Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello: R.E. Lee

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

R.E. Lee

No John Kerry, He

I cannot believe your publication would refer to Robert E. Lee, the military leader of a treasonous rebellion, as an American hero. If a man who tried to destroy this country can be described as a "hero" then the word has no meaning.

I will no longer purchase your publication, nor read your website.
-- Matt Patterson

My instincts suggest that Matt Peterson spends his spare time in the KOS playpen. But there are others. I have no illusions about changing minds here, but this kind of crap [Civil Warring] drives me nuts. While I was never able to plough through every jot and tittle of St. Augustine's Confessions, or even Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," I consider it somewhat of an accomplishment to have read all of Douglas Southall Freeman's four volume biography of Robert E. Lee, including footnotes. It took a long time. I read some of it on the green lawns of Arlington Cemetery, overlooked by the Lee Custis mansion, on warm spring days instead of taking lunch. While I can't imagine how anyone could read a million word biography on a LCD screen, it can be done if you've a mind, and don't want to spend $100 or so on the set. Or not.

Robert E. Lee, when offered command of the Army of the Potomac by Winfield Scott, agonized over his decision. Virginia had not yet seceded, and while he hoped it would not, he knew which way the winds were blowing. In the end, he felt he could not lead soldiers into war against his own countrymen. He was first a Virginian, and that's the way folks thought before everything in the American States United was nationalized, like some Cuban sugar cane field. There are precious few men with his sturdy character in public life today. As recently as 60 years ago, we were able to accept and understand this.

I am Yankee schooled, BTW.

Rodger the Real King of France 1/31/2007 01:28:00 PM 15 Comments

"If the number of Islamic terror attacks continues at the current rate, candlelight vigils will soon be the number-one cause of global warming. "
Argus Hamilton

15 comments:

Anonymous said...: History? We don't need no steenkin' history.

F'ing morans.. er, maroons, er...

wmprof; 1/31/07, 2:30 PM
Anonymous said...: As a kid growing up in GA I loathed William Tecunsah Sherman. When I learned it was his love of the south that directed his actions to end the war, it made my head hurt. But I got over it and went on to the seventh grade.; 1/31/07, 2:38 PM
Anonymous said...: I have to laugh at the critics and the ones that detract from his expertise as a tactician and his character. It is somewhat like piss ants challenging Titans.; 1/31/07, 3:23 PM
hotspur666 said...: When it's all said and done, it was ALL ABOUT SLAVERY, just like Islam, who sold
us the slaves in the first place,
IS ALL ABOUT REINSTATING SLAVERY!!!!
And your descendants, my dear friends,
will be Mok'hammed and Ak'hmed's slaves,
your great grand son working the hammams
and your great grand daughters populating the harems.; 1/31/07, 3:58 PM
Rodger the Real King of France said...: I disagree that it was "all about slavery." It was all about power, and self-determination, with slavery being a major, but not lone component.; 1/31/07, 4:16 PM
Anonymous said...: I found a quote of the General's on friday (Gen. Lee's 200th birthday)

as I recall....

We made a grave error at the beginning of the war, we put our worst generals in charge of the war and left our best generals to edit the newspaprs.; 1/31/07, 6:56 PM
Anonymous said...: Slavery would have not lasted had there never been a War period. Slavery was part of the equation but it was in fact way down on the totum pole. Very few of the southerners that fought in the Civil War owned slaves. Fpor those people it was mainly about defending there state from an over bearing central government it was more to do with states rights than anything else.

While Lincoln was an aboloutionist he had approved plans for each new state that was admited to the Union one would be a free state the next would be a slave state. But there were people like John Brown who was intent on seeing that did not happen.

For the average southerner it was a war of agression waged by Northern interlopers. Had the South had went on and pressed there advantage during the opening battle of the war and pushed ahead and took Washington and the Troops that were there would have been captured the war would have ended then and there. But they failed to press there advantage. But make no mistake most of the southerners that fought in that war never owned a slave. Lee himself had emancipated his slaves that were left to him by his fathers years before the war ever begain. He was a Christian and did not believe in slavery.; 1/31/07, 6:56 PM
Rodger the Real King of France said...: Jack you are dead on. Dead. On. One of the reasons slavery was on the way out was Southern aristocracy had recognized that the practice was turning their sons into lazy slackards. Manumitting slaves via a will was becoming more prevalent. Would have been intersting to see what race politics would be today if the practice had died of its own accord.; 1/31/07, 8:46 PM
Anonymous said...: President Eisenhower letter regarding Robert E. Lee

President Dwight Eisenhower wrote the following letter in response to one he received dated August 1, 1960, from Leon W. Scott, a dentist in New Rochelle, New York. Scott’s letter reads:

Dear Mr. President:

At the Republican Convention I heard you mention that you have the pictures of four (4) great Americans in your office, and that included in these is a picture of Robert E. Lee.

I do not understand how any American can include Robert E. Lee as a person to be emulated, and why the President of the United States of America should do so is certainly beyond me.

The most outstanding thing that Robert E. Lee did was to devote his best efforts to the destruction of the United States Government, and I am sure that you do not say that a person who tries to destroy our Government is worthy of being hailed as one of our heroes.

Will you please tell me just why you hold him in such high esteem?

Sincerely yours,

Leon W. Scott

Eisenhower's response, written on White House letterhead on August 9, 1960 reads as follows:

August 9, 1960

Dear Dr. Scott:

Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee, I would say, first, that we need to understand that at the time of the War Between the States the issue of Secession had remained unresolved for more than 70 years. Men of probity, character, public standing and unquestioned loyalty, both North and South, had disagreed over this issue as a matter of principle from the day our Constitution was adopted.

General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his belief in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history.

From deep conviction I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the nation’s wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.

Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.

Sincerely,

Dwight D. Eisenhower

BTW, if you are ever in Richmond, you can stand where that picture of Lee was taken. The house is still here.
Lt.Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick; 1/31/07, 9:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Halftime score: North 3, South 0

We're just biding our time down here. Now that we control all the nuclear submarines though, the time is nigh...; 2/1/07, 8:04 AM
Anonymous said...: I will also add that Lee was only person to graduate West point with no demerits. He along with Douglas McAuther also had the highest GPA's I do not remember who was the highest Lee or Douglas.; 2/1/07, 9:14 AM
Anonymous said...: Eh, slavery was a major factor in the secessions. The fact that most southerners didn't own slaves is irrelevant, any more than most people not owning a newspaper has anything to do with their views on freedom of the press. Don't believe me, just read what the southern governments themselves said at the time.

"[...]The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:[...]"

"[...]WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression; THEREFORE,[...]"

"[...]he people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation.

For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. [...]"

http://www.americancivilwar.com/documents/index.html

etc., etc., etc. ad nauseum.

The extension of slavery into new states was a question that nearly led to secession and civil war before 1861 and was recognized by the Founders as the most likely cause of future civil conflict. George Washington, more of an American patriot than Lee, wrote in a letter in his later years that if such war came before he died he would have to stand against Virginia.

There were other issues, but slavery was intertwined with nearly all of them.; 2/1/07, 1:55 PM
Anonymous said...: The fact that most southerners did not own slaves is not irrellivant. Of course slavery was part of the equation as stated but it was not the most important reason. You can read the letters of many southerners that did not them self believe in slavery just like Lee but yet fought for there home states. They fought for there perceived right to leave the union feeling that they had been wronged by the Northern states in many areas. Economically and that there personal rights as a state was being abused. Slavery was a very important issue but it was not the main issue to most southerners. There is a small cemetary in northern Alabama where just about one row headstones has my family members buried there with the letters CSA carved into them. My father and mother and grand parents are buried there and there grand parents. I grew up listening when I was young to some very elderly people talk about that war and the reasons. I assure you they did not fight for slaves but for there land and what they believed was an invasion of it.; 2/1/07, 3:45 PM
Anonymous said...: Do I REALLY want to jump in on thiss topic? ... why not.
I keep hearing that the Civil War was not about slavery. Yet Henry Clay's compromise in 1820 (I think - my history is rusty) was ALL about Slavery and it was North vs South, and it postponed the war by about 40 years. Then in the mid 1850's the civil war began in Kansas and Nebraska (I consider it to have started there, and to then have "grown toward the east". Incursions across the state border line, burnings and murders. It was all about slavery. Over and over again.

I know there were higher principles involved concerning preserving a way of life, and for states having determination of destiny, and for the Southern states fighting the control of more powerful Northern states. But I just keep seeing that of all the practical concerns, slavery is always front and center.

-- mikedevx; 2/1/07, 6:36 PM
Anonymous said...: I really think that there is no basic disagreement here no question it was about slavery to a great degree. But not the greatest degree for the average person that lived in the south and bore the burden of fighting the war.For them they understood that slavery was the fuse that lit the fire but it was more about defending there home and family than slavery.; 2/2/07, 6:59 AM

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

R.E. Lee

15 comments:

Post a Comment