WT: Southern Discomfort: U.S. Army seeks removal of Lee, ‘Stonewall’ Jackson honors

[sacase]

I freely confess that I'm not aware of that timeline. 

 

I confess to having trouble swallowing the assertion that some states' reasons for the civil war was "well, some other state seceded over slavery, and the US "invaded" them, so I decided I wanted to do it, too". 

 

Which states were these? 

I know that VA and North Carolina did it because of Ft. Sumter and because Lincoln wanted to raise an Army. I know specifically that NC had elected unionists into the state government, however, the state was appalled that Lincoln used force against the CSA as they thought that the situation could be resolved peacefully.

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

Jackson and Lee deserve to be honored because they were two of the very greatest soldiers in American history. Also the Confederate leadership was pardoned and Lee had his citizenship restored, he isn't a traitor. I'm not interested in sanitizing or ignoring the history of the Civil War for p.c. reasons. I don't really care what side of an enormous and complicated political conflict they ended up on. They were soldiers and men of honor that did their duty. And they were great men, the country would be lucky to make more men and soldiers like them. Personally, I admire them the same as I admire Lincoln and Sherman and Grant and Seward and the other American geniuses of that time.

First off, thank you so much for your posts. As I've gotten older, the number of websites I regularly visit has decreased dramatically. Your post is a good example of why ES (The Tailgate specifically) is one of the few sites I do still view. I actually learn something here.

That said, I still strongly disagree with your praise of Lee and Jackson. They fought for the destruction of our home nation, the US, and they fought to keep slavery alive. Regardless of whatever honorable personal reasons and motivations they may have had, in the end, that is what they were fighting for. I just don't see how that can be supported and celebrated in any manner.

[codeorama]

Rome had a statue of Hannibal.

[The Sisko]

Let's put it this way. These portraits began to be hung during a time where the people they fought were still alive and mostly running things, and yet they found it to be appropriate.

The only problem with that is there was a certain segment of society missing in this decisionmaking. I imagine if the former slaves were given a say, things might have been a bit different. But then they were barely over being classified as 3/5th of a person and it's not like they fought and died in the civil war anyway so they don't count.

 

Rommel was a great general.  If you were going to have a college, dedicated to war, and wanted to teach about the greatest generals of all time then I don't have a problem with it.  I'm not ok with the nazi part, but like I said, looking at it objectively you see real genius.  Rommel is the father of the current Brigade Combat Team task organization the US military uses today. In the case of Lee and Jackson, they are not presented as traitors, but as brilliant tactionists who led their men against great odds and had success in the face of defeat.

 

 

As I stated previously, General George Washington, of the newly formed America, fought against the crown.  He fought for his state, yet we revere him.  Brittain felt he was a traitor, it's all a matter of perspective.  The north won, wrote the textbooks, and labeled him a traitor.  If the south won, he would have potentially been the 1st president and would be on the dollar bill.

I agree, it is a matter of perspective. The difference is that post WWII Germany pursued a policy of denazification whereas in this country Lincoln and his successors wanted to appease the South so for the most part Southern Blacks were left to the good graces of their former masters. However, getting back to the original point, though there is a Rommel monument in Germany, there's much debate there about who he really was and his shortcomings along with his military exploits. In fact, his monument was defaced by Germans who saw it as an attempt at whitewashing history.

Conversely, regarding Lee one rarely if ever hears of any of his shortcomings or his views on slavery, certainly not here in the South. So as someone pointed out earlier he did oppose it....sorta. I'll let him speak for himself on this:

In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy. This influence though slow, is sure. The doctrines & miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years, to Convert but a small part of the human race, & even among Christian nations, what gross errors still exist! While we see the Course of the final abolition of human Slavery is onward, & we give it the aid of our prayers & all justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands who sees the end; who Chooses to work by slow influences; & with whom two thousand years are but as a Single day.

So it's evil but they need it and it hurts us more than it hurts them. This view is interesting in light of Lee's willingness to support "liberating" the South from the "tyranny" of representative Union govt  rather than waiting for divine providence. Likewise, I wonder if he applied the same standard to the founding fathers and the British? Surely if Whites are so much more disciplined and civilized than Blacks, they ought to be even better equipped to wait for divine providence to free them.

So from my perspective Lee was a brilliant tactician but a morally bankrupt human being who was a traitor to his country. Hell, I can make many of the same arguments for an Anwar al-Awlaki monument as have been made in this thread defending the memorializing of Lee and the rest. "See, Awlaki wasn't a traitorous, terrorism supporting ****. He was a brilliant American political mind who felt a deep moral conviction to defend his co-religionists from Western aggression."

 

 

No, but I do suspect they were put there by confederate apologists to try to validate the Lost Cause mythology.

Political correctness and revisionist history were mentioned earlier in the thread.This is interesting in light of the South's strong desire to preserve history and their historical figures, warts and all.   To this end, they erected monuments to the confederacy in damn near every small nook and cranny of Georgia and I'm sure in other Southern states as well. However until very recently there was only one monument to a Union soldier below the Mason Dixon line. I think there's one to Black civil war soldiers in Vicksburg now but I don't know of any others for civil war Union solders, Black or White down South. Moreover I don't think there are any monuments depicting the scourge of slavery at all in the South because, well, that never happened. And even if it did happen, the slaves were all happy with the arrangment anyway. See how great the CSA was! Just don't pay attention to that man behind the curtain.

 

Obviously there's a certain pithiness in my comments but I think my point holds that the romanticizing of the "Lost Cause" and the whitewashing of the South's intentions and its motivations is absolutely a real thing. A few points to ponder to provide some balance:

 

• Confederate revisionists love to pull out the states rights nonsense. If they were so devoted to state's rights, why didn't CSA states in turn have the right to secede?
• If it wasn't about slavery, why then did they make such a big deal of repeatedly protecting it in their constitution? In other words, methinks thou dost protest too much.
• For the South,the civil war was started and fought for the rich. Wealthy planters exempted themselves while conscripting poor Whites to fight their war for them.
• Which brings me to a counterpoint to the idea that the CSA had to "sell" its citizens on the war. They "sold" it by use of the Home Guard, essentially thugs with the power to do pretty much anything necessary to make sure you did your duty...even though you probably had no voting power on the decision to seceede. Now THAT's what I call freedom!
• The war was almost certainly unwinnable. All of the prior discussion about how great Lee, Jackson and the rest were ignores the numbers and the technology. On the numbers end, the raw population data includes slaves who were inelligible for service based on the dogma of White racial superiority...well, until they were desperate at the very end. As mentioned above, the CSA then reduced the numbers further by exempting some folks, i.e. wealthy landowners. So think about it. 70 - 80% of your men are away getting chewed up by civil war human canon fodder battle tactics. Who's going to keep the lid on the slaves? That amounts to a two-front war unless the CSA could win within a very short period of time. It's highly unlikely the North was going to tire of the war before slave revolts became problematic. Likewise with so many men away getting killed, agricultural production suffered and the citizens of the CSA almost starved and they often revolted as a result. Good thing they had that Home Guard!
• Lee, Jackson and the rest weren't infallible - their tactics often failed to account for the use of repeating arms, artillery improvements and other innovations. This is what was alluded to earlier in the story about the visitor to Gettysburg pointing out that Pickett's Charge was a bonehaded mistake by Lee, who admitted as much himself.
• As much as the South whined about Sherman, they were pretty good with the war crimes themselves

 

Germany came to terms with the Nazi period and put it behind them in part because they were brutally honest with themselves about what they did. Unfortunately we did exactly the opposite for the CSA, even going so far as to still celebrate confederate memorial day, among others as state holidays. :puke: Instead, the CSA should be remembered as a shameful and fetid enterprise of traitors and murderers, not some heroic and romantic lost cause in a fight for liberty.

 

 

[JMS]

Conversely, regarding Lee one rarely if ever hears of any of his shortcomings or his views on slavery, certainly not here in the South. So as someone pointed out earlier he did oppose it....sorta. I'll let him

 

Actually Lee's views on slavery are very well known.  Even before the civil war he came out against Slavery as did about half of the Generals who made up the Confederacies Top Generals...   Lee,  Longstreet and Joseph Johnson were all against slavery,,   JEB Steward was the only general among the confederacies top generals who owned slavers.    Stone Wall Jackson's views on slavery aren't really known.  He personally didn't own slaves but because slavery is in the bible I read an essay who's opinion was he would have been against doing away with it.   Then again Stonewall Jackson was a teacher along with his wife, and in an essay she wrote she recalled how they used to teach classes for slaves on reading and writing,  so who knows.   So of the top 5 generals in the confederacy... 3 were outspoken opponents of slavery, while 2 favored slavery.