There’s also the fact that the South initiated hostilities with the North, rather than the other way around, hence fitting the “levying war against them” part of the definition of treason.
Earl Warren won’t be a brilliant tactician!
And, for comparison, Gen. George Washington, by any account a brilliant tactician, levied war against his country well before the American colonies seceded from Great Britain.
And yet another view, the view held by Lincoln, was that there was no secession: the states didn’t have the right to secede, and so all the actions of he states as political bodies, and their populations as individuals, were all done as crimes under US law.
I used to think of him as a traitor. But I try to avoid judging people by contemporary standards. In that time, people were much more inclined to identify themselves by their state and not as Americans. He saw his allegience was to Virginia and to that allegience he was true.
I’m not enough of a military scholar to know if he was a brilliant general. But it seems part of his success was due to the parade of dunderheads that commanded the Union troops. I wonder how successful he would have been or how long the war would have lasted if Grant was initially in charge of the Union army.
I don’t know that Grant initially had the capability to handle Lee.
Lee likely would have had a tough time with Union forces led by Winfield Scott along with implementation of a comprehensive “Anaconda Plan”.
“We rely greatly on the sure operation of a complete blockade of the Atlantic and Gulf ports soon to commence. In connection with such blockade, we propose a powerful movement down the Mississippi to the ocean, with a cordon of posts at proper points … the object being to clear out and keep open this great line of communication in connection with the strict blockade of the seaboard, so as to envelop the insurgent States and bring them to terms with less bloodshed than by any other plan.”
– Winfield Scott, letter to McClellan (from the Wikipedia entry on the Anaconda Plan)
Forced into a harder role as an aggressive general, without the ability to play off dumb campaigns by Northern military leaders, Lee probably wouldn’t have the reputation he enjoys today.
Traitor.
And one who committed treason for an ignoble cause, at that.
Okay, the attempt to secede was an act of treason then.
Here’s a hypothetical to consider:
Secession didn’t become an issue for the very first time in 1860. Several states had considered the matter years earlier, for reasons that had nothing whatever to do with slavery.
For instance, the War of 1812 was extremely unpopular in New England, where it was referred to disdainfully as “Mr. Madison’s War.” Leading New England merchants argued for secession of their states from the Union because of their opposition to the war.
That never amounted to anything, but suppose it had. Suppose Massachusetts and New York had seceded. I’d bet many people who now call Robert E. Lee a traitor would look back at those secessionist Yankees and applaud them.
Similarly, states like Virginia claimed the right to nullify federal laws and some made a case for secession after John Adams and the Federalists pushed through the Alien & Sedition Acts. That came to naught, but suppose Virginia had seceded then in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Again, I’m betting many people who scoff at “states’ rights” and who demonize the Confederates would look back at applaud Virginia for standing up for free speech.
Most of us side with the traitors, at least occasionally, while arguing against treason in the abstract.
Good point. Grant certainly matured as a leader in the western campaign. He could hardly have been worse than McClellan, though.
He was a brilliant general, but the man took huge risks. He had to, and they worked. But they were nonetheless huge, and he very nearly led the Confederacy into disaster on more than one occaission. He was able to build his force’s morale into an unbeatable scythe. But at the same time, he tossed his trops into a meatgrinder and killed a huge number of them driving off the “yanks.”
At the start of the conflict, Grant was probably not ready to lead a huge army. His experiences as a quartermaster and his mistakes. But Grant never made the same mistake twice, and in fact would reorganize his force composition to avoid it. He almost got trapped once, fought his way out, and started organizing a scout force. He got hit hard at Shiloh - no one ever took him unprepared again.
One other key difference between them was that Grant had a strategic mind, but Lee was tactical. Le could probably outfight anyone on a given patch of ground; Grant was much better at manuevering his enermy onto a different patch of ground. Grant’s strategic vision was vastly more capable than Lee’s, and as a result he was able to crush Lee regardless of the outcome of any one campaign.
Also, Grant was plagued by incompetant subordinates. Sherman was able to take Atlanta in a brilliant campaign with the help of George Thomas, especially James McPherson. and even Hooker (who, while erratic, had his moments of clarity). Grant, on the other hand, had George Mead and no one else. In fact, IIRC he had to cahier several officers during his final campaign due to gross incompetance. Likewise, his troops were unwillingt o assault trenches properly even when given good opportunities, and ironically wound up suffering higher casualties for it. Grant also made some mistakes in the campaign, but the campaign would have been over in 1864 if any of his allied armies had done their job (as it was, Grant had to actually detatch units in order to save the Shanendoah Valley). All the supportive campaigns fell apart due to the the stupidity and cowardice of the commanders.
Finally, Winfield Scott’s original Anaconda plan was only in some tiny fashion related to the final one used. Scott was actually against large-scale military assaults, favoring economic wreckage. He really didn’t want the vast bloodshed going on, and for good reason.
I agree, and go beyond that. Lee did fight for his country. His country was Virginia. It’s easy to lose track this day and age of the fact that federalism is not federally oriented. It was the States that had united, not the Union that had spawned states. The whole Kennedyesque view of servitude owed to a Central Authority was at best highly controversial. People may succeed in pinning the traitor label on him, but Jeffersonian principles were still vivid in the minds of a vigilant population.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.However misguided they may (or may not) have been about which causes were just, the people who fought the Union had a natural right to do so.
Then it was quite stupid of him to swear an oath to defend the United States of America.
Like it or not, Lee was a traitor. He was a citizen of the United States of America. He swore before God, a God that he claimed to place great faith in, to defend the United States of America. He did this voluntarily, knowing what he was doing. He then broke that oath in the most horrific way possible, and ordered rebel troops to kill the American citizens he had sword before God to defend.
This “well, Lee identified with Virginia, federalism was different then” line of reasoning may slightly mitigate Lee’s moral guilt but it doesn’t change the central facts; Lee was an officer of the United States, swore to defend the United States, and violated the laws of the United States. Perhaps his intentions were as honorable as he could personally understand but he was a traitor all the same and in committing treason he served an evil institution.
I think it was right for the Union to show mercy and clemency to Lee and his fellow officers but treason is treason.
A lot of people back then, at least in the south, felt more loyalty toward their state then they did the Union. Contrast Lee with Arnold who turned traitor because he felt spurned by his superiors and he wanted to make some money. You could call Lee a traitor, after all he could have been tried, convicted, and hanged for treason had the Union not been so merciful after they won.
Marc
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“Traitor” is a loaded word, that means less than it seems.
What makes a traitor? Someone who fights against his “country”. But many times fighting against your country is the moral thing to do. The concept of treason originally didn’t apply to countries, but rather to individual loyalties. You were loyal to your liege lord and on up to the king, and breaking that oath meant being disloyal on a personal level. Countries didn’t enter into it, since a country was simply whatever lands that were controlled by whatever nobles who swore alliegence to a particular person who called himself a king.
So treason in ancient times was simply disloyalty on a personal level, and was regarded as dishonorable for that reason.
But move forward to the rise of nationalism. Now loyalty is supposed to be to the nation as an abstract concept, not to the people who rule the nation. And now things get sticky. What if the people who rule the nation are harming the nation? Then disobeying them would not be treason, and obeying them would be treason. Except those harmful rulers certainly aren’t going to see it that way, they see it the opposite way.
And of course, the notion that one owes a duty of loyalty to a nation-state is a suspect one. I am loyal to the United States, not because I am a citizen of the United States, but because the United States is an instance of the sort of country I want to live in. If I had been born in Sweden, or Canada, or Belgium, I’d be loyal to those countries, because those are decent countries to live in. And loyalty to my country means working to keep my country a decent place to live in, if only because I’ve got to live here. But if the country loses that status as a decent place to live, I would cease to be loyal to the country–as a country. I might feel loyal to my neighbors, my family, but I wouldn’t feel loyalty to the country, except to the extent that I have a loyalty to all human beings, regardless of what place they live or who claims to rule over them.
If I were born in the Soviet Union, or Nigeria, I wouldn’t feel the slightest loyalty to my country. In the case where the rulers of the country are evil, loyalty to your country is morally wrong.
And so we get back to Robert E. Lee. The fact that he fought against an army of the United States doesn’t mean he was a traitor. The problem is that he fought FOR an army that was created to preserve slavery. The preservation of slavery was the reason for secession. Yes it was about state’s rights…the rights of states to preserve slavery. Slavery is bad, m’kay? So fighting to preserve slavery is morally wrong. Robert E. Lee wasn’t flawed because he was a traitor, he was flawed because he fought heroicly for an ignoble cause–one he didn’t even believe in himself.
And the trouble is that his military success simply made things worse for the South. Without Lee’s leadership the South would have lost sooner, fewer people would be dead, the South would have survived. I supposed the complete and utter crushing victory that the Union gave the Confederacy destroyed forever the old South, the serious entertainment of secession, and slavery. A quicker, easier victory might have laid the groundwork for a second Civil War a generation later. At the end of the Civil War the South was utterly beaten, and everyone knew the South was utterly beaten. No “stab in the back” theory could be taken seriously.
No, he didn’t fight for that anymore than a senator is fighting for a bridge in Alaska while he’s championing a minimum wage bill with an add-on. The preservation of his father’s home was of utmost importance to Lee. Otherwise, he’d have been a politician.
Which he did honorably during and after the Mexican-American War by all accounts. I don’t think he ever considered the idea that the state of Virginia might decide to secede when he was taking his oath. Are you omniscient? When you make a promise can you claim to take into account every possible change that might occur in the future?
I would dispute that he did it in the most horrific way possible. Many of Lee’s contemporaries in the North didn’t seem to hold his decision to fight for the south against him. Indeed, there are many accounts of West Point graduates who fought on either side of the war and yet remained on very good terms with their fellow graduates no matter what color uniform they wore. I doubt they would have remained on good terms had they viewed their former classmates as oath breakers.
I don’t think you’re going to find anyone who disputes that what Lee did wasn’t treason as defined by law.
Marc
lee had outstanding military ability which he used to defend an economic and social system built on human slavery.
A bad case of screwed upness.
So well, in fact, that he was offered command of the Union Army before Virginia seceded.
As was pointed out earlier, all of the Founding Father’s were techincally traitors. So much so that Franklin made his famous quote about “all hanging together or we shall surely hang separately.”
George Washington was an officer in His Majesty’s Army, and may very well have taken requisite oaths of loyalty to the King of England.
So, was he a traitor? Practically nobody says so today, but only because he won. Had he been captured and hanged, maybe his reputation would be altogether different.
Then there’s Erwin Rommel. He was one of Germany’s best generals, and he took part in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Was he a traitor? By definition, he almost certainly was… and yet, hardly anybody condemns him for trying to kill his supreme commander. Why not?
That very well sums up my thoughts. Lee didn’t seem to be for the worst reasons for the war, but he had no choice but to join the wrong side. The morally wrong side.
I mentioned the North East (and Don’t Tread on Me) more because they have historically had a distrust of the federal government. My sister lived in Maine for years, and she said the prevailing attitude was don’t tell us how to run our own affairs. Not a state’s rights issue, more right down to the local level.