Wonderful Review!!! Many thanks for your summary.  I guess we
Virginian's DO have to remain open to new and different ideas, painful
though they may be.

As a Myers-Briggs INTJ type of personality, I must continually remind
myself of the prayer of that type which I saw published some years ago.

"Lord, give me grace to accept the opinions of others, wrong though they
may be."

Randy Cabell

"Johnson, Eric" wrote:
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Randy Cabell [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: Monday, October 02, 2000 10:39 AM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: Those darned revisionists again
> >
> >
> > I don't want to take my technically challenged brain through a lot of
> > hoops if it is going to be bad news.  Can you give a two-sentance
> > synopsis of the article?
>
> I'll be happy to give it a stab, though the historian in me won't allow it
> to be a mere two sentences.  Wouldn't do it justice.  ;)
>
> September 30, 2000
>
> A Bull Market for Grant, A Bear Market for Lee; History's Judgment of the 2
> Civil War Generals Is Changing
>
> By Janny Scott
>
> The article starts out:
>
> "For the better part of the last century the images of two of the greatest
> icons of the Civil War remained fixed in the American imagination: Robert E.
> Lee as the noble and tragic leader of the Confederate forces, the brilliant
> tactician fighting against overwhelming odds, and Ulysses S. Grant as the
> heavy-drinking butcher who used the North's superior resources to grind down
> the South, then became one of the worst presidents in the nation's history.
>
> "Those characterizations are now being challenged by a string of books that
> are both more admiring of Grant and more skeptical of Lee than would have
> seemed imaginable only a short time ago."
>
> Scott then goes on to review the recent scholarship into Lee and Grant.
> Lee's generalship has been criticized by authors "faulting him for his
> aggressiveness, accusing him of having squandered limited manpower and
> arguing that he needlessly prolonged the war. The long-held idea that Lee
> opposed slavery, at least at times, has also been discounted."
>
> "Meanwhile," writes Scott, "several new books on Grant portray him as an
> extraordinary general who gave a new dimension to American military
> strategy, whose casualties were proportionally fewer than Lee's, who not
> only fought to save the Union and free the slaves but also worked hard to
> enforce Reconstruction and black equality in the South long after it ceased
> to be popular. Even the extent of his drinking is in doubt."
>
> The article further traces the historiography on the two generals.  Some
> historians argue that the glorification of Lee can be traced to the turn of
> the century, when he was used as a reunifying force to help move the country
> past the war.  The Confederacy was distanced from "the taint of slavery" by
> the Lost Cause writers, who suggested the war was fought over constitutional
> issues and not slavery.
>
> As for Grant, John Y. Simon argued that his reputation was at its lowest ebb
> in the 1930s, when the country completely abandoned the Reconstructionist
> policies that he'd championed.  But recent scholarship reviews his support
> for racial equality during and after the war, as well as his support of a
> peace policy for dealing with the Plains Indians.
>
> The books mentioned are:
>
> Examining Lee:
> _Lee Considered: Gen. Robert E. Lee and Civil War History_, by Alan T. Nolan
> _Uncertain Glory: Lee's Generalship Re-examined_, by John D. McKenzie,
> _How Robert E. Lee Lost the Civil War_ by Edward H. Bonekemper III
> _Robert E. Lee's Civil War_, by Bevin Alexander
> _Lee Moves North: Robert E. Lee on the Offensive_, by Michael A. Palmer.
>
> Examining Grant:
> _Grant_, a biography by Jean Edward Smith (due out from Simon & Schuster on
> April 9)
> _President Grant Reconsidered_, by Frank J. Scaturro
> _Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier & President_, by Geoffrey Perret
> _Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865_, by Brooks D. Simpson
> (second volume on the way)
>
> Also mentioned: Three novels about Grant published last summer; the PBS
> series "American Experience" is working on a two-part biography of Grant;
> and a book on the memorialization of Grant in the 19th century is being
> written by Joan Waugh, a historian at the University of California at Los
> Angeles.
>
> The historians quoted in the article:
> Gary W. Gallagher
> Jean Edward Smith
> James M. McPherson
> Alan T. Nolan
> Joan Waugh
> Eric Foner
> Jean Edward Smith
> John Y. Simon
>
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