According to various historical accounts, the following exchange happened at Appomattox Courthouse. Grant introduced Lee to Grant’s military secretary Ely Parker, a Seneca Indian. Lee stared a moment at Parker’s complexion and said, “I am glad to see one real American here.” Parker replied: “We are all Americans.”
Two questions:
(1) How strong is the historical evidence for this? It seems awfully apocryphal.
(2) What did Lee mean, exactly? Did he mean than Native Americans were the real Americans? Was that a common sentiment at the time?
Well, the Wikipedia article your OP seems to be drawn from has the following bibliographic citation:
[Quote=Wikipedia article footnote 10]
Arthur C. Parker, The Life of General Ely S. Parker: Last Grand Sachem of the Iroquois and General Grant’s Military Secretary Buffalo, New York: Buffalo Historical Society, 1919, p. 133
[/quote]
I don’t know of any greater historical support than the specific book.
Thanks for the link. Based on that account it was a private conversation. So I guess there wouldn’t be much evidence either way unless either Parker or Lee wrote about it.
Does anyone know if there is anything in Lee’s writing or biographies about it?
Battle Cry of Freedom gives the following citation for this exchange:
O.R., Ser. I, Vol. 46, pt. 1, pp. 57– 58;
Horace Porter, “The Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse,” Battles and Leaders, IV, 739– 40;
Burke Davis, To Appomattox: Nine April Days, 1865 (New York, 1959), 386.
The O.R. contains nothing about this exchange. Burke Davis cites Horace Porter recounting what Lee looked like, but then cites what “Parker recorded” and the substance of the exchange from the OP (without citation to where and when Parker recorded it, but with the Arthur Caswell Parker book in the bibliography).
So I guess that leaves us no closer than the 1919 biography.
Considering that Robert E. Lee violated his oath of allegiance to his country, and traitorously fought against it, all to justify keeping black slaves as property; it hardly seems in character for him to have referred to a non-white natives as the “real American”.
Seems obviously false. Just another part of the Southern myth justifying their rebellion.
Historical revisionists are bound and determined over 150 years after the fact to demonize and vilify everything and everyone associated with the C.S.A., even when the people who fought and bled in that war agreed, after Appomattox, to adopt a “forgive, and reconcile” attitude and bring the nation together.
Lee did remain loyal; you and t-bonham obviously do not grok the concept of United States of America, wherein States were their own political entity, and not completely prostrate before the power of the Federal Government.
Since 1865 and Appomattox settled that particular issue, then yes, anyone attempting Secession would be traitors; in 1861, the issue was far from settled.
And, once more for emphasis: the people who had “skin in the game” in 1861-1865 didn’t feel the need to call out the C.S.A.'s civilian and military leadership as "traitors; so where/why/how do SJW’s 150 years later get off?
It’s not something that is discussed in my cultural/social group whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean. But it is clear to me that Lee was a traitor who fought to, among other things, keep people enslaved. What is the belief in your cultural/social group?
I would happily participate in a separate thread about Lee’s legacy and why the South fought. Can you please start it instead of hijacking my GQ thread? Thanks.
Let’s stop all of the hijacks and focus on the original topic, please.
If you want to have a debate about why the South seceded or why the founding fathers rebelled against Britain, take it to Great Debates. It would probably be a fairly interesting thread, I think.
Nothing to add as to the source of the Appomattox story, but Parker, played by Indian actor Asa-Luke Twocrow, briefly appeared in the Spielberg Lincoln movie:
