Is the myth of Gen Robert E Lee starting to crumble?

[daftandbarmy]

This article in the Atlantic takes down a lot of the myths of Lee including his attitude after the war.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/


Sometimes it isn’t presentism.  It’s just recognizing that some people’s hero was really just an a hole back then even by that time’s standard and was that his perceived persona was just a thing of fiction to justify some narrative.

"Every hero becomes a bore at last." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

[tomahawk6]

Early on Lee outgeneraled the North and his subordinates were better than the North's. Later on the North caught up. A war of attrition was something the agrarian South wasn't going to win.

 

[Remius]

Stonewall Jackson was a far superior general in my mind.  Losing him was likely a loss the south was not going to recover from.

 

[mariomike]

It’s just recognizing that some people’s hero was really just an a hole back then even by that time’s standard and was that his perceived persona was just a thing of fiction to justify some narrative.

Enthusiasm for the preservation, or removal, of his statues is reportedly, "sharply split along racial and party lines",

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22robert+e+lee%22+removed&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjTvILWyPznAhWMTqwKHRTiB0EQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=%22robert+e+lee%22+removed&gs_l=img.3..0i8i30.2087.5733..8949...0.0..0.199.929.0j5......0....1..gws-wiz-img.pw4Gu7IlHGo&ei=PGRdXtOuMIydsQWUxJ-IBA&bih=641&biw=1280

Responses to the poll were sharply split along racial and party lines, however, with whites and Republicans largely supportive of preservation. Democrats and minorities were more likely to support removal.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/21/polls-shows-majority-of-americans-think-confederate-statues-should-remain

 

[daftandbarmy]

Stonewall Jackson was a far superior general in my mind.  Losing him was likely a loss the south was not going to recover from.

I'm guessing that the Union Blockade had more to do with that loss than Jackson's demise.... but there's always a pesky historian or two lurking in the weeds to prove me wrong

"The Union blockade was a powerful weapon that eventually ruined the Southern economy, at the cost of very few lives.[19] The measure of the blockade's success was not the few ships that slipped through, but the thousands that never tried it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_blockade

 

[quadrapiper]

This article in the Atlantic takes down a lot of the myths of Lee including his attitude after the war.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/

Sometimes it isn’t presentism.  It’s just recognizing that some people’s hero was really just an a hole back then even by that time’s standard and was that his perceived persona was just a thing of fiction to justify some narrative.

IIRC Washington and (again IIRC) several of the other big names among his peers also qualify for that distinction. Is there something peculiar to the US cultural milieu encouraging lionization? It's hard to do a Canadian comparison, given the long, gradual nature of the current country's development and the much less story-friendly nature of most of the potential historical pantheon. "Mostly-elected politicians politiced for decades, then more of the same type had a conference in PEI" isn't quite armed rebellion.

 

[tomahawk6]

Sadly on the left the goal is to destroy historical figures by painting them as slave owners. Washington was a slave owner. It was what was done in the West Indies as well as in the colonies. A war was fought to correct the evils of slavery in our part of the world although slavery persisted in Africa and the middle east.

 

[mariomike]

Washington was a slave owner.

For reference to the discussion,

What Trump — and his critics — get wrong about George Washington and Robert E. Lee
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/08/23/what-trump-and-his-critics-get-wrong-about-george-washington-and-robert-e-lee/
The two men owned slaves — but at vastly different moments in American history.

Why Trump is wrong to equate George Washington with Robert E. Lee
http://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-george-washington-lee-slavery-20170820-story.html
George Washington was a patriot and Robert E. Lee was a traitor. Washington led his countrymen in battle to win the independence of the United States, while Lee did his utmost to destroy our "more perfect Union" for the sake of chattel slavery.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Sadly on the left the goal is to destroy historical figures by painting them as slave owners. Washington was a slave owner. It was what was done in the West Indies as well as in the colonies. A war was fought to correct the evils of slavery in our part of the world although slavery persisted in Africa and the middle east.

An interesting little 'myth buster' article on the Civil War:

Myth #2: The Union went to war to end slavery.

Sometimes, Loewen said, the North is mythologized as going to war to free the slaves. That's more bad history, Loewen said: "The North went to war to hold the union together."

https://www.livescience.com/13673-civil-war-anniversary-myths.html

https://www.livescience.com/13673-civil-war-anniversary-myths.html

 

[mariomike]

Myth #2: The Union went to war to end slavery.

Sometimes, Loewen said, the North is mythologized as going to war to free the slaves. That's more bad history, Loewen said: "The North went to war to hold the union together."

https://www.livescience.com/13673-civil-war-anniversary-myths.html

https://www.livescience.com/13673-civil-war-anniversary-myths.html

And make no mistake, the very purpose of the Confederacy was to perpetuate and expand slavery. The Confederate Constitution, which Lee took an oath to uphold and defend, prohibited laws "impairing the right of property in negro slaves," meaning that no state could ever abolish slavery even if it wanted to. In all, there were 10 specific references to slaves or slavery in the Confederate Constitution. The 11 state secession conventions focused on Abraham Lincoln's election as a threat to slavery, and declared the need to leave the Union to create a slaveholders' republic.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-george-washington-lee-slavery-20170820-story.html

 

[FSTO]

For reference to the discussion,

Well if you want to be technical, both Washington and Lee were rebellious traitors. It's just that Washington was successful and Lee wasn't.

 

[mariomike]

Washington was a slave owner.

If comparing the two,

It is true that Washington was also a slaveholder, but that is where his resemblance to Lee ends. As Matthew Yglesias pointed out in Vox, we revere Washington today because of his many accomplishments on behalf of the nation that had nothing to do with slavery. He was the military leader in the Revolutionary War, he presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and, perhaps most important, he established the precedent of peacefully leaving office at the end of his term.

Lee, in contrast, had virtually no achievements other than the military defense of slavery, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. If Washington is remembered despite his connection to slavery, Lee is remembered only because of it. To be sure, Washington's slaveholding is, and must be, an indelible stain on his reputation. Lee, by contrast, would have no historical reputation at all if he had not committed treason to defend human bondage.

The lives of Washington (1732-1799) and Lee (1807-1870) did not overlap, and they were divided by a crucial inflection point in American attitudes toward slavery.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-george-washington-lee-slavery-20170820-story.html

 

[FJAG]

Just to jump off on a tangent. I get the above arguments re slavery but to call Washington a patriot and Lee a traitor is glibly glossing over the fact that Washington too was a traitor.

His grandfather was born in England and immigrated to the English colonies. All his offspring, born in Virginia were born as British subjects of the King of England and served as an officer in the British colonial forces.

Much of the Revolution had its genesis in commercial aspects (such as the Declaration of 1763 which reserved much of the West as Indian Lands something which the colonies vehemently disagreed with) rather than personal freedom issues. (Let's face it the period after the revolution was one massive American grab of western lands including its rapacious war with Mexico)

The Civil War was also a commercial enterprise whereby the more industrialized and mercantile North differed sharply with the agrarian South. Think back to Hamilton and Jefferson and the "centrist" Federalists and the "states-rights espousing" Democratic-Republicans.

To call Washington a patriot only works when you factor in the end result of the War of Independence being successful. Had the colonies lost, chances are Washington would have been treated as a traitor.

So much of the decision as to who to call a patriot or a traitor depends on the result of the conflict.

:cheers:

 

[Rocky Mountains]

Slavery was but one factor in the Civil War.  It was tied in with the fact that the North treated the South like Trudeau treats Alberta.  Economic imperialism was what the Civil War was about.  One of ways economic imperialism presented itself was opposition to slavery.  There were many others.  Import duties and restraint of trade were others.

As a soldier Lee had no need for slaves.  He purchased none and freed many.  He was not a poster child for slavery.  Grant was a slaveholder of circumstance too.  Something to do with the times.

 

[mariomike]

It was tied in with the fact that the North treated the South like Trudeau treats Alberta. 

If the Civil War were fought today, the number of deaths would total 6.2 million.
https://www.history.com/news/civil-war-deadlier-than-previously-thought

Hopefully, that won't happen over Alberta.