I don’t think so because losing battles, even if secretly on purpose, looks really bad in newspapers. And McClellan really loved himself. I doubt he would purposely want to be known as the general who couldn’t defeat the South.
I wasn’t being serious, but maybe Lincoln was wondering about this.
One major difference between Lee and Washington was that Bobby was an active duty, commissioned officer of the United States Army until 3 days before he took over the Virginia state forces. As such, he had sworn an oath:
“to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and to observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States of America, and the orders of the officers appointed over me.”
Thus, no matter his opinions on whether his true home was Virginia, or the United States, he broke that oath and became a traitor. If he truly felt that Virginia was his home, he should not have sworn such an oath to the United States.
I would say that they should have hung his sorry ass, but that would have been too quick. Instead they should have nailed him into Arlington and burnt the sucker around him.
I’ve sometimes wondered what would have happened if Congress had not retroceded the Virginia side of the District of Columbia, where Lee’s home was. Would he have still seen himself as a Virginian?
Too bad we never discussed that, :dubious:
Sure. I know all about mid 19th century political rhetoric. That doesn’t mean that Lee wasn’t a traitor, or that calling him one is somehow “extremism”. The man was an American citizen who actively waged war on the US, who planned and led 92,000 men into battle against American troops. That’s the textbook definition of treason. If he wasn’t a traitor, who in American history was? How do you make a definition of treason that excludes what he does.
I don’t know if the man was honorable or not. Maybe he was. But Brutus was an honorable man, too.
Lee deserved execution. That doesn’t mean it would have been a good idea, though. In the long run the decision to be merciful was the wisest course of action.
A secessionist war, in pursuit of (perceived) liberties is very different from standard or garden-variety treason. Jonathan Pollard is a traitor; Lee was a would-be patriot.
Note that Great Britain does not talk about George Washington as a traitor, and they have every bit as good a cause. The language is intemperate, and overlooks the full context.
The secessionists thought that they were fighting for their own sovereignty, self-interest, rights, liberties, and self-determination. Today, we recognize Bangladesh; today, we admire Gandhi for obtaining independence for India; today, we recognize South Sudan. All of these involved “treason,” but wiser heads recognize that such language would be extreme.
Perhaps there is an element of circularity here: Treason doth never prosper, and all that. Since the Confederacy did anything but prosper, it invites some to kick the corpse and label it treasonous. But this is too dependent on backward-projection of modern views, and doesn’t sufficiently take into account contemporary views.
Lee was a good man who sided with the wrong side. It happens now and then.
Sorry - I disagree. Particularly in the case of Lee, or any other person who resigned a commission in the U.S. military to take up arms against it. And, yes, I look at those men differently than I do the random CSA trooper.
BTW, I know all about the South’s reasons and the context of the time. I have two degrees in history, and have worked in the field for about 20 years. I even work for the owner/operator of all of your favorite Civil War battlefields. I dabble in military history, though not the Civil War in particular, so I have a decent knowledge and respect for Lee’s talent and value. That doesn’t mean I respect the man or the decision that he made and I feel free to use any language I choose to express my utter disgust and disdain at Robert E. Lee. Traitor, scum, and thief (cheap bastard stole a free college education under false pretenses)
Well, nothing worth going to war over… (You bring 20,000 guys, and I’ll bring 20,000 guys, and we’ll meet at Manassas Creek…)
(I love the smell of black powder in the morning… It smells like pyrrhic victory…)
Contemporary views were that the Confederates were traitors and rebels who had to be put down. When you say “Oh, the idea that it’s treason is just putting our modern values back there”, you’re incorrect. I’ve already provided some New York Times letters to the Editor, but if you dismiss that as just exaggerated language, here’s a bit from an article looking at Wisconsin volunteers and their motives for enlisting.
Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. I’ve always been of the philosophy that good is as good does. I don’t know that it matters if he was a good man or not. I mean, that’s not the question. We’re speaking of his putative treason, not of his morality.
Can the two really be separated? Treason is, at its heart, an immoral act.
(Civil Disobedience, I hasten to add, is not.)
Klaus von Stauffenberg and his conspirators committed treason when they tried to kill Hitler, but I don’t think they were acting immorally. So I think you can separate the two.
For what it’s worth, I think that Lee did act immorally in his actions. But I know there are people out there who think the Confederacy was just swell, so. . .
You are aware, O hope, of thw "Whig history: fallacy, which attempted to interpred the morality and wisdom of every action ever taken throughout history by whether it adhered to the principles of ‘enlightened’ Victorian morality?
There are a LOT of people in the U.S. who consider the Confederacy and what it stood for to be execrable, who nonetheless respect R. E. Lee for adhering to the patriotic principles he had been brought up with and had espoused all his life, viz, to his native state. Until this point there really had not been a conflict between Federal and State patriotism that would have affected Virginians.
By the Constitutional definition, yes, you’re correct. But the implications are insulting to a man of great rectitude.
Kim Philby, in his autobiography, notes that he was always a communist, and so never actually “betrayed” anything or anyone. He denied he ever committed “treason.” It’s messy… But, more to the point, was he acting “immorally?” He seemed to think he was acting in the highest possible morality…
Gadz, not me. I side with Grant: the war was fought for the worst possible reasons, and the Confederacy were unquestionably in the wrong.
But Lee didn’t think so. He was a learned man, a wise man, and, to the very best of his ability, he chose his actions on the basis of the best morality available to him. I think it’s tragic that this led him to fight for the wrong side, but it simply is too facile to say that he was wrong in his actions.
If you give Stauffenberg a pass, you need to give Lee the same pass…on grounds of subjective morality.
Whoo… No, I’d never heard of it! I can see the temptation; we think we’re fairly decent at moral judgements, and, in a lot of cases, bad people in historical times did bad things that their own epoch would have judged as wrong.
(“Kill them all, God will recognize his own.” Arnald-Amalric, 1208, when asked by the Crusaders what to do with the citizens of Beziers who were a mixture of Catholics and Cathars. Or Calley at My Lai…)
Exactly. The Confederacy was FAR from being just swell…and yet there were, still, myriads of good people who fought for it, as they believed it represented the clear moral superiority. To write it all off as “treason” is unfair; it dismisses their real efforts at moral reasoning.
Anyway, bah: I’m having trouble lining up my 20,000 guys. They’re fussing about being paid in scrip, and they don’t like the weevils in the hardtack.
I’ve wondered how much he discussed the issue with his sons, and if he had gone with the Union would his sons (who as their grandfather’s heirs were far more vested in the slave economy than Lee himself was) would have joined him or if they would have remained on the Confederate side. Anybody know if any of his sons discussed the issue?
My apologies, sir. Far be it from me to suggest that a man who violated his sworn oath to the Constitution in order to lead an army of rebels against the country that his father fought for at the bidding of a cabal of rich aristocrats who were upset that the newly elected President was not sufficiently supportive of them keeping other men in bondage was anything other than a man of the highest integrity.
If you are insulted by the implications, be insulted. If treason is a harsh word, it is because it represents a harsh thing. Was he bound to do what he did because of patriotism? General Thomas was a Virginian, and General Scott. General Meigs was a Georgian. General Gibbs was raised in North Carolina, Admiral Farragut born in Tennessee. If Lee is not a traitor because he fought for his state, are these men traitors because they chose their country over their state?
Please, tell me, whose actions were more praiseworthy? General Lee or General Thomas.
The only member of his immediate family who was originally supportive of the Confederacy was his daughter Mary Custis, and his extended family tended to be Unionist. If he hadn’t joined the Confederacy, I don’t think his sons would have.
Didn’t Thomas find himself disowned for staying with the Union?
He did.