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The Truth About Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee: He Wasn’t Very Good at His Job

posted by cmn32480 on Monday June 12 2017, @12:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the south-shall-rise-again dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

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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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:38AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:38AM (#524108)

    It lost! Get over it!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @04:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @04:39AM (#524123)

    So did American Indians. Yet I'm sure you're not snidely saying the same thing to them, dickhead.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @12:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @12:31PM (#524324)

    Germany lost WWI and beating them up for it didn't work out so well.
    So there was a do over called WWII.

    This rewriting of history to feel better is not a smart move.
    It's kind of like asking for a ham fisted do over on the reconciliation that made a United States after the civil war.

    PC is not always C. Usually this is harmless, but rubbing the White South's nose in this is a repeat in reverse of the sin you are claiming to correct.
    It seems a smarter plan than disappearing Lee would be to put up a more balanced exhibit to teach history instead of hiding it.