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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: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @02:15PM (1 child)

    by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday June 13 2017, @02:15PM (#524918) Journal

    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.

    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..."

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  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 13 2017, @11:09PM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday June 13 2017, @11:09PM (#525141) Journal

    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;

    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.