The reality is that his reputation and skill as a military leader was overblown, and he was as cruel an enslaver as they come. He felt slavery was a cause worth fighting for, all to protect his/his family’s wealth. If he chose to fight for the south in spite of low odds of winning, it’s only more indicative of just how strongly he supported the confederacy and the right to own people.
The notion that he only acted out of loyalty to his home state is the work of lost causers trying absolve him of responsibility for betraying his country. This way, he can continue filling the role of (white) people’s hero long after his death and get monuments built for him that celebrate and perpetuate confederate ideals. If Lee’s decision was normal, one might ask why General George Henry Thomas, another Virginian, still chose to fight for the United States alongside 100,000 other southern unionists who disagreed with secession.
We were immediately taken before Gen. Lee (http://fair-use.org/national-anti-slavery-standard/1866/04/14/robert-e-lee-his-brutality-to-his-slaves), who demanded the reason why we ran away; we frankly told him that we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget; he then ordered us to the barn, where, in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by Gen. Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty; we were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us; accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered; Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to lay it on well, an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.
Doesn’t sound like he stood on the side of progress. You are either knowingly or unknowingly white washing him. I hope you are doing the latter.
The civil war was absolutely fought over slavery. That was the reason given by every state that attempted to secede. Any suggestion otherwise is historical revisionism based on the lost cause narrative.
One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive- slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.
The U.S. did not want slavery to to spread pay its current states. This is why Texas gave up land to Oklahoma.
So once again, what was the civil war fought over if you believe it wasn’t slavery?
After the war, Lee was not arrested or punished (although he was indicted),[136] but he did lose the right to vote as well as some property. Lee’s prewar family home, the Custis-Lee Mansion, was seized by Union forces during the war and turned into Arlington National Cemetery, and his family was not compensated until more than a decade after his death.[137]
Somewhat related, he remains the only person to graduate West Point without a single demerit, IIRC. Granted, school accomplishments don’t necessarily translate into real world capability. Just a bit of trivia I’ve retained over the years.
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Lee’s reputation as an honorable man is something of a fabrication by false lost cause narratives.
The reality is that his reputation and skill as a military leader was overblown, and he was as cruel an enslaver as they come. He felt slavery was a cause worth fighting for, all to protect his/his family’s wealth. If he chose to fight for the south in spite of low odds of winning, it’s only more indicative of just how strongly he supported the confederacy and the right to own people.
The notion that he only acted out of loyalty to his home state is the work of lost causers trying absolve him of responsibility for betraying his country. This way, he can continue filling the role of (white) people’s hero long after his death and get monuments built for him that celebrate and perpetuate confederate ideals. If Lee’s decision was normal, one might ask why General George Henry Thomas, another Virginian, still chose to fight for the United States alongside 100,000 other southern unionists who disagreed with secession.
Doesn’t sound like he stood on the side of progress. You are either knowingly or unknowingly white washing him. I hope you are doing the latter.
https://acwm.org/blog/myths-misunderstandings-lee-slaveholder/
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The civil war was absolutely fought over slavery. That was the reason given by every state that attempted to secede. Any suggestion otherwise is historical revisionism based on the lost cause narrative.
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I’m gonna need you to clarify your point some more
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What does this have to do what u/Stovetop said?
What was the reason for the civil war?
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So slavery?
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The U.S. did not want slavery to to spread pay its current states. This is why Texas gave up land to Oklahoma.
So once again, what was the civil war fought over if you believe it wasn’t slavery?
State’s rights?
wp:Robert E. Lee#Postbellum life
I thought I was going to have an aneurysm there, ngl
Somewhat related, he remains the only person to graduate West Point without a single demerit, IIRC. Granted, school accomplishments don’t necessarily translate into real world capability. Just a bit of trivia I’ve retained over the years.
Lmao yeah right. If that were true he would have defected.
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lee was a total loser