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In the June 1969 issue of Civil War History — Volume 5, Number 2, pages 116-132 — a renowned Southern historian attacked the legacy of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
"No single war figure stands in greater need of reevaluation than Lee," wrote Thomas L. Connelly, the late University of South Carolina professor. "One ponders whether the South may not have fared better had it possessed no Robert E. Lee."
Connelly's essay was among the first academic musket shots fired on Lee's standing as an outmatched but not outwitted military genius presiding over a Lost Cause — a reputation celebrated in fawning biographies and monuments like the one removed Friday in New Orleans.
Was General Lee overrated? Get your armchair historian on...
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The Truth About Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee: He Wasn’t Very Good at His Job
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* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger...
m2 - that's a bad sign
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mendax on Monday June 12 2017, @02:00AM (1 child)
Robert E. Lee was not a bad general. That much is certain regardless of what this historian wrote. He was more than competent. He did make some mistakes on occasion, such as at the Battle of Gettysburg, which was turned out to be the turning point in the war. But when you consider that he was fighting a superior force throughout the war he did a pretty good job. I think the reason he did so well against the North during most of the war is because Lincoln kept appointing idiots as commanders of the Union Army. It wasn't until he appointed General Ulysses S. Grant that he found a general who could win.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 12 2017, @06:39AM
My post is much like your own: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=19991&cid=524150 [soylentnews.org]
Grant was pretty damned good, but without Sherman, Grant's efforts would have been much more costly to the North.