# Robert E. Lee



## Foxbat (Sep 18, 2005)

I’ve just been reading a book about this enigmatic character. We didn’t get much US history at school so I came into this subject fairly ignorant. My conclusions are that he seems to have been a great leader rather than a great general. By that I mean that he was able to inspire great things from those around him – but when he intervened directly (as in the case in insisting that Longstreet carry out a frontal assault at Gettysburg, which resulted in the horrific casualties of Pickett’s Charge) he often seemed prone to miscalculation of the situation. In numbers, his army was often not far behind the Federals but in material, his force was far behind those of the North.

I was also unaware that he was quite a sick man during those years and that his illness may have led to a certain amount of bad decision making. Still, a very colourful and interesting character. The fact that he surrendered his army when he did – in time to allow men to return home in order to still have time to plant the season’s crop speaks volumes for the man’s longsighted approach to both his state and his country. 

Considering that his face has appeared on a US postage stamp and that his loyalty lay with the Confederacy(and therefore had the destruction of the United States as his objective), I was wondering how Americans view him today? And, also, if my analysis is accurate or is there yet more to discover about Robert E. Lee?


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## Trey Greyjoy (Sep 18, 2005)

Lee is a fascinating character. I know a little, but not a lot so I hesitate to say anything that may be incorrect. 

One thing I do know, he was actually approached by the north to lead the union army, however Lee thought that he should defend his home state (Virginia I believe) rather than side with the union against her. He was not a great supporter of the Confederacy much beyond the question of states rights versus federal. 
As far as Gettysburgh, I seem to recall that there is speculation from his writings that he believed God would decide the battle that day. (Lee was a deeply religious man). Here is where I get a little shaky on what happened, so be sure to double check if you are interested. He did in fact go against the advice of his generals that day. Otherwise he was a truly great leader and tactician. The loss of his general Jackson however, prior to Gettysburgh, was a devastating blow to the Confederate army.
He was truly a much better man overall than Grant, the union leader (Lee graduated at the top of his class at West Point, Grant graduated near the bottom and was an alcoholic). Had he led the Union army, the war would have been over much sooner, and Lee probably would have been asked to run for president. 
Being this is a sci-fi board, may I recommend Guns of the South? Its speculative fiction on what would have happened had the South been supplied with arms from sympathizes from the future. Fun stuff!


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## Foxbat (Sep 19, 2005)

Thanks for the book recommendation. I'll definitely look out for it.
You make some pertinent points.

It's such an irony that this man so highly thought of in the Confederacy could quite as easily (as you say) led the Federal army. I definitely agree that the loss of Jackson was a huge blow not only to the South but to Lee personally. He lost one of his most able and trusted soldiers. Also, he is a man who lost his 23 year old daughter to illness during this war. I wonder how he would have coped without his religious beliefs to help him through that time? 

There were times when he risked his life to fire up his men and the reports tell of an army who (on the whole) loved their commander. And yet so many of them went to their deaths under his command.
There are just so many sides to this man. Perhaps that is what is so fascinating about him.


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## Winters_Sorrow (Sep 19, 2005)

Trey Greyjoy said:
			
		

> Being this is a sci-fi board, may I recommend Guns of the South? Its speculative fiction on what would have happened had the South been supplied with arms from sympathizes from the future. Fun stuff!


 
This is a really fun book 

On the subject of General Lee, again I know a little rather than a lot about him. His main bonus to the Confederacy seemed to be that he was logistically minded and was able to bring his army to bear on a concentrated front against the larger Union forces.


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## Foxbat (Sep 19, 2005)

> On the subject of General Lee, again I know a little rather than a lot about him. His main bonus to the Confederacy seemed to be that he was logistically minded and was able to bring his army to bear on a concentrated front against the larger Union forces.


 
I agree. I'm not an expert by any means but I do feel that his strategic vision overshadowed his tactical skills.


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## Spook (Sep 19, 2005)

Lee's greatest skill as a General was at a strategic level. 

Considering that he managed to hold off the sledgehammer tactics of the Union Armies for as long as he did with minimal logistics and a fraction of the manpower demonstrates that. He also had excellent corps commanders for the most part (ie; Jackson) and commanded massive respect from his men. A likeable bloke too. 

Fascinating the American Civil War.

A big problem for the South was that the other armies in other theatres worked as individual units rather than with a clear strategic objective. You also can't help but feel rather bad for Jefferson Davis that he was so thin on the ground for Senior Commanders in other theatres that he had to stick people like Braxton Bragg in command (who was mad) and Hood who; whilst a brave and likeable man; didn't have a clue what he was doing when he commanded a force above Corps size.

I rather like Joseph Johnston. He's under-rated as far as Confederate Generals go. He realised the war was going to be won via waging a defensive war and letting the Union bleed themselves white fighting on the offensive and then seeking an armistice when the butchers bill got too high. Trouble was he would withdraw rather than fight a battle and sustain needless casualties; something which infuriated Davis. He was a master of maneuver though.


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## Gwydion (Jan 13, 2006)

Lee was a brilliant man. The perfect example of an honorable, duty bound christian man.


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## Cozener (Oct 17, 2006)

I was born in South Carolina.  Lived there up until I was 12 then moved to Kentucky.  I may be a tad biased but I revere Lee as one of the greatest generals, not only of American history, but that of the entire world.  As mentioned by another poster, he fought an army that was superior in both numbers and much better supplied.  I will say though that the generals that he was up against had a hand in making him look good too.  

On Grant.  No...Grant was not a great general.  But I will say this for him.  Grant knew that he couldn't beat the South strategically.  They simply had better leadership.  Lee, Jackson, Beauregard, Johnston, Forrest, etc.  But Grant had the guts to throw men into the meat grinder and wear down the South whereas all of the generals that came before him...most notably McLellan, couldn't even muster up the courage to fight.  In this he was a great leader if not a great general.  He was tough...strong.  I don't envy him his guilt, his nightmares, or the reckoning he may have faced when he met his maker (who I hope was merciful considering the end result)  But without him there may not be a United States today. There could very well be legal slavery in this world if not for him.  But hey, you can't second guess history.  Who knows what might have been?


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## j d worthington (Oct 17, 2006)

Also, on Grant: the idea of him as an alcoholic has been proven to be apocryphal. Yes, he did keep a flask around, but he was very seldom seen to take a sip from it... it was for guests who chose to imbibe. Grant was a much more complex and worthy man than most popular history has led us to believe.

As for Lee ... yes, he remains one of the great figures of American history. A bitter piece of his story is that, despite the acknowledged greatness of the man, and the respect in which he was held prior to and during much of the war even by his bitterest enemies; and despite the fact that he aided in the repatriation of many, many former Confederate soldiers, including officers, Lee himself was never allowed to regain his citizenship in the United States, nor granted a pardon. In fact, it was not until over a century after the debacle that such was finally granted:



> Lee's example of applying for amnesty encouraged many other former members of the Confederacy's armed forces to accept restored U.S. citizenship. In 1975, President Gerald Ford granted a posthumous pardon and the U.S. Congress restored his citizenship, following the discovery of his oath of allegiance by an employee of the National Archives in 1970.


 
For more, see the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Lee

http://www.civilwarhome.com/leebio.htm

Lee was a man of honor and integrity, and had no love for slavery; but he was passionately devoted to the idea of this as a Republic formed of autonomous States, as originally envisioned; and therefore he could not in conscience serve the North during the War ... a war he himself worked very hard to avert, until it became obvious that it was inevitable.


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## carrie221 (Oct 17, 2006)

I think that Lee is one of the unsung heros of american history, as said above he did not want the war to happen. He was offered command of the union army but declined due to the fact that he could not bare to lead an army on an invasion of his home state Virginia, actually you can see Washington DC from what was his home. He was also very pro-state's rights and was always a loyal soldier to his home (first the US and then Virginia)...


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## Azathoth (Oct 22, 2006)

Awright, to stir up the pot a li'l bit, and even out the views.  

In all honesty, I think the man was vile. He was hardly honorable; he broke his sacred vow as a soldier to uphold the union. And, even if he wasn't personally fond of slavery, he *still* fought to maintain it. That he would slaughter thousands upon thousands of men for something as small as states' rights...I dunno, doesn't that seem a little messed up?

And even his skills as a general are overrated; I mean, c'mon, he *lost*. That right there says he sucked. Great generals don't *lose*...even if the enemy comes from a superior economic base. Washington and Greene and all the others of the Revolution didn't lose, even in the face of a much superior opponent. I'd also like to point out that the South did have it's advantages - a zealous population, soldiers who had grown up with rifles and as a result were expert marksmen, a massive slave population which *could* have been drawn upon...and so forth. The fact that Lee never tried to take advantage of a single one of these facts is a sign of his inflexibility - and therefore his weakness as a general.

Sure, he was a complex individual. He had a clever sense of humor, he was a family guy, he treated his slaves with respect, and, in a sense, he was the epitome of Southern "chivalry"...yet, those traits are small indeed compared to the bloodbath which he oversaw.


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## Cloud (Oct 22, 2006)

My name is Lee, and my family has roots in the South.  It's a family name, and yes, it's a homage to REL


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## Foxbat (Oct 22, 2006)

It's good to find points of view here from folk that know a lot more about the subject than myself. I'm sorry, though - I don't agree that losing made Lee a bad general. The fact that he held out so long says to me that he knew his job. To draw an analogy - Michael Schumacher faces his final race in Formula 1 today before he retires. If he does not win this race, he will lose the championship. Does this make him a poor driver? Not at all. He is still probably the greatest racing driver that has ever graced Formula 1. So, does losing the Civil War make Lee a bad general? Not necessarily.

On the point about loyalty - he obviously (as a Virginian) had a strong bond with his state and I can understand this. Being a Scot myself - if Scotland and England were ever to go to war with each other, I have no doubt where my loyalty would lie. Would that make me a traitor to Westminster? I would not consider that to be the case. My first and foremost loyalty is to my own people - as was Lee's.

Just my thoughts folks


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## j d worthington (Oct 22, 2006)

And there is the point that, in the destruction of the concept of "states' rights", the Union was reopening the wound that darned near prevented the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the ratification of the Constitution in the first place. In such an instance, it's the decision of a person of principle whether to uphold an oath to an institution that is now going against the very principles that union is supposed to be founded on (the road to tyranny), or to defend those principles in hopes that a stronger, better union will be reborn from the ashes. Unquestioning loyalty is certainly no better than following one's conscience in such a case.

As for the Civil War being about slavery ... that's simply not the case. It was the pretext, in some ways, but it was by no means what the war was about. It was brought on by, as noted above, regional differences that were never truly laid to rest when the Union was formed in the first place, and by a desire to maintain economic advantage by a region that had already gone far along the road to a different political paradigm; the South remained more conservative and more committed to the ideas of states' rights, and a federation of sovereign states because without that wedge, it could easily be bankrupted (as indeed became the case).

Whether Lee was right or wrong is something others are likely to see quite differently; but in light of the political beliefs of his time, and the commitment to the principles the nation was founded upon, he was (albeit reluctantly) following what was certainly the hardest choice a man in his position would ever have to face.


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## Azathoth (Oct 22, 2006)

Again, to balance out the views....



> It's good to find points of view here from folk that know a lot more about the subject than myself. I'm sorry, though - I don't agree that losing made Lee a bad general. The fact that he held out so long says to me that he knew his job. To draw an analogy - Michael Schumacher faces his final race in Formula 1 today before he retires. If he does not win this race, he will lose the championship. Does this make him a poor driver? Not at all. He is still probably the greatest racing driver that has ever graced Formula 1. So, does losing the Civil War make Lee a bad general? Not necessarily.



Good point.  Perhaps, then, in Lee's younger days, the outcome of the war might have been different.  We'll never know.    

However, I don't think that merely holding out made Lee a good general.  The current generals of the Iraq war are "holding out", yet I daresay we aren't attaining victory.  The point is, if Lee were a good general, he would have recognized the South's inability to fight a drawn out war, and he would have launched something of a blitzkrieg, as Sherman did.  



> Unquestioning loyalty is certainly no better than following one's conscience in such a case.



The conscience - what a strange little creature. From it we have seen both the greatest and the worst of actions. From the conscience came the civil rights movement...certainly a worthwhile endeavor. And yet, genocide in countless regions of the world has also stemmed from people's conscience. Therefore, I think that merely acting upon one's conscience isn't enough...one's actions *must* be morally sound, regardless of the intentions. And Lee's actions were hardly moral...he led brother against brother, and that is wrong. 



> As for the Civil War being about slavery ... that's simply not the case. It was the pretext, in some ways, but it was by no means what the war was about. It was brought on by, as noted above, regional differences that were never truly laid to rest when the Union was formed in the first place, and by a desire to maintain economic advantage by a region that had already gone far along the road to a different political paradigm; the South remained more conservative and more committed to the ideas of states' rights, and a federation of sovereign states because without that wedge, it could easily be bankrupted (as indeed became the case).



I'm well aware of all that. However, that doesn't deny the fact that Lee fought to uphold an institution he recognized as immoral. He allowed his loyalty to his friends and his state to overwhelm his moral vision.


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## Foxbat (Oct 22, 2006)

I'm not sure that Lee could have achieved a Blitzkreig as you suggest. We have to remember that the North had a much greater level of industrialisation than the South. This in itself would probably be enough to make the outcome of the war inevitable. I've always viewed the South as being in the same position as the Japanese after Pearl Harbour - desperately needing to win quickly before that industrial might swings into full war production.

A similiarity could be drawn between Lee and Erwin Rommel - both perceived to be honourable and fine generals hamstrung by lack of resources. 

It would be interesting to see what Lee would have done if he had the resources of the North. Alas (or perhaps luckily) we shall never know.


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## Robert M. Blevins (Oct 25, 2006)

If Lee had not made the one mistake of marching his Army of Northern Virginia all the way up to Gettysburg...he could have parried and thrust with the Union armies to a draw. The war would have ended with some kind of truce. Until that point, much of Lee's strategy was to respond (intelligently) to moves by the North. It was the first time he really went on the offensive. 

By the time Gettysburg happened, the draft riots in New York and other places, were getting worse. It was only a matter of time before the North would have abandoned the idea of taking over the South completely.

Giving all the credit to Grant for eventually winning the war is a mistake. It was Sherman who finally broke the South's back and cut the supply lines to Lee's army. 
In any event, the whole thing was a damn tragedy of major proportions, and hopefully will never be repeated.

My family is from Tennessee, originally. Everyone in my family that was alive during the Civil War fought with the South. Funny thing, a lot of southerners even today really resent that term 'Civil War.' They like to call it 'the war between the states.'

They don't hate Grant. If you polled people in the South, I'm certain that General Sherman would rate much higher on the hate list...


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## carrie221 (Oct 25, 2006)

Robert M. Blevins said:


> If Lee had not made the one mistake of marching his Army of Northern Virginia all the way up to Gettysburg...he could have parried and thrust with the Union armies to a draw. The war would have ended with some kind of truce. Until that point, much of Lee's strategy was to respond (intelligently) to moves by the North. It was the first time he really went on the offensive.
> 
> By the time Gettysburg happened, the draft riots in New York and other places, were getting worse. It was only a matter of time before the North would have abandoned the idea of taking over the South completely.
> 
> ...


 
You made some very good points...

A few years ago I was in a university class with some students that had taken a summer class which dealt with civil rights and had traveled down south, they were shocked to hear people refer to the civil war as either the "war between the states" or "war of northern aggression"

Sherman is the one held accountable for the wave of distruction to the ocean...


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