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

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: 2) by frojack on Monday June 12 2017, @05:18AM (1 child)

    by frojack (1554) on Monday June 12 2017, @05:18AM (#524128) Journal

    No, it's not. It should have been done a long, long time ago.

    But given that it wasn't, and given that much of the confederacy was treated fairly well in the history books for a hundred years, it seems that better late than never is sorry excuse these days.

    I've never actually seen any blacks, southern or otherwise, taking Lee, or Davis to task for their plight. Instead their impatience and anger is with contemporary government and society in general.

    And can you blame them? there have been 28 presidents since the end of the Civil War. At least 3 of them should have been Blacks, by percentage of population reasoning. Instead only two claim to have been. Only 1/2 of one actually was.

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:04AM (#524165)

    What we choose to honor and given public space speaks a lot about our culture. Move these statues to the local museum of shame. "Look kids, here are some of our bigger fuck ups, please learn from their mistakes."