-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
The Myth of the Kindly General Robert E. Lee
- Thread starter dramatis
- Start date
Peter Ian Staker
Member
I am not quite sure that's how it works
WrenchNinja
Member
I feel bad for anyone living in the south that has to tolerate, listen to and read this drivel
ProfessorLobo
Banned
Lee is portrayed positively and grant negatively? I've never heard of this. Is this just a southern thing?
ShadowSwordmaster
Banned
Wasn't Longstreet an ambassador to the Ottoman Empire?
theignoramus
Member
I share that opinion, but I could see an argument about how that could inspire pockets of bloody insurrection, because those Confederate leaders were so revered.
However, at the very least, every one of those violent White supremacists groups (the White League, the Red shirts in South Carolina, the Klan in every state) shouldve had might of Biblical proportions brought down on their heads.
Here's Radical Republican Daniel Phillips Upham articulating that sentiment with great conviction and eloquence.
It's not that uncommon. Many Latin American countries remember failed and squashed independence attempts before it ended up working. Poland remembers WWII, where one could say they lost "their" part of the war.
Losing a war doesn't make one's side wrong. What makes the confederacy terrible has nothing to do with their military success.
I honestly don't remember the specifics of what I was taught in school, but growing up in Texas, I was taught that Lee was a good man, was very intelligent and classful. I won't lie, that concept of him stuck with me.
It's probably not true, but can just say that is the image they have of him here.
It's probably not true, but can just say that is the image they have of him here.
I got the same deal in my school in Virginia. Stonewall Jackson was given this rather picturesque stoic portrayal while Union Generals were portrayed as cowardly, bumbling or ineffectual.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
CaramelMarx
Neo Member
According to my family, I'm supposedly a direct blood relative - same last name and everything. I try to make up for this shitty, shitty fact by not being a giant racist: it's hard to live down the sense that, just by relation/association, I'm kinda de facto racist no matter what.
i'd say there's nothing worse than hearing your own last name thrown around by complete bastard rednecks as some misguided symbol for everything you hate, but having to be a minority living in this "society", where someone like Lee is still seen as heroic, seems much worse... Not that I could ever really know what that's like.
i'd say there's nothing worse than hearing your own last name thrown around by complete bastard rednecks as some misguided symbol for everything you hate, but having to be a minority living in this "society", where someone like Lee is still seen as heroic, seems much worse... Not that I could ever really know what that's like.
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
I remember that Lincoln originally offered the command of the Union Army to Robert E. Lee before Lee turned him down to side with his state and Confederacy, right? At the very least, Lincoln must have respected Lee in order to do that. That's why I got the impression that Lee wasn't fully in favor of slavery, and remembered him saying that he sided with the South mainly because that was his home. Those quotes do seem to imply otherwise about his beliefs on slavery though.
Also, Grant being a good general, but seemingly a bad president because of alcohol are two separate issues and can totally both be true. None of that means he's a bad guy, it just means he wasn't very good at being president.
Back in school in VA, I was taught that the South was wrong, Jefferson Davis was pretty terrible, but that Lee was one of the better folks on the Confederate side. Lincoln was praised and Grant was praised as a good general, but bad/ineffective president. Seemed reasonable enough at the time.
Also, Grant being a good general, but seemingly a bad president because of alcohol are two separate issues and can totally both be true. None of that means he's a bad guy, it just means he wasn't very good at being president.
Back in school in VA, I was taught that the South was wrong, Jefferson Davis was pretty terrible, but that Lee was one of the better folks on the Confederate side. Lincoln was praised and Grant was praised as a good general, but bad/ineffective president. Seemed reasonable enough at the time.
Slavery being bad for white people was definitely at least a strong motivation in all the American anti-slavery movements, and probably the most important one for each, with the possible exception of abolitionism proper.
What are you talking about? The late 19th century in America is essentially characterized by political corruption. Grant actually gets off easy, since he's more associated with incompetence than corruption.
The English Civil War was thought of as the most important political event in Britain and Ireland until Macaulay.
Some Scottish people, and a large number of Scottish-Americans, also pay a lot of attention to the '45 Jacobite rising.
I don't know many historians that take him seriously at all. He wrote pop-history, and was only saved from antiquarianism because he had to make some sort of broader narrative because of his commitment to saving the South, which is not necessarily the same thing as the Lost Cause.
In his defense he is more rigorous than most non-academic historians, but his work is still nowhere near the level of quality required from academics.
I mean with the exception of the bold, one could incredibly easily argue this part is true.
gamechanger87
Member
Correct.
In terms of actual generalship, Lee significantly outclassed Grant in terms of tactical warfare. Grant beat Lee in understanding the long game.
Other than grinding Lee down in Viriginia, the only time I can think that he genuinely surprised Lee was how quickly he raced south of the James to Link with butler and sever Petersburg. The war lasted a full year longer than it should of because he delegated too much and let a full Corp be held back by Breckenridge outside Petersburg.
To be fair bumbling or ineffectual would truthfully describe many of the Union's top commanders.
Isn't that less to do with integrity and more because Lee was at West Point and was regarded a very very good General?
Yes but the focus was on that particular aspect while celebrating the individual efforts of some lesser known Generals. It's pretty weird to have some focuses on how great Stonewall Jackson and General John Hood are from the Confederate side and no discussion about any equivalent for the Union except for maybe Sherman and even then it's with a big emphasis on the brutality Sherman inflicted.
I think the big thing though is and it has a lot to do with the fact at the time there was a large geographical divide among historians in favor of the south.
Grant was in over his head on the overall and that is all that is ever truly presented about him besides the narrative of being a worthless drunk which modern historians say there is no real evidence to support that and likely a narrative created by Southern Historians.
Grant was doing things we would not see again until the 1960s. Johnson before him though poisoned the well so to speak and by the time Grant got to try and make things work the real side of what we know as modern republicanism showed its head. "The economy will be better if we just get over this negro shit and get the south back to what it was."
The South went from having Black Governor's, Senator's to complete suppression of Black American's all because it was time to get over it and get the economy back to full strength.
Part of the reason that this figure in particuarly is so myuthologized is becauseone can make that argument about him. Especially in comperative terms. That doesn't mean it's right, so much as it's more plausible to say that about him than a large number of the other southern leaders.
Of course much of the South's problem here comes from choosing to mythologize the leaders of the Confederacy. The south would have been better served by understanding them to be bad people that lead hundreds of thousands to die in order to protect their own economic interests. Slavery was hardly in the interest of most families. The common man in the south somehow came to understand themselves as being more connected to the confederate leaders in their big houses, than to figures like the Regulators.
read about John Bell Hood, then tell me only Union commanders were bumbling fools.
Of course that played a role in interpretation, but I don't think that really has much to do with my point.
Kinda sorta. It's a question of interest and perspective. No doubt there is evidence, and that such a narrative can be meaningfully constructed. But there is also no doubt that southerners had incentive to read the evidence a certain way.
Sure, Grant doing good work would have been quite difficult because of the circumstances on the ground.
And sure, reconstruction was a failure. I'm not sure what that has to do with my point.
If it makes you feel better, a lot of southerners made up shit like this after the Civil War about notable leaders with similar names. Some even changed their names. So there is a pretty decent chance you wouldn't be related to him.
If I remember right that had more to do with Winfield Scott than Lincoln. Scott was the one who wanted Lee. I am not sure if Lincoln had any strong feelings towards Lee one way or the other at that point in time and probably would have gone with whoever Scott recommended.
I completely agree with you that many people are taught a very biased version of the war.
The problem is twofold.
The first, and obvious stickier one, is that this narrative is both deeply ingrained in Southern Culture and advantageous for White southerners on a number of fronts.
The second is the broader, but also problematic, general American anti-intellectualism. Actual historians aren't particularly well respected and aren't understood as having more founded claims than anyone else. In large parts of the country they might actually be understood as having even less historical authority because of the relatively left leaning nature of the academy.
Tell me where exactly I claimed that?
You're ignoring that by the end of reconstruction it was not just ex confederates wanting it to end...the north was fully tired of it as well. Democrats swept congress by the end of the 1870s, and no one really knows who won the presidential election of 1876.
There's a lot been said about what killed reconstruction, but really when you get down to it at the end of the day the post war depression in the 1870s is what did it in. There was very little appetite for massive government spending on a prolonged occupation in the south while the north was rotting from the inside out. The depressed economy fully destroyed the fragile coalition of radical southern governments and turned an already bad situation in the south into a nightmare. This is also ignoring, despite the weird party flip comments earlier in the thread, the ideological disposition of the Republican party towards market oriented reforms and against state spending (does "we can not make the negro perpetual wards of the state"...sound familiar to anyone?) in general was mostly the wrong answer in context of the problems facing african americans in the south. The Republicans mostly believed if they ripped down the facade of slavery and let the market take over labor relations the situation would mostly sort itself out, which was wholly inadequate to the situation as it was evolving on the ground.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
It's always been my understanding he is praised for how thoroughly and deeply he dug through documents to find interesting tidbits about this or that aspect of the war (his volumes on the War are ridiculously long and have a shit-ton of material), but is totally derided for the fact he always filters it through his seeming loving adoration of the South and his kinda squishy, mawkish worldview.
I'm coming back to this thread after reading the full article. It is very well written and researched. There are very strong segments that really fly in the face of the mythos that has been created about Lee.
I want to read more about the Civil War and Reconstruction ea as it seems very relevant to today. I never really learned about this much in school as a Canadian. Our curriculum didn't cover it, or at least I can't recall learning anything significant other than slavery, Lincoln and the time period it took place.
I want to read more about the Civil War and Reconstruction ea as it seems very relevant to today. I never really learned about this much in school as a Canadian. Our curriculum didn't cover it, or at least I can't recall learning anything significant other than slavery, Lincoln and the time period it took place.
In a modern context I am very anti-death penalty, but in the context of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Union honestly should've executed all of the Southern leaders and committed to a pretty strong propaganda campaign against their memories, both to prevent them from reorganizing and building the Jim Crow South post-Reconstruction, and to prevent this kind of mythologizing of them. A traitor like Lee should be in an unmarked grave somewhere, not have a thousand monuments to his memory. The only thing people should think when they hear his name is "worst traitor in US history", because that's what he was.
This is true, but is also an argument for the wisdom of a much harsher Reconstruction to begin with. Time was always going to be limited for a project like this, before public will ran out.
This is true, but is also an argument for the wisdom of a much harsher Reconstruction to begin with. Time was always going to be limited for a project like this, before public will ran out.
Shake Appeal
Member
As someone staunchly opposed to the death penalty in every case, I think they should have done everything short of execution. The South should have been ground into the dirt and held there until it begged for mercy. I say that as someone who lives there today. Everyone who took up arms should have lost their land, been banned from ever holding public office, and had their voting rights suspended. The total lack of truth and reconciliation around slavery in this country is at the root of so many of our contemporary problems, and much of it goes back to treating traitors like gentlemen and botching Reconstruction.
(That said, a huge part of the problem is the north's own mythology about their righteousness in their cause. Lincoln and his fellows were racists as anyone would define it today; America was and is a white supremacist nation. One day we might be done with all of the swirling mythologies and self-righteousness, but I don't see it happening in my lifetime.)
The article got shared on Facebook and while it raises some good points, it bothers me mostly because the author argues Lee should have fought an asymmetrical war against the North, which would have been bonkers, and also that Lee doesn't deserve credit for helping to stem any possible Confederate guerrilla resistance, which he absolutely does. He wasn't an unrelenting tactical genius, because he made mistakes like every general we've ever had, but if he'd not followed Virginia and stayed on the Union side a lot fewer people would have died. Whether or not you think the quick reconciliation of the North and South was ultimately a bad thing as it seems plenty of people on this forum do now, is another question. But it certainly wasn't at the time.
The stuff about his slaveowning I don't think is all that surprising, but I guess it's easy to gloss over both because of how he was deified after death by the South, and because the Civil War studies most places seem to get focuses on the battles, not the man himself. What's really sad though is his "slavery is kind of bad, but really it was a lot better for the black man than he would have been squatting in some African hut" view is something that was shared by even a lot of abolitionists at the time, and endured as a popular opinion into the 20th century and America's flirtation with imperialism (the white man's burden, social pseudoscience, and the like). Hell, you still have people arguing that.
Well, they kind of were, at least for the first part of the war. While the Lost Cause outright obfuscates the causes of the war and tends to present the Civil War as hopeless for the South to win from the start, despite the immense on-paper advantages of the Union the Confederacy came surprisingly close to winning the war on their terms at times. People tend to forget that a lot of people thought the war would be done and dusted really soon, and American had never seen the kind of casualties one of the first "modern" wars inflicted. McClellan winning the presidency could have led to a negotiated peace much earlier, even if he was personally opposed to it.
The stuff about his slaveowning I don't think is all that surprising, but I guess it's easy to gloss over both because of how he was deified after death by the South, and because the Civil War studies most places seem to get focuses on the battles, not the man himself. What's really sad though is his "slavery is kind of bad, but really it was a lot better for the black man than he would have been squatting in some African hut" view is something that was shared by even a lot of abolitionists at the time, and endured as a popular opinion into the 20th century and America's flirtation with imperialism (the white man's burden, social pseudoscience, and the like). Hell, you still have people arguing that.
Problem is I'm not sure even directly after the war if there were enough Stevens-level radical republicans around who would have seen that kind of Reconstruction through.
Well, they kind of were, at least for the first part of the war. While the Lost Cause outright obfuscates the causes of the war and tends to present the Civil War as hopeless for the South to win from the start, despite the immense on-paper advantages of the Union the Confederacy came surprisingly close to winning the war on their terms at times. People tend to forget that a lot of people thought the war would be done and dusted really soon, and American had never seen the kind of casualties one of the first "modern" wars inflicted. McClellan winning the presidency could have led to a negotiated peace much earlier, even if he was personally opposed to it.
This all day long.
I'm not from the States so I'm not overly familiar, but the way that I've understood it is that a common depiction is to show Lee as a good man who didn't believe in the cause of the confederacy but was stuck with it because he was loyal to his state.
It seems to me that it's a single part - although certainly a notable one - of a larger tendency to try to paint the individuals that compose confederacy as good people while being unable to say that the cause was good. I'm forgetting specific incidents, but there apparently used to be a thing where older media featuring the confederacy would have the slaves rushing to the defense of their masters, because they obviously can't be that bad if their slaves like them.
I think it's similar to how nowadays people will gladly say things that they admit are racist, but then be absolutely horrified to be called a racist. They don't believe they can get away with depicting their actions are heroic and they don't have any illusion that they are, but they can get a similar effect by separating their morality from their behaviour.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Even being schooled in the North, our textbooks made Lee out to be a gentleman that had the "unfortunate" case of feeling the need to fight for his home region while Grant was portrayed as an alcoholic dumbass.
I think I might have mentioned on GAF a month or so ago how surprised I was to find out that Grant was intelligent and revered as a tactical genius.
I think I might have mentioned on GAF a month or so ago how surprised I was to find out that Grant was intelligent and revered as a tactical genius.
Well you see the rich didn't get prosecuted just as they aren't now. Reconstruction could have been successful but it wasn't properly executed due to a number of factors.
Also it is weird how different my AP history courses were in high school to what other students were being taught. Also Grant was a pretty bad president and a drunk.
Grant was a good general I mean hell most of the reverence given to Lee should have gone to other generals like Stonewall Jackson and Longstreet.
I mean part of it was Lee was a spanish american war hero along with the fact that he was pardoned by Andrew Johnson. He basically became a symbol that people wanted to make as clean as possible much.