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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 driverless on Monday June 12 2017, @06:09AM (1 child)

    by driverless (4770) on Monday June 12 2017, @06:09AM (#524145)

    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?

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 12 2017, @04:35PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday June 12 2017, @04:35PM (#524478)

    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.