WP: Dispelling the myth of Robert E. Lee

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

:munchout:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dispelling-the-myth-of-robert-e-lee/2011/04/25/AFrXC1kE_story.html?hpid=z4

It has taken a while, but it’s about time Robert E. Lee lost the Civil War. The South, of course, was defeated on the battlefield in 1865, yet the Lee legend — swaddled in myth, kitsch and racism — has endured even past the civil rights era when it became both urgent and right to finally tell the “Lost Cause” to get lost. Now it should be Lee’s turn. He was loyal to slavery and disloyal to his country — not worthy, even he might now admit, of the honors accorded him.

I confess to always being puzzled by the cult of Lee. Whatever his personal or military virtues, he offered himself and his sword to the cause of slavery. He owned slaves himself and fought tenaciously in the courts to keep them. He commanded a vast army that, had it won, would have secured the independence of a nation dedicated to the proposition that white people could own black people and sell them off, husband from wife, child from parent, as the owner saw fit. Such a man cannot be admired.

But he is. All over the South, particularly in his native Virginia, the cult of Lee is manifested in streets, highways and schools named for him. When I first moved to the Washington area, I used to marvel at these homages to the man. What was being honored? Slavery? Treason? Or maybe, for this is how I perceive him, no sense of humor? (Often, that is mistaken for wisdom.) I also wondered what a black person was supposed to think or, maybe more to the point, feel. Chagrin or rage would be perfectly appropriate.

Still, even I was not immune to the cult of Lee. I kept thinking I must be missing something. I imagined all sorts of virtues in his face. He is always dignified in all those photos of him, dour, a perfect pill of a man yet somehow adored by his men. They cheered him when he left Appomattox Court House, having just surrendered to the far more admirable U.S. Grant. They shouted, Hooray for Lee! Hooray for what?

Now comes Elizabeth Brown Pryor, author of “Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters” who in an essay for the New York Times gives us a Lee who is at odds with the one of gauzy myth. He was not, as I once thought, the creature of crushing social and political pressure who had little choice but to pick his state over his country. In fact, various members of his own family stuck with the Union.

“When Lee consulted his brothers, sister and local clergymen, he found that most leaned toward the Union,” Pryor wrote. “At a grim dinner with two close cousins, Lee was told that they also intended to uphold their military oaths. . . . Sister Anne Lee Marshall unhesitatingly chose the Northern side, and her son outfitted himself in blue uniform.” Pryor says that about 40 percent of Virginia officers “would remain with the Union forces.”

After the war, the South embraced a mythology of victimhood. An important feature was the assertion that the war had been not about slavery at all but about state’s rights. The secessionists themselves were not so shy. In their various declarations, they announced they were leaving the Union to preserve slavery. Lee not only accepted the Lost Cause myth, he propagated it and came to embody it.

Lee was a brilliant field marshal whose genius was widely acknowledged — Lincoln wanted him to command the Union forces. In a way, that’s a pity. A commander of more modest talents might have been beaten sooner, might not have taken the war to the North (Gettysburg) and expended so many lives. Lee, in this regard, is an American Rommel, the German general who fought brilliantly, but for Hitler. Almost until Hitler compelled his suicide, Rommel, too, did his duty.

L.P. Hartley’s observation that “the past is a foreign country” cautions us all against facile judgments. But in that exotic place called the antebellum South, there were plenty of people who recognized the evil of slavery or, if nothing else, the folly of secession. Lee was not one of them. He deserves no honor — no college, no highway, no high school. In the awful war (620,000 dead) that began 150 years ago this month, he fought on the wrong side for the wrong cause. It’s time for Virginia and the South to honor the ones who were right.

[The 12th Commandment]

I think the south, and by association Lee, looked upon slaves (abhorrently without question) the same way we look upon oil today. Their economy would collapse without it so what else is there to do? Of course they were wrong.

[CoolUsernameHere]

I'm actually a relative of Robert E. Lee through my maternal grandmother's family. My great granddad (also named Robert Lee) actually looked a helluva lot like him.

Personally, I've always thought it was cool to be related to him, but I never really got why he was so celebrated. Here in the south there is still some of that lingering "victimism". It's cool to be related to a brilliant military mind, but I definitely disagree with the way Lee used his talents.

[fullnelson9999]

Cue the "you Northerners just don't get it" crowd.

[10fttall]

Still waiting for some information that "dispels the myth." All I see is somebody saying they think he was not all that great.

[GhostofSparta]

Ho boy, defaming the "Lost Cause" and it's glorious leader in the same post? This will go on for 20 pages and not end well. :munchout:

Lee is celebrated because he was, above all else, a winner on a losing team. Lee and Stonewall were an unbeatable team (literally, when the 2 of them fought a battle together they never lost), and each was probably one of the 10 greatest military leaders in US history. If VA had not seceded and both had fought for the Union (Lee was offered the commander of the entire Union army), the Confederacy would have been crushed in less than a year.

That said, he's the ultimate symbol for "the South" that is glorified by the "Lost Cause" and Confederate battle flag crowd. His misplaced loyalty to state over country, his southern aristocratic gentleman mannerisms, all of the mystique surrounding his legacy all culminated in the ultimate "cult of personality" that bitter-enders and their descendents could cling to so that they didn't have to fully face the reality of their actions.

[Chicken Fried]

Richard Cohen is from New York and went to Columbia. Obvious agenda. No evidence whatsoever. It's yet another yankee hissy fit, and frankly the article is sad to read. He wants so badly to "dispel the myth" but he knows he can't.

[Ron78]

I think the south, and by association Lee, looked upon slaves (abhorrently without question) the same way we look upon oil today. Their economy would collapse without it so what else is there to do? Of course they were wrong.

Yeah, that is ridiculous. We never needed slavery, and it will always be a stain in our history.

[fullnelson9999]

Richard Cohen is from New York and went to Columbia. Obvious agenda. No evidence whatsoever. It's yet another yankee hissy fit, and frankly the article is sad to read. He wants so badly to "dispel the myth" but he knows he can't.

I think he was relying on the common sense of the readers.

Sounds more like southern denial on your end than a Yankee hissy fit.

[sly]

Is it really a newsflash that most people during eighteenth and nineteenth century America were racists? Even those that wanted to abolish slavery would probably be considered racist by today's standards... including Lincoln (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_lincoln_colonization). Lee was an important historical figure and great military leader from Virginia.

Most of our viewpoints will probably look silly and ignorant in 200+ years, too...

[twa]

I think he was relying on the common sense of the readers.

Or the common tactic of trashing a celebrated person/controversy bringing readers....or voters if ya are Trump.

[B.Lloyd]

Robert E. Lee stayed loyal to where he was raised. We can look back now and say that he was wrong, but can we question him for staying true to who he was, and fighting for his state? Obviously the easy choice would have been joining the Union but Lee was loyal to his upbringing, and I think no matter who you are, you have to respect that.

[RansomthePasserby]

Robert E. Lee stayed loyal to where he was raised. We can look back now and say that he was wrong, but can we question him for staying true to who he was, and fighting for his state? Obviously the easy choice would have been joining the Union but Lee was loyal to his upbringing, and I think no matter who you are, you have to respect that.

No, the hard choice would be to recognize his entire culture's way of life was flawed, and then act on it. Instead, he chose to overlook the true evil slavery was, and followed his heart by fighting for what he viewed as his home. In reality, he was fighting for a government bent on keeping millions of people in chains, and regardless of his good intentions, his willingness to shed blood for such a government is NOT a virtue.

[zoony]

Robert E Lee's blunders at Gettysburg were inexcusable.

[twa]

He was probably drunk....or was that the other guy?

[FanboyOf91]

Robert E Lee's blunders at Gettysburg were inexcusable.

****ty staffwork killed the Confederacy.

[Madison Redskin]

He was probably drunk....or was that the other guy?

You mean the drunk guy who ended up kicking his ass and taking his sword? Imagine what he would have done to Lee if he had been sober.

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

You mean the drunk guy who ended up kicking his ass and taking his sword? Imagine what he would have done to Lee if he had been sober.

[twa]

You mean the drunk guy who ended up kicking his ass and taking his sword? Imagine what he would have done to Lee if he had been sober.

Eh I think that was the guy they named the tank after.

Funny that Meade caught more hell than Lee for Gettysburg though.

[TheLongshot]

No, the hard choice would be to recognize his entire culture's way of life was flawed, and then act on it. Instead, he chose to overlook the true evil slavery was, and followed his heart by fighting for what he viewed as his home. In reality, he was fighting for a government bent on keeping millions of people in chains, and regardless of his good intentions, his willingness to shed blood for such a government is NOT a virtue.

Unfortunately, he isn't a man who saw the "true evil" of slavery. Most of his career in the military was spent in the north, where he probably saw the best slavery had to offer, with blacks working in good conditions and not the backbreaking work that they did in the south.

I'm not going to blame a man for not overcoming his upbringing (since his beliefs were very common among his peers in Virginia). My respect for him has nothing to do with that part of his character. Personally, I have the same amount of respect for him that I did for Erwin Rommel, talented generals and good men who fought on the wrong side of wars.

[DCSaints_fan]

Robert E Lee's blunders at Gettysburg were inexcusable.

I always thought that ... but the more I thought about it, Lee ordering that charge on the 3rd day sort of makes sense. Remember the Confederacy was on its heels with a series of defeats in the West (Vicksburg fell a day after Pickett's charge) and was desperate for something to turn the tide ... Lee's supply lines were much longer than the Union's and they could outlast him there, although the AotP did have the pressure to be the ones to drive Lee's ANV out of Pennsylvania. But another Antietam-like "draw" with Lee withdrawing to Virginia did not favor the Confederacy. Lee had to gamble somewhere, and he had no way of knowing that the center had been reinforced.

Coincidentally, there was another great Virginia general who attempted something very much like Pickett's charge a few months later .... except it actually worked. And he was a Union general. Unfortunately he didn't get any high schools or roads named after him, at least not that I remember.

[PokerPacker]

Coincidentally, there was another great Virginia general who attempted something very much like Pickett's charge a few months later .... except it actually worked. And he was a Union general. Unfortunately he didn't get any high schools or roads named after him, at least not that I remember.

Fairfax Ice Arena is located on Pickett road if that means anything :/

[Homercles82]

Yeah, that is ridiculous. We never needed slavery, and it will always be a stain in our history.

Without slavery the southern economy wouldn't have reached the heights it did, which before cessesion, was the big moneymake for the US as a whole.

[bird_1972]

I'm actually a relative of Robert E. Lee through my maternal grandmother's family. My great granddad (also named Robert Lee) actually looked a helluva lot like him.

Personally, I've always thought it was cool to be related to him, but I never really got why he was so celebrated. Here in the south there is still some of that lingering "victimism". It's cool to be related to a brilliant military mind, but I definitely disagree with the way Lee used his talents.

That's really cool.

I'm actually related to Stonewall Jackson (greatx3 uncle) and feel very much the same as you do.

[SonOfWashington]

Conveniently, this is Wikipedia's featured picture today.

Grant from West Point to Appomattox, an 1885 lithograph by Thure de Thulstrup of events in the military career of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, who died that year. Clockwise from lower left: graduation from West Point (1843); in the tower at Chapultepec (1847); drilling volunteer soldiers (1861); the Battle of Fort Donelson (1862); the Battle of Shiloh (1862); the Siege of Vicksburg (1863); the Battle of Chattanooga (1863); appointment as Commander-in-Chief by Abraham Lincoln (1864); and the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House (1865).