SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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...
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Truth About Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee: He Wasn’t Very Good at His Job
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 110 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
2
(1)
2
Life is not for everyone.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @12:20AM (1 child)
I can't wait for the biography of NiggerCommander detailing: how he was presumptuous to create Soylentnews; rumors of his genius are fabrications; his hubris knows no bounds; NiggerCommander is really a drooling idiot; and how he was driven to depression and alcoholism and suicide. I smell a best seller!!
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @12:25AM
See what happens when you run news approving a hit piece. You're next, bitch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @12:26AM (3 children)
And he assaulted reporters. And he beat his wife.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:01AM
LoL, nice to know that the "obama was just as bad" concept isn't anything new. Lincoln was to Lee as Obama is to Trump? We can only hope that this generation's flaming bigot falls even harder.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 12 2017, @11:46PM (1 child)
History is what people repeat about the past - not an accurate, complete, nor unbiased account of anything.
BTW, this story seems to be rebel-baiting.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @05:10PM
posted by a new yorker! (say with virginian accent for best effect)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @12:42AM (51 children)
The cultural revolution is in full swing, all glory to the glorious leader President Zedong!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday June 12 2017, @12:56AM (50 children)
Well, like anything else, unfortunately it takes hard work and knowledge of the subject to detect blatantly partisan crap. Even when you think you're getting stuff straight from the horse's mouth, you get things like my Ralph Manheim translation of Mein Kampf which dedicates his entire foreword to dismissing Hitler as a raving paranoiac who gave lots of women (and some men) herpes and kicked kittens in his spare time. And that fucker translated the book.
That being said, I don't know much about combat history, but removing statues is bullshit. Even if you have to resort to Ralph Manheim tactics like justifying their existance with apologetic bullshit, it's better than removing the whole thing outright.
Famous figures have such a large surface area of attack that it's easy for partisan hacks to say that they sucked. That war was a fucking meat-grinder, of course people on both sides are going to suck.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Monday June 12 2017, @02:00AM (47 children)
No, it's not. It should have been done a long, long time ago. His statue is a symbol of everything the South stood for, including slavery. Do you think that the descendants of slaves, who suffered (and perhaps still do) much injustice, should be forced to keep a symbol of that injustice around?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 12 2017, @02:10AM (2 children)
Not only that, but I think there's different degrees here. For instance, should a statue of General Lee, installed not long after the Civil War by defeated Confederates be removed? Now, should an obelisk built in 1891 to honor a white supremacist group who fought against integration in the New Orleans police and militia be removed? I can see reason for disagreement of the former, but for the latter, no way: honoring a bunch of violent white supremacists who fought many years after the end of the Civil War is something entirely different. At least you can say the War itself was instrumental in shaping this nation's history, and Lee, whatever your opinion of him, was a big part of that history. But these other fools? I never even heard of them until last month's flap in New Orleans. They sure as hell weren't instrumental in our nation's history the way the Civil War was.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 12 2017, @06:02AM
Agreed. I never heard of those insurrectionists, until recently. They mean nothing to me, and I can't even be assed to do the minimal research that might make them mean something. Trash the obelisk, I don't care. No one outside of New Orleans - certainly no one outside Louisiana cares about it.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:37AM
The New York Magazine article that I had linked said that the attempted coup was important:
-- http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/new-orleans-removes-monument-to-white-terrorism.html [nymag.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday June 12 2017, @02:12AM (6 children)
I think a good compromise would be to ship all those disgruntled slaves' descendants to Los Angeles and San Francisco with plenty of downtown properties converted to affordable housing for them -- calling it "reparations."
It's a win-win situation that also preserves American history.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday June 12 2017, @02:33AM (1 child)
Paid for primarily with extra taxes on the southern colonies, right?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday June 12 2017, @03:08AM
No, what are you, racist or something? Refugees Welcome, as some people like to say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:24PM (3 children)
I've got a different idea for a compromise. Get all those people who still support the "Southern Culture" of the antebellum US South. That is gather all the people together that support keeping and creating statues celebrating a culture that enslaves humans beings, a culture that believed in enslaving other humans enough to treasonously rebel from its own government, launched on attach on its own government's military base, and continued a war that killed 100's of thousands. Oh and they lost! Why not take those people and send them back to were they came from. Who knows, some of them might even fit into the post-brexit UK.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:02AM (2 children)
> [...] a culture that believed in enslaving other humans enough to treasonously rebel from its own government [...]
The U.S. Declaration of Independence said:
which resembles what we today call the right of self-determination. Not to defend slavery as a reason to form a country, I wouldn't call it treason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:08AM (1 child)
Hmm, you do realize that the Declaration of Independence has no legal standing as a founding document of the United States? While an inspirational read, it does in fact describe treason: against the British Crown, and can be read as an apologia for that act.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:04AM
The reason I mentioned the Declaration of Independence is that it, as far as I know, is the earliest expression (anywhere) of a right to self-determination. I do understand that it never had the force of law. If we acknowledge that right, we needn't call separatist movements treasonous.
Over the week-end there was a referendum on the status of Puerto Rico; one choice presented was independence. The U.S. president participated in the wording of the referendum by suggesting that the status quo ought to be an option. As far as I know he didn't denounce the presence of the independence option. In 2014, the British prime minister stated that the referendum on Scottish independence would be binding--meaning that, had there been a vote in favour of independence, his government would have honoured it. Critics of the Crimean referendum don't say that the people of Crimea ought not to have had a choice in its status, instead noting problems such as the absence of an option for continuing the status quo, denouncing the presence of the Russian military. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which doesn't have the force of law, mentions a right of self-determination.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 12 2017, @02:14AM (6 children)
Oh, in addition: I agree that keeping that symbol of injustice seems bad, however how about this suggestion: if the anti-statue-removal people don't want Lee's statue removed, how about if we put statues of Grant and Lincoln right next to it? Would they be in favor of that, or against? Then the descendants of slaves should in theory be mollified because next to the symbol of injustice is two symbols of the people who fought that injustice, but I'll bet the pro-Lee-statue people would be opposed. Why is it they like statues of Confederate generals, but they don't want statues of Union generals around? I'd say that's a pretty good indicator of them simply being racists of they don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:48AM (1 child)
right next to it, and bigger and much more prominent roo, perhaps looking down with a look of pity mixed with scorn as well. Especially Sherman.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:00PM
Don't forget the statue of Benjamin Franklin Butler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 12 2017, @05:40AM
That's not a bad idea at all. Sort of reminds me of the Confederate memorial on Martha's Vineyard.
"WHAT?!" you say, "Another confederate memorial in Massachusetts? I thought Charlie Baker wanted to tear down the "only one" [bostonmagazine.com]."
Nope. There's a much more interesting confederate memorial on Martha's Vineyard. Even weirder -- it was dedicated by Union veterans in memory of their Confederate brethren. Photo here. [typepad.com]
The history of the thing is explained here [mvmagazine.com]. Basically, a Confederate veteran moved to Martha's Vineyard after the war and at some point paid to erect a monument in honor of Union soldiers. Some years later, the Union veterans returned the favor. There are other such joint monuments in the U.S. (example [wikipedia.org]), a relic of the rather widespread reconciliation events that occurred mostly in the early days of the 1900s when Unionist troops were too old to dance victory jigs anymore and both sides were eager to heal wounds -- hence the Martha's Vineyard monument's title "The Chasm Is Closed."
However, we no longer have the Ken Burns effect to erect public monuments to reconciliation through PBS documentaries... instead, division is the political order of the day. The statues are now seen as symbols of division and thus are being removed.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday June 12 2017, @06:09AM (1 child)
Tell you what, I'll put up a statue of Grant next to Lee's if you put a statue of Jefferson Davis in the Lincoln Memorial. Deal?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 12 2017, @04:35PM
Why should a traitor get a statue in the nation's capital?
Honestly, I think the Union did the wrong thing by re-admitting the Southern states. They should have remained occupied territory, with their citizens always kept as second-class citizens. If they still haven't figured out after over 150 years that slavery is wrong, then there's no hope for them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @05:57PM
How about putting in a fountain with Calvin pissing?
(Score: 2, Funny) by cubancigar11 on Monday June 12 2017, @04:34AM (6 children)
Also, Bamiyan statues need to be removed for they stand for the glory of infidels and non-believers who. thankfully, we have stoned to death long time ago. All praise the almighty Allah!
(Score: 3, Funny) by cubancigar11 on Monday June 12 2017, @05:50AM (2 children)
In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic. You stink! You are a senile bucktoothed old mummy with bony girl arms and you smell like an elephant's butt!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:08PM (1 child)
You been snorting crack again?
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @04:50AM
Well if you wanna go down the rabbit hole, you need to follow the white rabbit.
(Score: 1) by realDonaldTrump on Monday June 12 2017, @07:33PM (2 children)
You know, it's amazing. There were two Buddha statues in Afghanistan, a pair of twin Buddha statues. And in New York City, there were the two twin towers of the World Trade Center. And both sets were destroyed by Islam, by radical Islam. Mullah Omar said no, don't blow up the statues. But the radicals wouldn't listen. Boom! Boom! They blew them up, very bad guys. But they rebuilt the World Trade Center, made a better one. What happened was better but now we have a better one. And they're trying to rebuild those Buddha statues, to fit the pieces together (there's a word for it). And I'm rebuilding America. Fixing the horrible "carnage" going on. #MAGA
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @04:47AM (1 child)
Fake af. REAL Donal Trump wouldn't know about Bamiyan's statues, nor will most his followers :p
(Score: 2, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday June 13 2017, @07:09AM
Believe me, in the hotel business and the resort business you need to know these things. Need to know what the tourists are going to see. And for Afghanistan those statues were a big, big tourist draw. Bigger than Babur's tomb. Great tomb, but the statues were bigger. The biggest. Huge attraction and huge physically. Every part of their bodies was the biggest, if you know what I mean. Let me tell you, there would be a Trump International Hotel Kabul if they hadn't blown up those statues. Honestly. But I canceled it. Because I knew that blowing up those Buddhas would be very bad for business. Would ruin the tourism business in Afghanistan. And I saw on television, Muslims everywhere were celebrating that. There were swarms of them on the rooftops in New Jersey, celebrating it. The blowing up of the two statues. Thousands of them, celebrating. Disgusting! But great state, New Jersey, I was just at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster for a fabulous wedding! Believe me, I had a lot of fun with the bride there. And you know, someone could have figured out, a smart person could have figured out, that radical Islamic terrorists would go after the World Trade Center. Honestly, I didn't figure it out until later, but looking back it's amazing. That can't be a coincidence. The two statues and the two twin towers. All gone now, very sad. And it's sad what's happening in Kabul. The bombing by the embassies, the protests, the bombing at the funeral, all of it. It's barbaric. Especially during Ramadan. I talked to Ashraf about it, I talked to President Ghani over the phone. Nice guy, very nice on the phone. Gave him my condolences. And I told him, if he needs some more bombs, America has plenty. And ours are the biggest. He knows because I dropped one, my guys dropped one, a big one on Afghanistan. You didn't hear about it in the FAKE MSM but we did that. #TrumpHotels [twitter.com] #WINNING [twitter.com]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday June 12 2017, @05:18AM (1 child)
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.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:04AM
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."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 12 2017, @05:58AM (12 children)
Sometimes, great men are forced to make decisions that they don't like. Lee didn't fight for slavery, he fought for his home state. Big difference there. Of course, today's politically correct crowd are incapable of distinguishing the difference.
Another great man who should be honored, but is not, is Erwin Rommel. Rommel was among the most honorable men in Germany, and in Europe. A career soldier, who served his country, and served well. Historians don't all agree, but many say that he was part of a plot to kill Hitler. Agreed or not, Hitler and his cronies gave Rommel the option of suicide, or public execution. Rommel suicided.
Now - I wonder if you can identify the politician who ran for office in the United States, who enjoyed the fruits of slave black labor? Which of those well known candidates personally supervised black slaves, and had them punished when they got out of line?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday June 12 2017, @06:19AM (1 child)
Like any country, they had their good and bad generals. August von Mackensen is respected in Serbia despite the fact that he was an enemy commander because of his behaviour towards the Serbs (Google "Serbian Heroes Rest Here" / "ОВДЕ ПОЧИВАЈУ СРПСКИ ЈУНАЦИ"). Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was another example, highly respected by both friend and foe alike because of his conduct.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 12 2017, @06:37AM
Thank you for that. I've heard of Mackensen, but know almost nothing about him. I had never heard of this monument before. My studies have been from the Anglo point of view, most of the time. There was a time, when good officers were taught to respect the enemy. If the enemy could make you bleed, he was a worthy opponent, and worthy of respect. If the enemy couldn't bleed you, then of course, there was no glory in oppressing him.
Today, we have forgotten all of that. Today, all enemies are ignorant barbarians. Today, we are mostly Indian Fighters, with that (then common) attitude, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday June 13 2017, @02:06AM (7 children)
I wonder, do you mean Hillary Clinton?
While I find the practice of slavery in all its forms, including the enslaving the incarcerated, repugnant, there is a significant difference: that form of slavery has not been made illegal.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @02:34AM (6 children)
Ahhhh - relativism. If it's not been made illegal, then it's not so bad. Or less bad. Excusable, anyway. Got it.
Anyway, here's one lady's take on the issue: https://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/2016/01/hillary-clintons-house-slaves.html [blogspot.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday June 13 2017, @03:11AM (5 children)
That's a gross mis-characterization of what I wrote.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @01:45PM (4 children)
Oh, well, I do that sometimes. Whatever, that's the attitude from the left. And, the right. It's not really slavery unless you call them slaves, or something like that.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday June 13 2017, @03:01PM (3 children)
You know who else has benefited from slavery? Pretty much everyone in the USA.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @03:55PM (2 children)
Yeah, well, some benefited directly, others benefited indirectly, and others benefited not so much, while yet others benefited not at all. As for me and mine, we don't have one single slave owner in our lineage. Not one. The Native Americans in mine and my wife's ancestry practiced something similar to slavery, but after a generation or two, the slave's descendants were part of the tribe. It's only the white men in America who settled on that slavery into perpetuity bullshit. That's a very special flavor of poison.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday June 14 2017, @04:01AM (1 child)
No, I mean you, now.
Slavery exists in many countries. I suspect that you have bought products that have been made with slave labor, either abroad, or in a US prison. Not deliberately, because it's impossible for an ordinary person to know where many of the products you buy come from.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday June 14 2017, @01:48PM
I did miss your point. Sorry.
I try to avoid things that are probably made with slave labor. But, as you say, it's hard to know which is which. We can't assume anything, either. Wal-Mart has taken heat for purchasing items made in sweat shops, especially after a fire a couple years ago. Where is the line drawn between a sweat shop, and slavery? I think when the plant manager locks the doors to keep employees inside, he's on the wrong side of the line.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by lars_stefan_axelsson on Tuesday June 13 2017, @08:44AM (1 child)
Before putting Rommel on that pedestal you might want to e.g. watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw1UJCwcgNc [youtube.com]
It's not so black and white, and Rommel was most definitely not part of the 20 July plot. But the plotters sure wanted him to be, and that's why he was implicated.
Stefan Axelsson
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @04:14PM
I'm fairly sure that Rommel is worthy of admiration, with or without the Desert Fox mystique. The video does make a very good point though. That whole Desert Fox thing is basically propaganda. At the same time, Rommel was as good as Sherman in the US Civil War, with the added benefits of mechanization. Where Sherman could move troops fifty miles, Rommel could move his troops a hundred and fifty. Sherman would probably have given both of his testicles for Rommel's motor vehicles, especially the panzers. Any of the armor, really.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @09:06AM (1 child)
The war was not about slavery but you already knew that. The slave owners were the 1%, the plantation owners, democrats. We do not burn books, remove monuments or rewrite history because we look to the future by learning from the past.
(Score: 1) by realDonaldTrump on Monday June 12 2017, @07:50PM
You know, Andrew Jackson, President Jackson, was a swashbuckler. But when his wife died, did you know he visited her grave every day? I visited her grave actually, because I was in Tennessee. And it was amazing. The people of Tennessee are amazing people. They love Andrew Jackson. They love Andrew Jackson in Tennessee. I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. And he was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He saw it coming and was angry. He said, "There's no reason for this." People don't realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Nobody asks. Why could that one not have been worked out? #MakeAmericaGreatAgain
(Score: 2, Insightful) by VLM on Monday June 12 2017, @12:32PM (3 children)
The problem with a policy of censorship because they're not progressive enough is there is no logical limit. We'll have to bulldoze over the washington monument because he owned slaves, and nuke the city of Rome from orbit just to be sure because the Roman Empire was rather problematic. We gotta bulldoze the Parthenon and the Colosseum. And the Vatican. Dr MLK jr was not progressive enough WRT feminism according to the standards of the current year, so he's gotta be memory-holed now too.
I tell ya, people who think 1984 and BNW and animal farm are instruction manuals... ugh. IIRC the main character's day job in 1984 was censorship of history books.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 12 2017, @06:28PM (2 children)
Yep, 'cause not celebrating someone is the exact same thing as systematically removing him from the history books.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 12 2017, @06:42PM (1 child)
Give them time...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @06:55PM
Actually, from a liberal perspective it is more important to leave the history intact so that people can learn from their mistakes. But hey, I'm responding to VLM so this is all gibberish apparently.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:53PM
People are already trying to remove statues of Thomas Jefferson and other prominent figures that weren't on the side of the Confederacy or even involved in the Civil War. It's only a matter of time before the only thing people are taught about US history is that old white men are bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @05:22PM
typical yankee believing whoever's own self righteous propaganda. the not-so-original do gooders. killing people to help them. freeing the slaves so you can lock them up in ghettos and let them kill themselves like animals, all the while lecturing the widows in the south for daring to be free from your falsely adopted idealism. this was a war for control, trade, money. slaves were just a form of money that was in various stages of being phased out around the world. the north took advantage of the fact that they could get by with only pseudo slavery to further their domination of the south. the slavery propaganda also conveniently kept the french from joining the war on the side of the south. like the rest of the history of the world, written by the winners and full of BS.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @02:15PM (1 child)
This is something I just don't understand at all. Forget about who the statue is or what it's honoring even, why should *any* statue be eternal? Even the Statue of Liberty will come down one day; cultures change and move on. The mere fact that a statue exists is not in itself a valid argument for its continued preservation; it's just another form of "Well, we've always done it this way..."
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 13 2017, @11:09PM
Time will take care of statues. There used to be a rather impressive "Colossus" at Rhodes. Nero had a statue of himself erected beside the Coliseum, some hundreds of feet tall; it is not there anymore. Even the Emperor Constantine had a giant bronze statute of himself, of which only fragments remain.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by BK on Monday June 12 2017, @12:51AM (9 children)
One way to look at this:
This is a thing that bored historians do. Every once in a while they publish a piece that says 'everything you thought you knew was wrong' about something. I've seen similar analysis of of Washington, Napoleon, Montgomery, Patton, Caesar, Ike, and even of Wellington.
Another way to look at this:
The vast consensus of expert observers and military historians, from his contemporaries to today, seems to be that the guy was an incredible general. And then there is this guy. He disagrees with vast weight of consensus. So just a denier.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday June 12 2017, @01:04AM (6 children)
Yea, I think I'll take the opinion of pretty much every US General who fought Lee over some pink Cultural Marxist trying to rewrite history. The winners generally write the history books and usually make the losers out as well, losers, and themselves as the geniuses. So when the winners all universally respect the losing general it says something very good about the dude.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:04AM (5 children)
Lee and most Confederate Generals apparently thought that they were still going up against swordsmen or smooth-bore muskets in the 1860s.
The rifled firearms and minnie balls of the era could cut a force to pieces at a range of hundreds of yards--not to mention grapeshot and cannister rounds from artillery.
...and the commanders didn't seem to get that.
N.B. The only saving grace of the period was that the powder they were using produced so much smoke that after a few volleys it was difficult to spot targets.
In Ken Burns' "Civil War" miniseries, Shelby Foote identified the Confederate General who understood that tactics had to change to match the decades of improvements that had been made in the killing ability of weapons.
Foote noted that Stonewall Jackson's advice to his commanders was "Hit 'em on the end."
Pickett's Charge was just stupid.
Frontal assaults on dug-in troops in 1863 was suicide.[1]
Lee telling Pickett to have his division cross hundreds of yards of of open ground wasn't tactically or strategically[2] smart.
Again, Shelby Foote, had the line to describe the situation.
After Pickett's Charge, Lee told Pickett, "Arm your division, we need another assault."
Pickett said, "General, I have no division."
[1] There are reports that some of Pickett's men who managed to make it to the Union lines were helped across the barricades by Union soldiers who admired their courage and luck.
[2] The South trying to fight a war of attrition was just stupid.
It was said that The North could have won the war with one hand tied behind its back.
It had most of the industry and way more manpower from which to draw more conscripts.
The Rebels needed to be SMARTER than The Yankees--and mostly they weren't.
When Stonewall died, Lee said, "I have lost my right arm" and that was no understatement.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Monday June 12 2017, @07:25AM (4 children)
Not if the Confederate cavalry had been able to hit that Union line from the back side. They were stopped three miles away instead by superior numbers of cavalry.
Confederate strategy depended on the Confederates being able to invade and destroy infrastructure in Pennsylvania and elsewhere like the Union was doing along the Mississippi valley. To do that, they needed to beat the Union army at Gettysburg. Pickett's charge like so many military operations was a gamble with enormous gains possible, including a favorable end to the war, if they won. It didn't work out this time, but that doesn't make it stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @10:52AM (3 children)
Not only is charging a dug-in opponent stupid, by 1914 the generals STILL hadn't figured out that it was stupid and now there were MACHINE GUNS.
As long as commanders were actually -leading- their forces, the stupidity had a natural limiting factor.
(The stupid commanders were killed in battle.)
The leading-from-the-rear thing got militarism a century of unparalleled stupidity, stretching from rifled barrels up until battle tanks.
.
Jeb Stuart's cavalry[1] and Quantrill's Raiders[1], with hit-and-git tactics were effective on a limited scale.
The let's-slog-this-out-with-massed-forces Confederates weren't at all.
[1] ...and the ethics of those bunches were on par with weasels.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 12 2017, @11:56AM (2 children)
Hence, why the cavalry attack from behind was so important. No point to second-guessing military decisions unless you take into account what they were actually doing and trying. There's a huge difference between charging a dug-in opponent and charging a formerly dug-in opponent that is running for their lives because they just got attacked from behind.
The battle of Gettysburg would have been at that scale. And it wasn't a hit-and-git. From the Wikipedia article, Stuart's group toughed it out until they were surrounded on three sides. The "git" part would normally have happened long before that point.
Because we care about the ethics of our cavalry officers. Can't have unethical pillaging and burning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @06:59PM (1 child)
That last sentence just explains so much about you.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 13 2017, @12:16AM
You have a name?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @02:39AM (1 child)
This happens a lot because the further out you get from a historical event or a person's lifetime, the less control there is over what you dig up. New letters surface and people are willing to say things about dictators that weren't safe to say while the tyrant was in control of the country. But, after the dictator has been deposed, there's freedom to badmouth away and often times the new leadership encourages it.
In terms of Lee, I'm not really familiar enough with what's been written and the general historical documentation that exists. But, re-evaluating somebody of that stature is essential to having an accurate understanding of American history and have some idea what might happen in the future with similar individuals.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 12 2017, @12:01PM
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday June 12 2017, @12:56AM (9 children)
Jr high history, supposed to get to modern day. Never hit the Civil War. High School history, supposed to get to modern day. Never hit the Civil war. College history, supposed to get to modern day, never got to the Civil War.
3 shots, never got the Civil War, WW1, WW2, cold war, Vietnam. But I sure as shit know in 1492 Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue.
/ for me, history class was a huge waste of time
// Drake crossed the southern tip of South America around 1580 or so
/// Tell me again how knowing this is useful.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday June 12 2017, @01:02AM (5 children)
The history books wouldn't tell you shit anyway, unless you get good ones at the college level. The folks who know history at the battle-by-battle level with at least a basic understanding of statistics are professionals or hobbyist autists.
Unfortunately, for the past 10 or so years colleges here have been teaching that all the bad things that happened in history were caused by straight White men and if it weren't for White influence Africa would have fusion reactors and flying cars.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday June 12 2017, @01:11AM (4 children)
Actually I'd argue that general histories focus far too much on wars, battles and generals. Military historians should study those things. Everyone else should be taught the issues that brought on the war, who won and what changes came about as a result. And most history should be like that, less focused on Great Men and the implication that we are all playing some Cosmic game of Civilization where the States and the Great Leaders guide everything and focus more on the social, political, religious and geographic and technological stories and how they influenced each other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:33AM (1 child)
I'm not sure. That sounds awfully like political correctness to me. Did your account get hacked?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 12 2017, @12:04PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:19AM
James Burke [google.com] should have been writing those History books.
Howard Zinn [google.com] is another guy who -did- write History books--and didn't just repeat the White-people-are-awesome myths.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 12 2017, @12:44PM
The current SJW crop of academic historians hates that. Not solely because they're men although that probably helps. Your paragraph is pretty much mainstream university historian thought.
Originally the great man style came from good old Plutarch who used it as a convenient compare and contrast topic, and trying to teach little kids on the theory that its easier to get kids to remember at least a little about some dude than about vast themes of changing conditions or whatever. Also its kind of a residual shared common astrological history so your average idiot knew what it meant to cross the rubicon like Julius Caesar so you can bring history alive via analogy. Also "great man theory" was supposed to be inspirational back before being anti-white and anti-male became part of the religious doctrine of the progressive.
As with most things the greek moderation strategy is best. You're ignorant if you don't know about Admiral Nelson, but you're also ignorant if all you know is a bunch of dead dudes names and battle locations. You're wrong if you've only read Plutarch AND you're wrong if you've only read the good (aka non-great man theory) parts of Gibbon.
Admittedly another aspect is keeping the money rolling. You can't make money in 2017 as an academic off great man theory reading of Plutarch because everything that can be said about those great men was said already over the last 2000 years, but a treatise on the hand waving importance of the trade in silk or whatever is the kind of thing you can make money off in 2017. So naturally the academic faculty is disinterested in replacing themselves with a nice translation from the classic languages department so they rant about how awful it is and how important alternatives to the great man theory are.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 12 2017, @06:13AM (1 child)
Has no one ever informed you that it was YOUR FAULT that you never studied recent American history?
For my part, we, as a class, never really studied WWII. I, personally, devoted uncounted hours to studying Hitler, the Third Reich, the officers, and the Holocaust, BEFORE I graduated from high school. I devoted far less time to the study of WWI, but I did study it, on my own. I have even figured out why WWII was almost inevitable after the "peace" of WWI.
Bear in mind that I grew up decades before the internet became ubiquitous, and that I had to pilfer a half dozen libraries to find all of my study material on the subjects. Because I wanted to know, I either walked, ran, or rode a bicycle to those various libraries, many many times, to satisfy my curiosity.
It is not to late, for you. Hit Google, or any other search engine. Many books are free to download, many more are available for purchase, cheaply, on the internet. If you know little or nothing about WWII, it is because you don't care to learn. The materials are available.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday June 12 2017, @12:25PM
For example, one of the most educational Second World War moments was when I looked at who were the Chancellors of Germany before Hitler and saw how the two before were vicious bastards. One had been working to undermine the Treaty of Versailles since the early to mid 1920s in Germany's outlawed military general staff, including alleged assassinations and other black ops, the other had dissolved the Free State of Prussia, removing by far the largest obstacle to Hitler's totalitarian reign. The kicker was that neither were Nazis! They were selfishly pursuing ultimate power over Germany as well, but were out-maneuvered by Hitler who had populist backing they couldn't match.
It was enlightening to see what sort of thing we should be looking for in warning signs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:34PM
We did get to the Civil War but no further, history class just started over again and again. I read ahead in High School to see how far the books went and not only did they tend to end nearly a decade before the year I was taking the class but I also realized that we never even got 2/3rds of the way through the book.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 12 2017, @12:59AM (9 children)
Lee probably wasn't the best general in the war, and probably not the best general in the South. But that's completely different from saying "he wasn't very good at his job." He was a competent general and particularly had success in the first years of the war. I think we need only reflect on one simple fact: at the beginning, the North thought the war would be over in a matter of months. Instead, it lasted 4 years. It really wasn't until at least mid-1864 that Lee's defense finally started to falter irrevocably.
So, Lee held his own in the most prominent theatre of war against the North for roughly 3 years. Granted, there was a lot of incompetence from Union generals too, but I think we have to hold Lee to the same standards as the rest of the generals in the war, and he was at least above average -- so it's hard to say "he wasn't very good at his job."
It's not Lee's fault that he got appropriated as savior by the Lost Cause lunatics decades after his death. But that posthumous reputation is no reason to tip the scales in the other direction and try to claim he was incompetent. Also, as I noted in a previous post [soylentnews.org], he was admired even by his Union colleagues after the war, some of whom even argued he deserved a statue in his honor. Not for his strategic ability, though -- I think that was always a relatively small element of the "Lost Cause" mythology about Lee.
P.S. I'm not a Southerner, and I definitely don't subscribe to the Lost Cause apologetics. Lee is, however, an interesting and somewhat unique case historically for various reasons.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 12 2017, @01:05AM (1 child)
One last note -- what IF the headline is true? Doesn't that actually ADD to "Lost Cause" propaganda? ("Despite being overmatched and having an incompetent commander, we fought on despite the odds...") Saying Lee had flaws as a tactician is fine. Claiming he was incompetent just makes him into a sort of martyr. Should we now be grateful that Lee betrayed the Union and brought his incompetence to the leadership of the South, so they didn't end up with a better general who would have prolonged the war even more??
It's just a very odd argument all around.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday June 12 2017, @09:16AM
Lee was exactly the sort of general the South wanted. The whole Southern Gentleman propaganda pushed for an aggressive style of war. They wanted not just to win the war, but to win it in a very manly way with glorious victory after glorious victory. Stupid, but then, it was stupid to have started the war at all. General Joe Johnston was opposed to this, and has been vilified endlessly for being overcautious. They replaced him with Hood, one of the most extremely aggressive commanders they had, thus doubling down on their basic strategy. It was a spectacular failure. Hood killed off most of his army in reckless assaults, first at Atlanta, then in his decision to march back into Tennessee and try to regain Nashville, besieging a superior force that sallied forth in a massive attack and destroyed what remained of his army.
Johnston was right. The best hope the South had was to drag the war out as long as possible. Maybe Lee could have persuaded the South to run the war more conservatively, but it just wasn't in the cards. Lee achieved his stature with a combination of derring-do, battlefield genius, and a generous helping of enemy incompetence; he would never have reached such heights had he tried a less aggressive strategy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:51AM
Yeah, but let's remember also the huge symbolism that Arlington National Cemetery is... it was Robt E Lee's estate before the Civil War..
(Score: 2) by tekk on Monday June 12 2017, @05:40AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 12 2017, @04:37PM
I don't disagree with a lot of what you said, though I don't claim to be a military historian, so I'm not really going to weigh in on the details.
My objection was primarily with the overall tone of the article (specifically its headline and conclusion). Yes, a lot of the concerns about strategy in the body of the article are broadly legitimate. But the main point of the article overall doesn't seem to be debating nuances of campaign strategy: it wants to portray Lee as "not very good at his job" and therefore not deserving of the monuments in his name (see conclusion of TFA). That element of the argument is definitely overstated, given how many less competent and less prominent soldiers from the Civil War have been memorialized on both sides.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 12 2017, @06:25AM (3 children)
Let me add a little to your perspective.
The Grand Old Army, that is the Union Army, was infested with incompetent officers who were appointed for political reasons, and due to family connections, when the war began. Incompetent fools were dismissed and replaced repeatedly for the first couple years of the war. One after another, generals took command of various parts of the army, only to disgrace themselves. This kept happening, until Grant came along. Even then, Grant wasn't a very spectacular general. Grant and Sherman were the winning combination. I must point out that by himself, Sherman wasn't all that very spectacular. It was the combination of the two generals that won the Civil War for the Union.
If, and when, one truly understands how truly incompetent all of the preceding Union generals were, then a case might actually be made that Lee was less competent than we have always believed. If Lee were as good as his most zealous supporters claim, he should have kicked the Union's ass soundly within the first two years.
But, like yourself, I have little but contempt for this attempt to belittle him. Lee was a damned good military leader.
Bottom line, for me, is that Lee was a great man, and a great officer. He was great enough that his enemy officers showed him great respect when he was finally defeated.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @11:02AM (1 child)
Well, you got 2 of the words right.
G.A.R. == Grand Army of the Republic
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 12 2017, @11:33AM
http://www.genealogytoday.com/columns/ruby/040218.html [genealogytoday.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Army_of_the_Republic [wikipedia.org]
"The "Grand Army of the Republic" (GAR) was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army"
Please don't confuse a fraternity with the old Regular Army.
This article, written in 1865, refers to the Grand Old Army - or more specifically, to the Grand Old Army of the Potomac. http://www.nytimes.com/1865/04/08/news/the-grand-old-army-of-the-potomac.html [nytimes.com]
Another reference to Grand Old Army here - http://uptownhistory.compassrose.org/2007/12/grand-old-army-of-republic-graceland.html [compassrose.org]
There doesn't seem to be a lot on the Grand Old Army on the internet, and I'm not about to start chasing down references in dead tree books for you. You may take my word, or not, that career officers in the Regular Army referred to their army as such. The NYT article cited above should convince you that the civilian population knew and understood the term.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @10:46PM
This right here. He held his own very well and gave more than he got against an in all ways superior force that was being woefully mismanaged. The problem the Lincoln administration had was the Army he inherited was a political thing not a fighting force. That took time to fix. Ironically, Lee was one of the ones who shaped his very own adversaries. So the 'less competent' is not without merit. Also at the time being a general usually meant you had money and power and land and a good amount of political connections. It was a cush job meant to bring prestige. Lee took it a bit more serious than that. It is somewhat different now. A lesson we learned the hard way in the civil war.
History is written by the victors. For example England considers Washington to be one of their great enemies. They hold him in high regard even though they were defeated by him and his cadre.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:06AM (4 children)
It seems to be the season to beat up on the South.
What makes this new historian right where others were wrong?
I suspect not much. But he want to make a name for himself.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 12 2017, @01:18AM
From the summary:
This isn't a new argument at all. The "new historian" is actually dead, and the article from the summary was published nearly 50 years ago. What's "new" is: (1) for some reason a reporter (not a historian) at the Washington Post wants to take a bunch of academic literature that has (justifiably in many cases) noted some flaws Lee had and instead reinterpret them as meaning that Lee was incompetent ("not very good at his job"), and (2) we're trying to get people to take down Confederate monuments at the moment, and Robert E. Lee has a LOT of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:38AM (2 children)
It lost! Get over it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @04:39AM
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
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.
(Score: 1) by oakgrove on Monday June 12 2017, @01:18AM (8 children)
Fuck this. I'm going back to Slashdot. No, fuck that too [slashdot.org]. Maybe I should just hand out on Hacker News. Dammit, nope [ycombinator.com]! Well, looks like it's time to apply for a login on lobsters.
Look, I get politics-lite human interest is important. But so is food. I don't see multiple articles everyday about cooking the perfect soufflé. But it's you guys' site. Do whatever makes you happy. Peace
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday June 12 2017, @01:29AM
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 12 2017, @01:31AM (3 children)
I actually sort of agree with you -- not necessarily that this article shouldn't be here at all (I personally find it interesting), but stuff like this with no tech/science angle at all perhaps should be flagged somehow. This one could probably fall under "politics," since it's pretty clear this was written by a reporter who isn't interested in history as much as providing ammunition to those who want to remove monuments in the current political climate.
But there are articles here sometimes that aren't "politics" and aren't tech/science either (like yesterday's article on magic [soylentnews.org]). I'm not opposed to having general interest articles that are broadly "technical" even about history, etc. (I have admittedly submitted some of them), but I'd agree with you that they should be designated somehow and allow users to screen them.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Monday June 12 2017, @04:38AM
Tech nexus, politics nexus, general/other nexus? Start using nexus' more so those who want to see certain stuff can opt in or out of categories. Maybe make tech the "default" nexus with others hidden so we don't have to have crybabies whining in every political/non-tech article and let the those that enjoy it argue in the politics nexus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:34AM (1 child)
You don't even need to say "broadly".
The Civil War was about which commanders could best use technology.
They mostly did a shit job, choosing attrition.
Lee, in particular.
See my comment #524126 [soylentnews.org].
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 12 2017, @06:24AM
What I meant by "technical" there wasn't necessarily technology, but I guess something more like "academic" or "nerdy" rather than articles just on random pop culture topics or recipes for souffle (unless the souffle article details the science behind them or something).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday June 12 2017, @02:36AM
"oakgrove has 0 submissions"
Huh! oakgrove submits nothing, but complains when others do!?!
What. A. Surprise.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 12 2017, @12:58PM
I'm tolerable good at analogies. I'll try to squirt out two good ones.
This is similar to endless Monday morning quarterbacking about how "640K should be enough for anyone" and all that crap. I was THERE in the old days and a lot of stuff didn't last very long so planning for the future was really stupid. In fact the true story of the early years of computing isn't boring increases in speed and storage numbers, but increases in the lifespan of ... everything. Back in the 70s and early 80s anything that worked was already obsolete and going in the trash can in a year or two, its unimaginable at the time that MSDOS would have a decade long run. Sure at the time the IBM PC was genius. Sure 20 years later looking back its total WTF were they thinking time. Both concepts are true at the same time.
Another weaker analogy would be retconning simple shell script init scripts as being impossible in order to push the narrative that we need systemd. Of all the shit I did in the 90s and 00s with linux, and I did some crazy stuff, the meme that the most difficult thing I ever done was write an init script is post-systemd and a very recent invention. To some extent the only way something common and obvious can be overturned a zillion years after its widely accepted is if someone's got an extreme agenda to push. If by some miracle systemd were never invented, would anyone give a F about init scripts, which are after all pretty easy sysadmin task? Naw. Likewise unless a modern narrative requires it nobody is going to flip the script on the general opinion of Julius Caesar or Desert Fox Rommel or ... General Lee. But the narrative needed pushing so the Lee statues are getting shoved over.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 12 2017, @06:14PM
I submitted it weeks ago on a slow news day. Many american geeks like to obsess about two wars, WWII and the American Civil War. I thought the SN crowd might enjoy responding to the article's premise.
Washington DC delenda est.