Back in April of 1861, Robert E. Lee was apparently offered command of the defense of Washington D.C. as a major general; he of course refused, resigned, and joined up with the Virginia state forces that same week.
So . . . what happens if he instead fires off a snappy salute for the gent in the White House, in hopes of playing saboteur from within?
I think it’s James McPherson who said if Lee had joined the Union army the war would have probably ended quicker, before emancipation been issued and the South utterly destroyed. In the end, Lee fighting for the allowed for the South to have to change.
He sets up the Union army for a major loss in the first battle. He needs a confederate to let the Confederate army know that he’s on their side, then concentrates the Union forces in some location where they can be flanked and defeated. To reduce the number of the Union troops to face he sends contingents out to nearby locations to act as reinforcements. All of this is known in advance by the Confederate army and they end up capturing a huge number of soldiers and tons of weapons. Then they march on Washington and force the Union to recognize the independence of the Confederacy.
Of course he would never of done any of this. He wouldn’t have agreed to side with the Union unless he meant it, and he’d never throw a battle.
Indeed. If RE Lee was anything, he was a gentleman of honor.
That he chose to fight for VA rather than the US (despite, as I understand it, not being particularly convinced of the wisdom of succession) is an interesting commentary on the different attitude towards one’s state at the time. At the time, it wasn’t uncommon to think of oneself as a Virginian (or New Yorker, or Ohioan or whatever) first and a citizen of the United States second. The War itself is largely what changed that.
If Lee were the sort that would even consider taking a position in the Union Army to sabotage it from within, he wouldn’t have been the sort to be offered the position in the first place.
Sigh… Look, I’m one of the most pro-union guys you’ll ever hope to meet… And, no, Lee was not a “Traitor.” That was the point of Law Monkey’s and Push You Down’s posts: Americans, at the time, didn’t think of the U.S. in the way we do today. You are fallaciously using today’s mind-set to condemn a man, who lived in a very different time and had a very different set of political ethics.
U.S. Grant himself takes a softer tone and a conciliatory view:
Furthermore, it’s a mistake to think “gentlemen of honor” don’t commit treason. Read any history book. IMHO, people of rigid principle seem likelier than the “morally flexible” to find themselves forced (or imagine themselves forced) to take the difficult position of opposing the superorganism that is the kingdom or nation-state.
It’s not just presentism, you know. People at the time called him a traitor for what he did. From the Letters to the Editor of the New York Times in response to the article about the Army of Northern Virginia’s surrender:
and
And, in fact, in Lee’s obituary in the Times in 1870, it notes:
In his view Lee had the choices of dishonoring his country, dishonoring his state, or dishonoring himself by staying out of it. If he had chosen differently he would be known as a hero instead of a traitor. He made the wrong choice. As far as acting as saboteur or taking a dive in battle I don’t think he would do either.
It’s not just Lee’s interpretation of “honor” that would have prevented him from throwing a battle. Such action would be antithetical to both his personality and his military “style” of command.
There have been few American military figures who were as aggressive, as willing, even driven, to attack, regardless of the odds. Or, as Lee famously said, because the odds were long…the weaker side must take the greater risks. Perhaps only Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Patton, and maybe Grant matched Lee for dedication to seizing the initiative and attacking.
To imagine Lee losing on purpose is to imagine a different man entirely.
Lincoln was called all sorts of vile things, as was Jefferson Davis, by the newspapers susposedly on their respective “sides”.
[/QUOTE]
McLellan openly called Lincoln a “baboon” and a fool to his men while he was still commander of the Army of the Potomac, while Davis’s problem with open insubordination from his generals, governors of Confederate states (some of whom were interested in seceding from the Confederacy to pursue a separate peace [especially once they were invaded] and none of whom were inclined to share provisions with other states), and above all the Confederate Congress would have resulted in a Spartacus like hundreds of miles of crucified bodies had Davis possessed the might and temperament of a Stalin. (Davis did not become a southern icon until long after the war; during and in the years following the war, he was not that popular, and his wife actually joked that one of the best moments in the war was when the paper shortage made most of the Confederate newspapers close down.)
Yeah. I’m reading volume III of Shelby Foote’s Civil War “narrative”. He touches on this kinda stuff. The pettiness of the politics is pretty jaw dropping in some places.