Yeah, if Lee gets his picture up, how about Rommel? If were just putting up pictures of Americans who took up arms against other Americans, than how about John Walker Lindh and Timothy McVeigh?
Possibly that. Possibly they appreciate greatness. When the war was over, King George III asked An American who was in London what George Washington’s next plans were. The answer was that he was going to retire back to his home in Virginia. George III responded, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
:smack: Ooops, thanks for the correction.
Either way, Yamomoto would be the military genius of the group.
Washington’s behavior was fairly atypical, most military leaders that win conflicts like that go on to become the leader of the country on some level.
I wouldn’t have a problem with Giap or Rommel being on the wall if the purpose was to celebrate “great generals.” But if the wall is just supposed to be great American generals, I see no reason that Lee or Jackson shouldn’t be on there and no reason Giap and Rommel should.
Like I said, a monument or naming something after a Confederate General is quite explicitly an honorarium for the man in toto. I honestly don’t care at all about the portraits, and I’m someone that doesn’t agree with Federal monuments or buildings honoring Confederate leaders (the States are free to honor whomever they choose.) A portrait isn’t the same to me as naming a military base or erecting a statue. Especially if it’s a collection of portraits of “Great American Generals”–Jackson and Lee both qualify on both counts.
If not for the Comtes de Rochambeau and de Grasse your posts would be in English.
So Bragg should be honored for his significant contribution to the Union victory!
There IS a monument to the part of Arnold that he gave to the Revolutionary cause.
The Confederates were actually pretty critical of Bragg, he got sacked and several prominent Generals in letters basically blame him for much of the failures in the West.
Bragg was also hated by his subordinates due to having personality problems, and many petitioned to get transferred out from under his command. He is certainly an odd choice for a major military base, as he is both a traitor and has none of the battlefield prowess that can at least explain the fascination with figures like Jackson and Lee.
Yeah, he could have gone on to become president or something.
Don’t they have images of demons in a lot of churches?
Usually being repelled, shamed or shunned in some fashion, yes.
Bragg at one point tried to courtmartial himself after being insulted by some letters he had written himself.
A bit of a threadjack, but RickJay’s comment about greatest American general also got me thinking. I wouldn’t have guessed Grant for the title, in fact my vote goes to Douglas MacArthur, despite some utterly baffling brain-dead decisions. Who’d be your pick, Martin?
Thanks for the Civil War discussion. I’m not that versed in its history and the back and forth has been illuminating.
I guess that depends on which part you want to put the emphasis on - the “United” part or the “States” part. Lee and the rest of them were fighting for their states. The same way Lee’s grandfather had fought - against Great Britain - a couple generations earlier. Grant was fighting for the “United” part.
That the same people who venerate self-determination when the colonies rebelled castigate the Southern rebellion is sort of mind-blowing to me. I guess that’s why they insist on calling it a war about slavery.
The thing that must be understood, is the Southern States were what I (and some historians) call “slavocracies.” A minority of Southerners owned slaves, some even were opposed to the practice morally. But the minority that owned slaves held basically all of the legal and political power. They controlled all the State legislatures, saw to it that only themselves were selected as Senators, and usually controlled politics enough that only themselves were elected as U.S. House members.
In an era before the 14th Amendment, many basic rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights weren’t “incorporated” in the States. So in many Southern States the “freedom of speech” guarantees in the U.S. Constitution didn’t legally restrain Southern legislatures. Thus even advocating abolition could be a crime in the South, publishing abolitionist books could be a crime. In the Colonial Era and early years of the Republic slavery wasn’t nearly as polarizing as it became in the 1840s and later. Most Southerners both supported it but assumed it would fade away as that was the direction things had been going until some economic and technological changes. So in the late 1700s you actually had Quakers openly living in the South and advocating abolition as the earliest part of the abolitionist movement.
By the immediate antebellum era, much of that was both actually illegal and more than that, armed gangs would kill you for doing that stuff.
So since essentially all the power in the South was in the hands of the slaveocracy, and said slave holding leaders were the ones who voted for secession in the respective State legislatures it is absolutely undeniable the states seceded over slavery.
Does that mean every man who picked up a gun for the Confederacy was fighting for slavery? No, of course not. Like in any war individual motivations vary, just as not all German soldiers in WWII were Jew hating Nazis not all Confederate soldiers were fighting out of a motivation to preserve slavery.
Lee is a good example of that, he came to be opposed to slavery and freed his own slaves (he only owned a few.) Lee’s wife’s family was also anti-slavery, and when her parents died their will stipulated that all of their slaves be freed. So when Lee inherited their slaves through his wife, he diligently worked to get their estate’s debts paid off so they could legally sell the slaves. Lee was also very opposed to secession, and openly stated this.
It wasn’t a Hail Mary pass that lead Lincoln to offer Lee command of the Union Armies prior to the shooting war breaking out. Given Lee’s known opposition to both slavery and secession, it would have made sense for him to fight for the Union. He wouldn’t be the only Virginian who did, while Virginia was the capital of the confederacy a lot of Virginians fought for the Union. A lot of units came out of the western counties of Virginia (now West Virginia) to fight for the Union, but the Loudoun Rangers were two companies of partisan cavalry that were raised from present day Loudon County, VA that fought for the Union.
But despite from all outward indicators Lee would be a pre-Union guy, when push came to shove despite disagreeing with the politics of the CSA and even secession itself, he was more loyal to his home State than his country and thus would not agree to fight against his home state.
Men were hung for owning a copy of ‘The Impending Crisis of the South’.
Lee was sort of washy-washy about slavey. It’s my understanding he didn’t own own any slaves himself, but his wife’s father certainly did. He thought slavey was wrong, but it was something that would be abolished in some ill-defined future time.
The father-in-law died shorty before the War, and Lee, executor of the estate, was put on charge of manumitting the slaves from Arlington (which was captured by the Union early on - it’s now Arlington National cemetery) - his wife’s former home. (Which was slightly move complicated than it sounds, since you couldn’t just say “go free” to slaves in Virginia in the 1860’s. You had to find places for them to go.)
Which is ironic, since at the same time he was commanding the most important Arny in the Confederacy, was also actively freeing the slaves that were under his own control.
He was also strongly in favor of freeing any slaves that fought for the Confederacy, though the plan didn’t get anywhere, until the very end of the war.
Edited to add: had Lee joined the Union, it would have meant fighting his own sons, cousins, and family. It’s not that surprising which side he took, though he did struggle over it,.
It’s my understanding Lee owned a small number of slaves. Lee came from an upper class bloodline but his family wasn’t prosperous. His father was a Revolutionary war hero and Governor of Virginia but had died somewhat disgraced. (He had spent time in debtor’s prison after being Governor and his death was linked to his involvement with an anti-war Federalist paper.)
I don’t know for a fact if Lee purchased his own slaves or if maybe his wife brought a few with her, but I know that for his wealthy and upper class wife moving in with him after they married was a big “step down” because they had only a few slaves and not even a full household staff (the horror!.) Lee was actually very critical of both his career in the Army and his business dealings for most of his life, viewing himself as a failure.
His and his wife’s lot should have been immensely helped when she inherited the vast Custis fortune. But the estate was so indebted that Lee had to spend almost five years straightening out the estate affairs before he could manumit the slaves. As you note, Virginia required you provide for the slaves a way out of Virginia and some economic prospect (the scheme Lee adopted/supported was Liberian colonization.) The Custis fortune had also gone through George Washington’s hands at one point. Martha Washington’s first husband was a Custis, and with him she had several children. As most know, George and Martha had no children of their own, but George adopted Martha’s Children by Daniel Custis (only two survived to adulthood and neither lived long lives.) One of Daniel’s children, John Custis married a granddaughter of the 5th Baron Baltimore (the original proprietor of the Maryland colony), and had several children with her. Washington adopted one of his son’s from this union as his own son (the youngest), and that son was George Washington Custis who was the father to Mary Custis that married Robert E. Lee.
While Martha Washington managed her inherited estates fairly well, and George Washington was considered an excellent businessman and managed her dowager ownership interest effectively as well (and controlled the entire estate until Daniel Custis’s children reached maturity) the Custises themselves were poor financial stewards. Both John Parke and George Washington Custis spent horribly. George Washington tried to counsel John against his poor spending habits to no avail, and his son G.W. is the one who left Robert E. Lee and his daughter Mary to manage a massively indebted estate.
Lee’s living relatives say “sure thing,” provided they return Arlington to them.
Tell them next time, don’t back the losing side.
^
Nearly 100 years before the US backed South Vietnam.