There are  many critiques of Lee. Take a look at Nolan's  Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History.

But one reason we don't focus on Lee is because in the big picture he seems pretty minor. He was really on the national stage for only about four years, and he spent that time as a general.  Most generals who are major historical figures go on to other things (Washington, Jackson, Grant, Eisenhower, George Marshall, or General Haig in the 1980s).  Lee did not.

He was a losing general who managed to destroy his army first at Antietam and then at Gettysburg.  After 1863 he fought a long and bloody rearguard defense to protect a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men were NOT created equal (as Confederate V.P. Stephens told us:  "Our new government is founded upon . . . its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery-subordination to the superior race-is his natural and normal condition."  Stephens denounced the northern claims that the "enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically."  He unabashedly asserted: "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea."  Stephens argued that it was "insanity" to believe "that the negro is equal" or that slavery was wrong.  He proudly predicted that the Confederate Constitution "has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution-African slavery as it exists amongst us-the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization."

When his army invaded Pennsylvania he send his soldiers off to look for runaway slaves.  He supported slavery until the end and only at the last possible moment considered that it might be useful to enlist a few blacks to fight to protect slavery.  He supported a regime that refused to follow the laws of war with regard to captures soldiers who were black or their white officers.  His response to black troops, like the rest of the Confederacy, was barbaric -- to enslave (or kill) captured black troops.  He never took a stand against the official Confederate position on enslaving captured black soldiers.

He accepted a West Point education and swore an oath the US Constitution and then went to war against his former comrades.  Lee defended the proslavery regime. 

But, and here is why he is mostly ignored, when he lost he retired. He did not promote the lost cause. He did not promote the KKK, he did not take a role in post-war politics.  He did not try to refight the war covered up in a white sheet with a  burning cross behind him. Instead, he admirably took a college presidency and did what he could to rebuild Virginia.  

So, in the end he was a losing general in a bad cause, but not much more.  


-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Corneliussen
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2012 9:09 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] (VA-HIST] "The Monster of Monticello"

> Amazing that Robert E. Lee remains the one great unstained American.

If true, amazing indeed.
Steve Corneliussen

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html