Confederate flag: Washington and Lee University removing display (Lee's Chapel)

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Whatever, I give two ****s what you think of my opinions.

 

Bam!

 

Jump back, jack!

[JMS]

Or whether they're at all rational. 

 

Opinions are like (the expulsion of intestinal gas): 

 

Everybody's got them.

They're always willing to share.

And they all stink but your own. 

 

And evidently they cure some forms of cancer.

 

Ok that was funny.

[Going Commando]

W&L is still a weird place. It's got a very very "Old South" type of vibe.

My sense was that W&L was just as overrun with New Jersey/Connecticut/Pennsylvania/New York students as most of the best private schools in VA.

[Going Commando]

Trying to catch up on this thread. But two more things I want to mention that you said LKB:

- Lee's horse Traveler was famous. Probably true of the U.S. as a whole at the time, but the South definitely had a horse culture back then. I can't think of a good analogy to the present. It's like a famous car only much much more special, because a horse has personality and can't be manufactured. You can bond with and love a horse. Lee absolutely loved that horse. If you understand the horse culture, it's not weird that the horse is buried there.

- I hesitate to call Sherman a genius. He was a good soldier and a good general, same as Grant. Their biggest qualifications being able to match wills with soldiers like Lee and tolerate the toll of an awful war of attrition. But none of them were real visionaries and original thinkers. I agree with Shelby Foote, the two authentic geniuses that I can think of that the war revealed were Lincoln and Nathan Bedford Forrest. They saw their worlds in ways nobody else had/could.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Trying to catch up on this thread. But two more things I want to mention that you said LKB:

- Lee's horse Traveler was famous. Probably true of the U.S. as a whole at the time, but the South definitely had a horse culture back then. I can't think of a good analogy to the present. It's like a famous car only much much more special, because a horse has personality and can't be manufactured. You can bond with and love a horse. Lee absolutely loved that horse. If you understand the horse culture, it's not weird that the horse is buried there.

- I hesitate to call Sherman a genius. He was a good soldier and a good general, same as Grant. Their biggest qualifications being able to match wills with soldiers like Lee and tolerate the toll of an awful war of attrition. But none of them were real visionaries and original thinkers. I agree with Shelby Foote, the two authentic geniuses that I can think of that the war revealed were Lincoln and Nathan Bedford Forrest. They saw their worlds in ways nobody else had/could.

 

Genius may have been overstating it for Grant and Sherman. But they clearly had a notion of strategy that none of the other Union generals - and frankly few of the Confederate generals - could fully understand. Grant's understanding of this war in particular was that a battle was lost only if he admitted that it was lost and retreated. Lee understood that with McClellan in particular, all he had to do was win a battle and McClellan would retreat, regroup, and wait. Lee understood the politics of the war, and that the longer he had an army in the field, he was "winning."

 

Grant simply decided that the person deciding he lost a battle was himself. If McClellan had experienced the Battle of the Wilderness, he would have retreated North and probably announced that Lee's Army was bigger than his and thus impossible to dislodge from Virginia.

[zoony]

I've never heard grant and Sherman described as anything more than "not as grossly incompetent as other union generals". Grant was sort of the Omar Bradley of the war. Jus kind of did his job, but benefitted greatly from a preponderance of men and materials

And save a reply here JMS I can read wikipedia on my own thanks

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I've never heard grant and Sherman described as anything more than "not as grossly incompetent as other union generals". Grant was sort of the Omar Bradley of the war. Jus kind of did his job, but benefitted greatly from a preponderance of men and materials

And save a reply here JMS I can read wikipedia on my own thanks

 

I tend to think they get shorted in comparison to the never-ending line of supposed military geniuses on the Confederate side.

 

What I would really be interested in reading is how Grant's tactics compared to his strategy though. I really feel like that is a blind spot in my knowledge.

[JMS]

I've never heard grant and Sherman described as anything more than "not as grossly incompetent as other union generals". Grant was sort of the Omar Bradley of the war. Jus kind of did his job, but benefitted greatly from a preponderance of men and materials

And save a reply here JMS I can read wikipedia on my own thanks

 

Well I do like to source my thoughts.     And Wikipedia is a reasonable source...

 

I don't know if Incompetence really applies to any of them...  Take Mcclellan for example... History probable treats him harshest of all the Union Generals.  He was actually a  pretty good general with a pretty good reputation before he met Lee.    After the first battle of Bull Run when the Union army of the Potomac under General McDowell was basically destroyed and demoralized with their fighting spirit gone;   McClellan is credited with rebuilding that army quickly and efficiently such that he was on the outskirts of Richmond 11 months latter with the Confederacy about to blink out of existence...   McClellen having outfought and out thought General Joe Johnston.    General Joe Johnston the hero of first Manassas was removed from command by Confederate President Jefferson Davis ( under the guise of an injury )  with the Union a few miles outside of Richmond  and Lee was given command....    That was General McClellan's high water mark...    What made McClellan history's fool was all about Lee.

 

Lee had a way of getting inside his opponents head.    He knew most of the Union Generals personally..  He knew McClellen was an obsessive compulsive personality...  He built beautiful things,  he commanded clean well disciplined beautiful formations.    McClellen egotistically fancied himself as a Napoleon.   His strength was organization and he always took time to  create that organization... calculating and obsessing over each move.

 

Lee realizing this sent JEB Stuart's Calvary to ride around McClellan's army destroying, capturing and harassing everything in his path....   It's hard for us to understand what that means today...   But for four days General JEB Stuart and 1200 men were no more than 5 miles away from McClellen's HQ,  and General McClellen with 100,000 man army and tens of thousand of calvary to draw on, couldn't act spontaneously to counter him,  to intercept him.  To predict where JEB Stuart would attack next,  as Stuart encircled him...  McClellan was at a total loss when forced to think on his feet and react...  It was a demoralizing embarrassing fiasco which made all the newspapers north and sourth...  The egotistical McClellen's reputation from that and Lee's subsequent six day's public flogging   ( six day's campaign) of McClelan is what History remembers..

Ultimately forcing McClellan's withdraw all the way back to DC.

 

So I would say the Union Generals weren't incompetent... Lee made them seem incompetent because he was that good...  He could predict how his opponents would act and taylor his moves to take advantage of these predictions.    General Pope for example didn't want command,  he was just the last man standing on the union side.    He was hesitant and Lee used that....   General Meade didn't want to make the big mistake... he was afraid of Lee and Lee used that...   Lee let his opponnets out think themselves... and just schooled them.

 

There wasn't anything incompetent about Grant... Grant didn't consider himself an intellectual equal of Lee.   Grant wasn't hard to predict, Lee continually predicted Grants moves in battles.  Grant didn't go into grand strategies either, Grant wasn't anal about his preparations.    Grant was a simple guy who almost always attacked right into the teeth of the opponents defenses..   He would engage,  and stay engaged until he was dead or you were dead.   He grasp strategically what the other Union Generals had not..  While the other Union Generals roll model was Napoleon who tried to finesse his way to low casualties  Grant theorized  all union casualties were irrelevant.   The Union had more men Grant could draw on...   The South had no more men for Lee..    So Grant bleed Lee.    Lee's back had already been broken at Gettysburg by Meade July 1863.   Meade was just too tentative and afraid of a Lee counter attack that he allowed Lee to escape limping back to Virginia.    Grant would not and did not make that kind of mistake,    

 

Grant and Lee didn't face off until the Overland Campaign in May of 1864...   Grant fought Lee continuously in a series of different battles for 11 months where both sides took nearly daily casualties.    Beginning with Union defeats May 4, 5 and 6th...  unlike other Union Generals who would then go back to Washington and lick their wounds after incurring heavy casualties... Grant just kept coming..    Next the battle of the Wilderness  May 7th..  Grant get's shilacked by Lee..  takes 17k casualties.. to Lee's 10k..  Grant keeps coming.    May 8th  Spottsylvania Battle.. lasts 14 days...   Grant lost another 18,000 soldiers to Lee's 10,000...  Grant keeps coming.   Grant is un-phased,  "I will fight it on this line if it takes all summer"  it would take nearly all year.   The army's clash again May 23 and 24 inconclusively at Fort Anne...    June 1-12    Cold Harbor...  .   Grant get's destroyed..... Grant looses 12,000 men ( 6000 in one day,   Meade only had 3,200 killed during 3 days of fighting at Gettysburg for example,  The last day of cold harbor saw the most casualties of any day during the civil war..)   Lee's looses only 2000 at cold harbor... Grant keeps coming.   June 15,   Grant pivots disengages from Cold Harbor where Lee is dug in and fortified defenses;  and moves on Petersburg; Lee and Richmond's major supply base which Lee has left lightly defended in order to have enough troops to face Grant at the preceding Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and  Cold Harbor battles.    Lee abandons his defenses at cold harbor moves to support Petersburg and re-enforces it but just barely  June 16,17 and 18th...  Pushes Grant back  another confederate victory...    But now Lee is forced to fight out in the open on ground Grant has chosen because loosing Petersburg means loosing Richmond and supplies Lee's army needs..  Lee tries a hail marry realing from Grant's two months onslaught...  Lee realizing Grant has left the road to Washington DC open, sends General Early with 15,000 troops to assault Washington DC and force a Grant retreat to safeguard his capital..   Much as Lee had done to McClellen, and Pope earlier in the war.   Grant ignores General Early's forces and keeps pressure on Lee...     General Early get's all the way to the suburbs of DC and Lincoln has to pleed with Grant to come back and re-leave the city...   Grant begrudgingly sends 2 corps back to help fortify Washington DC.... stay's focused on Lee now under siege at Petersburg building fortifications..   General Early's Confederate army on the outskirts and threatening DC is hugely embarrassing to the President, the Union, and Grant at teh worst possible time... during the election cycle where Lincoln is facing off against McClellen for the Presidency.... Grant doesn't care.     Grant has Lee bottled up, out in the open fighting on ground Grant has chosen and Grant won't let him go... Battle fo the Crater in Petersburg. July. another Union defeat...   With Lee bottled up helpless trying to fend of Grant,   The Union starts to make headway elsewhere and the confederacy starts to crumble...   Sherman takes Atlanta and begins marching to the Sea.  Union Navy takes Mobile, Alabama.   Confederate General Hood is defeated at Nashville,     After months of relentless pressure by Grant  running low on men and supplies...  Lee is forced to evacuate Petersburg and Richmond  1 April 1865....    Lee's running for his life with what's left of the Army of Northern Virginia after a sustained 11 month engagement against Grant where both armies fought battles and took casualties nearly daily... ,   For 9 days Lee retreats..  for 9 days Grant pursues him closing off all avenues of escape...   On the 9th day... Lee is trapped.   runs out of options and is forced to surrenders.  April 9, 1865,  Appomattox court house...   The third time a Confederate Army had surrendered to Grant during the war...   There was some mop up after that but that effectively ended the war...   President Davis fled to Alabama and set up a second capital.. but he was captured along with Montgomery Alabama a few months latter.

 

Was Lee a better general than Grant?   Tactically Lee had won every major engagement against Grant for 11 months of sustained almost daily contact,  some of them among the largest defeats the Union sustained in the entire war, and yet strategically in the end Lee surrendered..   Was Grant incompetent?    Grant had grabbed Lee, stayed engaged on him,  sustaining horrendous casualties, refusing even Presidential pleads to let him go or refocus him..   Grant's casualties and decision making would latter be investigated by congress...  Grant had also been lambasted in the press for allowing Washington DC to come under siege and for his frontal assault on Cold Harbor's strong defensive fortifications..  But Grant  did what no other Union General had done..What no other union general had the will to do..  He kept constant pressure on Lee until Lee's army buckled.

[The Sisko]

Oh, and this is always my favorite go-to when the Stars and Bars issue arises again.  I apologize to those of you that have seen it before.

 

 

This good sir, is what you call hilarious! :-D

[TheGoodBits]

Zoony asks JMS to save a response. JMS writes Zoony a book. See book title thread.

[mjah]

I had to duck out of this thread a few days ago to move my family into a new home.  Gonna be unpacking boxes for another month or three, but tonight seemed like a good idea to stop in and take a peek at the last 2-3 pages of the thread.

 

Good god, what a full-on beatdown.  I haven't laughed this hard at an ES thread in a long time.  The confederate apologists in here look like Charleston mid-bombardment.  It actually reminds me of anti-gay-marriage flails from threads of years past (and current).

 

So here is an offer for those who might wish to escape a withering shelling: Come over and put away my many thousands of collectible Lincoln trading cards, and I will happily pay in empty boxes perfect for storing all that false moral equivalence.  Box it, store it in your attic for a few years, and eventually you can just toss it in the garbage with a clear conscience.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

I actually work at Washington and Lee University, so here are a few KEY details that every media outlet seems to conveniently forget. I am totally unbiased to this subject, so just let me add the details that I do know for facts: The flags that were removed were "replica" flags flying in the chapel itself. They are actually upgrading the flags within the museum with the flag Lee actually flew. Personally, I think this is a fine middle-ground in an otherwise "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

The flags weren't removed totally. They were just removed from one location and upgraded in the museum.

Again, this is a situation I stay out of. Just wanted to make sure all the details were known.

My sense was that W&L was just as overrun with New Jersey/Connecticut/Pennsylvania/New York students as most of the best private schools in VA.

This is 100% true.

Not only that, as an administrator in the school, I was one of the first people to receive the letter from "The Committee". It consisted of a group of seven students. It pains me that something with a very significant parallel to the Redskins name-change has made our small school seem intolerant.

 

I drove downtown the other day where they had a "Confederate Rally" and it was the most uneducated, horrible thing I've ever heard. They were actually quoting Bible verses. This is a quote I stole from somewhere I can't recall, but we are a "nation of the offended", and while I can't tell people to not get offended, what is an acceptable amount of people to cause change?

 

I can tell you that 99.999% of students wish this issue would go away. Even the African American fraternities have distanced themselves from this situation. I have some opinions that agree and disagree with both sides. Since I'm in a position I can't comment too much, would be happy to talk more in private message.

[s0crates]

Thanks for the insight from campus. Not only is it good to have your perspective, there is new information there.

I'm surprised there have been confederate demonstrations. Creepy.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

VERY creepy. It looked like a coalition of good ol' boys that really had ZERO knowledge of the facts. I'm politically independent and try to base my decisions on unbiased (as possible) facts and they came across as lacking enough intelligence to form a sentence, much less a rational argument.

 

Again, both sides are at fault here. I can't speak as a person of color, but another tidbit I forgot to include was that they felt "tricked" by admissions into thinking Washington and Lee was a more diverse campus than it is. I won't lie, we are about 95% Caucasian, but that information was widely available to The Committee (the name the students withe complaints gave themselves). Also, not sure if the actual letter was released but they also threatened an "act of civil disobedience" if the flags were not removed. This was among other demands to close school on the undergrad side for Martin Luther King Day (which is actually a discussion between students/faculty/staff as it is). Again, these are all Law students who have only been asked to step foot into the chapel one a single occasion. Let me repeat, I can't ask someone to not be offended by something. I'm just sad that a national story was made by the media over the actions of seven people. I know at least 3 of the students from The Committee very well and they're great people. I just think they put the President in an awful situation.

 

Hypothetically, do you brush aside seven minority students or do you do what they did and ensure the wrath of hundreds of the uninformed? Unfortunately the latter happened. I have a friend who works in the President's Office and she said you wouldn't have believed the threats/cursing she heard only to explain what actually is happening to only have them calm down and say, "Oh, that's all?"

 

The media is especially at fault here. This wouldn't have gotten anywhere CLOSE to the traction it has if they wouldn't have had misleading headlines and would have included all the facts. I was pretty pissed at our local paper, regional news outlets and even national outlets by having headlines like: "Confederate Flags Removed from University Chapel" and basically that's it. If you're going to say that, you need to be damn sure you let people know all the facts. Hope this helps.

[Burgold]

Flying the Confederate flag is a disgrace on several levels.

Moving outside of the race argument, the flag is a symbol of treason.  It represents the traitors who tried to abandon the country who, fought a war to betray the United States of America, and killed many of their brothers.  The flag is an insult to the USA not just blacks.  It is not just a homage to racism and hate.  It is anti-Americanism at its most pure. Those who fly the flag are honoring treason.

 

Freedom of speech gives them the right to fly those colors, but it is an ugly thing no matter how you view it.

[JMS]

Flying the Confederate flag is a disgrace on several levels.

Moving outside of the race argument, the flag is a symbol of treason.  It represents the traitors who tried to abandon the country who, fought a war to betray the United States of America, and killed many of their brothers.  The flag is an insult to the USA not just blacks.  It is not just a homage to racism and hate.  It is anti-Americanism at its most pure. Those who fly the flag are honoring treason.

 

Freedom of speech gives them the right to fly those colors, but it is an ugly thing no matter how you view it.

Yes yes those who fly Lee's battle flag in a private chapel containing Lee's remains, in a school named for Lee are being treasonous..

In the South the war is called "the War of Northern Aggression". It's in our history books.

States which freely chose to association, could freely choose disassociation... specifically speaking here for Virginia who left the union only after the Lincoln War dept gave it no choice but to provide troops for what Virginia felt was an unconstitutional invasion of the South.

Lincoln subsequently did invade the South resulting in the first casualty of the civil war due to enemy action.. Fairfax Virginia Courthouse June 1, 1861..

[Burgold]

Yes yes those who fly Lee's battle flag in a private chapel containing Lee's remains, in a school named for Lee are being treasonous..

Yeah, they are. Lee chose to make himself an enemy of the United States. It's really that simple. All those that worship at the heel of that flag are honoring treason.

Usually racism mostly, but treason as well.

[Larry]

Yes yes those who fly Lee's battle flag in a private chapel containing Lee's remains, in a school named for Lee are being treasonous..

In the South the war is called "the War of Northern Aggression". It's in our history books.

Your point that Burgold might be being a little over the top might have worked better, if you'd stopped before you got to the part where you pointed out the organized efforts going on to create an alternate reality, which are still going on, 150 years after the fact.

[TheGoodBits]

Yeah, they are. Lee chose to make himself an enemy of the United States. It's really that simple. All those that worship at the heel of that flag are honoring treason.

Usually racism mostly, but treason as well.

 

I've made this point many times, but in 1860 people identified much more closely with their states than with the country. Lee was a Virginian much more than he was an American. It was his loyalty to his state that caused him to side with the Confederacy. Your comments are over the top and historically ignorant. 

[Burgold]

Nope. You said it yourself. He sided with his state over his country. By going to war against his country he was a traitor to it.

Black and white.

You can say it was justifiable reason, but by any definition taking up arms and leading armies against your game land is never an act of patriotism. Rather it was treason.

Any logic around that is putting lipstick on a pig.

[Slateman]

Nope. You said it yourself. He sided with his state over his country. By going to war against his country he was a traitor to it.

Black and white.

You can say it was justifiable reason, but by any definition taking up arms and leading armies against your game land is never an act of patriotism. Rather it was treason.

Any logic around that is putting lipstick on a pig.

So states don't have the right to leave the Union?

[JMS]

Your point that Burgold might be being a little over the top might have worked better, if you'd stopped before you got to the part where you pointed out the organized efforts going on to create an alternate reality, which are still going on, 150 years after the fact.

Well if we know one thing about the civil war it's that there were many alternate realities on both sides of this conflict, North and South, just like there were in the most recent Gulf War....

What did bush come up with 4 5 or 6 reasons for fighting that war? A response to 911, To keep Saddam from getting the bomb, To keep Saddam from giving the bomb to Al Quada, To safeguard the United states from fictional Iraqi terrorist attacks, To save the Iraqi people from Saddam, To create a democracy in Iraq and transform the middle east; I think there were a few more too...

Clearly the Union fought the war to preserve the Union, not to end slavery.. Lincoln said as much. Just as clearly the South did not want to fight.. They didn't invade the north they were invaded first. The south wanted to leave the union which they felt was their legitimate right. They never gave up that right, and their is no language in the Constitution prohibiting their leaving a union which they themselves had freely entered into.

[JMS]

I've made this point many times, but in 1860 people identified much more closely with their states than with the country. Lee was a Virginian much more than he was an American. It was his loyalty to his state that caused him to side with the Confederacy. Your comments are over the top and historically ignorant.

Exactly correct... Prior to the civil war the United States refereed to itself as plural.. The United States ARE.... It was the civil war which made us a nation.

Lee who could trace his lineage back to three signers of the Constitution was against the war. He tried to stay out of it. He told the General in charge of the Union army General Windfield Scott he would stay out of it and Scott told him there was no staying out of it. He would either fight for the Union against his state of he would be pursued as a treasonous. Given no choice he choose to support his state, which he had to know had very little chance of being successful.

[Burgold]

So states don't have the right to leave the Union?

Interesting legal question, especially from a modern perspective, but I'd say... no.  States are not city states and independent fiefdoms who join in a loose fraternity out of convenience or necessity of defense and can leave at the merest whim.  We are a country in which the states are an integral part of the mechanism of that country.

 

Now, you can argue that one should have greater loyalty to your state than to your country, but that simply makes you a patriot to your state.  If you take up arms against your country you are a traitor to it.

 

The Confederates declared themselves so.

Exactly correct...  He would either fight for the Union against his state of he would be pursued as a treasonous.

 

Given no choice he choose to support his state, which he had to know had very little chance of being successful.

Of course, he had a choice.  He could have chosen not to be treasonous.  More to the point, the people who fly that flag today are celebrating the enemies of the United States of America.  These are the people who tried to break the Union.  From a modern perspective, the Confederate flag stands for two things... pro-slavery racism and anti-United States.

[JMS]

You can say it was justifiable reason, but by any definition taking up arms and leading armies against your game land is never an act of patriotism. Rather it was treason.

Any logic around that is putting lipstick on a pig.

Only it was the United States which invaded the South not visa versa. And no military officer pledges allegiance to the Union but rather to the constitution of the United States which the South felt was being violated..

The Constitution does not permit the President to raise an army without an act of congress.

The Constitution does not permit the President of the United States to invade and conduct a war without an act of congress.

The Constitution is silent on a states right to succeed, but the Constitution does grant all rights not explicitly spelled out in it's articles to the States.

Bottom line is it's not that clear cut at all.