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submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago

Going off memory, but Lee wasn't even really pissed about it either.

He fought harder than anyone else in the Confederacy against going to war, and was very open about how it would be an incredibly bloody and expensive war the South had zero chance of winning.

As soon as the war ended, he spent his time arguing for unification and against any commerarion of what he saw as the biggest stain on America's history.

But at the time the federal government was more like the EU, and everyone treated states like European countries. So Lee was loyal to his state.

It's important to understand what happened, because it's a great lesson on blind loyalty.

Lee thought the honorable thing to do was fight a war he disagreed with, but without Lee the South likely wouldn't have had the balls to do it. He was that good of a general, but the governors didn't listen to him, they had blind faith in him to win a war he told them was unwinnable.

So everyone just plowed ahead anyways and millions died horrible deaths.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

Lee's reputation as an honorable man is something of a fabrication by false lost cause narratives.

The reality is that his reputation and skill as a military leader was overblown, and he was as cruel an enslaver as they come. He felt slavery was a cause worth fighting for, all to protect his/his family's wealth. If he chose to fight for the south in spite of low odds of winning, it's only more indicative of just how strongly he supported the confederacy and the right to own people.

The notion that he only acted out of loyalty to his home state is the work of lost causers trying absolve him of responsibility for betraying his country. This way, he can continue filling the role of (white) people's hero long after his death and get monuments built for him that celebrate and perpetuate confederate ideals. If Lee's decision was normal, one might ask why General George Henry Thomas, another Virginian, still chose to fight for the United States alongside 100,000 other southern unionists who disagreed with secession.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

We were immediately taken before Gen. Lee (http://fair-use.org/national-anti-slavery-standard/1866/04/14/robert-e-lee-his-brutality-to-his-slaves), who demanded the reason why we ran away; we frankly told him that we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget; he then ordered us to the barn, where, in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by Gen. Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty; we were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us; accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered; Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to lay it on well, an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done.

Doesn't sound like he stood on the side of progress. You are either knowingly or unknowingly white washing him. I hope you are doing the latter.

https://acwm.org/blog/myths-misunderstandings-lee-slaveholder/

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Lmao yeah right. If that were true he would have defected.

[-] [email protected] -1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

You missed the end apparently:

It’s important to understand what happened, because it’s a great lesson on blind loyalty.

Lee thought the honorable thing to do was fight a war he disagreed with, but without Lee the South likely wouldn’t have had the balls to do it. He was that good of a general, but the governors didn’t listen to him, they had blind faith in him to win a war he told them was unwinnable.

So everyone just plowed ahead anyways and millions died horrible deaths.

Like. You really think the lesson:

Just following orders isnt a valid excuse

Isn't important?

You can't think of a modern reason we'd want people to understand that?

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

He was that good of a general…

Somewhat related, he remains the only person to graduate West Point without a single demerit, IIRC. Granted, school accomplishments don’t necessarily translate into real world capability. Just a bit of trivia I’ve retained over the years.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

wp:Robert E. Lee#Postbellum life

After the war, Lee was not arrested or punished (although he was indicted),[136] but he did lose the right to vote as well as some property. Lee's prewar family home, the Custis-Lee Mansion, was seized by Union forces during the war and turned into Arlington National Cemetery, and his family was not compensated until more than a decade after his death.[137]

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

...was not compensated...

I thought I was going to have an aneurysm there, ngl

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

lee was a total loser

this post was submitted on 29 May 2025
280 points (97.6% liked)

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