Although loyalty to one’s own state was also an ideal in the (antebellum) 19th century, which is sometimes a hard thing to grasp in the 21st. Part of why Lee has generally been seen fairly sympathetically in posterity’s eyes is that on a personal level he was unenthusiastic and even opposed to the rebellion, but served anyways because he felt his first loyalty was to Virginia. He had a major crisis of conscience about this and didn’t firmly pick a side until several days into the war. Yes, from a strictly utilitarian standpoint he was fighting a war to preserve slavery. That doesn’t appear to have been his personal motivation however, unlike most of the major figures of the Confederacy who were enthusiastic rebels.
Hell, there are plenty of people in this thread who are utterly full of shit.
Shh. You’ll confuse all the outraged historians who wanted him and by correlation every single person who took up arms against the US executed as ‘traitorous fools’.
Yeah, me too! Now if I can get someone to compile that list, maybe put it into some kind of order, maybe, and I could get a copy, I’d really be on to something! 
RE General Lee: One hell of a cool car! It did jumps and shit!
I’m no southern apologist and I certainly believe the southern states attempted to break free in order to preserve slavery rather than any injustice inflicted upon them by the north. But I can just picture myself as a Texan, Virginian, or a Georgian looking at the prospect of the Union dissolving. Do I fight along side my friends, neighbors, and family members or do I take up arms against them?
Lee did work towards reconciliation after the war. He didn’t want blacks to vote because he argued that they weren’t educated enough to do so. But he did support reconstruction efforts including free education for blacks.
Every human being who has ever lived was a product of the education and values of their times. Everyone from Nelson Mandela to Adolf Hitler was a product of the education and values of their times.
But some people are wrong, and some are right, and the Confederates were wrong.
Their politicians were wrong. The slaveowners were wrong. Those that took up arms rather than shoot their brothers had a very difficult decision to weigh. And that’s the not even taking into account the common man being fed a line of bullshit about ‘state’s rights’ and ‘Northern Oppresion’.
And what about the slaveowning Texans who by force and completely illegally seized Texas from Mexico? Were they traitorous fools?
He had no desire to free his FIL’s, but the will was upheld in court.
The letter writer, Mr. Cohen, reveals his historical ignorance by saying that “in any other nation and time, the traitor’s execution would have been assured”. Nations from Spain to Ireland to South Africa have found it impossible and counter-productive to deal with the aftermath of civil conflict by mass execution. Amnesties to break the cycle of blood-letting are common.
The association between slave-holding and the Tea Party is a pathetic Godwinization.
He was one of those people who was admired even by his enemies.
Grant went out of his way to show him unusual honors of war at the surrender.
Lincoln never called him a “traitor.” Lincoln, and most of the North (well, except for the fire-eating wing of the press) didn’t much use that language during the war. “Renegade” was pretty much the harshest term.
No, not all of them. Their leaders, though? See Hermann Göring, Tojo, and Saddam Hussein. We aren’t always the gracious winners we were after the ACW.
To Mexico? Yes, of course they were. I have no idea what point you think you are making.
The US didn’t execute Hussein. Lee was a battlefield general, and the US did go after some generals of the Third Reich, but some of them are held to have been unfairly gone after, if you know what I mean.
I don’t disagree and I admit my use of the word “compatriot” in my earlier post was misguided, it’s far too broad a term.
Well that winners of a revolution are bold, freedom-loving Revolucionarias and that the losers are vile traitors of course…unless those revolutionaries’ are commies. Then they’re just…commies.
Slippery slope arguments only appeal to the weak-minded.
Lee was not just another southerner who joined the Confederacy. He was the commanding general of the Confederate Army.
Just to be hyper-pedantic, wasn’t he only the commanding general of the Army of Northern Virginia?
Did the Confederate Army actually have a commanding general? Jefferson Davis was the “Commander in Chief,” but wasn’t a general officer. (Was he an officer at all?)
(Not relevant to the real subject, I guess.)
Considering that Washington had no involvement in the drafting of the Constitution, which did enshrine slavery, I’d like to understand your argument for this claim.
Lee was appointed General-in-Chief of the Confederate forces in January, 1865.
Lee was not fighting on the Confederate side because he wanted to uphold slavery. He chose his side (after being asked to lead the Union Army) simply because he felt loyal to the state of Virginia (which came very close to abolishing slavery about ten years earlier) and felt obligated to defend his home.
Virginia was slow to secede, waiting until after Fort Sumpter, and, unlike most other states, pointed to the attack as the reason, not upholding slavery, per se.
There’s no doubt that South seceded because of slavery (they said so themselves), but many who fought for it were not invested in the slavery issue and were fighting primarily because the North was sending troops against them.
Lee’s views on slavery at the time were that he was moderately in favor – neither rabidly in support of it, nor in support of emanicipation. He was influenced by only knowing his own slaves, which were generally well treated. He supported the institution, but probably would have accepted things if Virginia had emancipated its slaves. He also was willing to try to recruit slaves as soldiers in the late period of the war in exchange for a promise of emancipation, not something a rabid racist would ever consider.