reading the Man, A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through his Private Correspondence."

Ms. Pryor summarized her book in a very nice talk at the Library of Congress which is available on line:

A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters

You might learn something by watching her lecture and her account of reading Lee's letters. She is one of the first historians to have access to them, since the Lee family recently made them available. She certainly isn't Douglass Freeman or Shelby Foote.

The bottom line, which you actually make in your three strategic scenarios you suggest is that these people were fighting for their "right" to treat human beings like farm animals, and Lee was an active participant in that logic. He was not, as some racist historians would like people to believe, against slavery. He, like his racist allies, considered slavery a positive good. This is the position of a moral Lilliputian. Before Lee was even born many people understood slavery for what it was, including the man who arguably invented the United States, Benjamin Franklin.

The idea that the South's strategy should have been, and was - something you seem to applaud - to kill as many people as possible in order to defend their "right" to rape, enslave, mutilate and often kill other human beings based on the melanin content of their skin cannot be construed as a "victorious" strategy. It is appalling reflection of the criminal mentality of the people who founded, defended, and with God's grace, lost the Confederacy.

The fact that the President of the United States defends these moral freaks as late as 2017 is appalling, not only to most Americans, but also to most of the world. It would seem that the world is finally approaching making civilization possible again.

A quick intro article is here: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/

There's some accuracy in what you say, but its also the best possible spin. Consider the issue of it actually being Lee's wife who owned the slaves. Given the status of women and their property in the 1850s, there's no practical or moral difference between Lee or his wife owning the slaves.

Especially because Lee was the executor of his wife's father's estate. Lee actually went to court to keep the slaves as long as he could; he could have freed them immediately as had been promised, but instead legally fought to keep them as long as possible. When two of them ran away, he personally whipped them, and wrote several times over his lifetime about the importance of cruelty.

Lee KNEW slavery was evil -- and actually said so -- like most people of the time did. He also claimed that because negroes were inferior, God wanted them enslaved.

Anyway, a lot of what we "know" about the Confederates is bogged down in revisionist bullshit designed to perpetuate the Noble Cause as long as possible.