# What's the Big Deal About Robert E. Lee? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 9, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591 "2018-07-09T17:42:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/61 "2018-07-10T00:09:29Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Edwin is Erwin’s half-brother, yes. :smack: 😉 And R L is a blues musician. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/62 "2018-07-10T00:10:22Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > How many Americans were killed because of George Washington’s treason towards England? > > And yet we glorify him because he refused to give up at Valley Forge when 99.9% of other people would have given up. > > Substitute Lee for Washington, and substitute any of a dozen battles for Valley Forge – and that answers the OP quite nicely. None. Nobody was “American” until 1783. Please, do try to keep up. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/63 "2018-07-10T00:12:28Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > How many Americans were killed because of George Washington’s treason towards England? 4,435 battle deaths on the American side according to the [Department of Veterans Affairs](https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_wars.pdf); total American deaths unknown but it probably encompassed by 20,000 from famine, displacement, and disease. British numbers are unclear it (the official claims by the Crown were wildly exaggerated) but likely in the area of 12k to 13k including Loyalists, British Army, Hessian mercenaries, and others in battle deaths, perhaps five times that number from disease and other privations. _Over the issue of legal representation in governance_, something the American South did not lack for, and in fact, had received massive concessions since the drafting of the US Constitution despite their smaller voting population and perpetuation of the unpopular institution of human slavery. What, exactly, is your fucking point? Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/64 "2018-07-10T00:18:55Z")
> [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](#): > > Well, let’s compare. > > How many Americans were killed by Benedict Arnold’s treason? > Commanding British troops, there was his capture of Richmond and the rampage against countryside & small towns in Virginia, and then up North, capturing New London, Conn and burning the whole city. I’m not sure if there is a tally of the Americans killed, but the total population of Virginia was only about 750,000 (1/3 slaves) and about 150 American soldiers in the fort were mostly massacred after surrendering. Casualties of the civilian population are unknown. > > Now look at how many Americans died because of Robert E Lee’s treason, in the 5 years he commanded Confederate armies. Just the battle of Gettysburg alone there were casualties of about 25,000 on each side. > > By any actual measure, Robert E. Lee was a far worse traitor to the USA than Benedict Arnold ever was. Of course, pointing that out in the South would probably get you lynched. I’ll say this in Lee’s defense: he openly switched sides. He didn’t pretend to serve the United States while secretly betraying it to the other side the way Arnold did. In my opinion, that makes Lee a better man than Arnold. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/65 "2018-07-10T00:21:16Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’ll say this in Lee’s defense: he openly switched sides. He didn’t pretend to serve the United States while secretly betraying it to the other side the way Arnold did. In my opinion, that makes Lee a better man than Arnold. I’ll give you that much. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/66 "2018-07-10T00:37:37Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > And R L is a blues musician. Dammit! Don’t pay attention to what I say, pay attention to what I mean! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/67 "2018-07-10T01:55:07Z")
> [@gtyj](#): > > Stone Mountain, GA, has a great Confederate carving on the side of the mountain. It’s in a state park that’s visited by millions each year, people of all ethnic groups and from all walks of life. And at night, they do a laser show off the side of the mountain, which IMO is tastefully done to show that after the war, the nation became one again. The show isn’t done to showcase hatred, but to showcase reconciliation. I hope they leave the carving on the mountain, and continue the show as a way to show that we’ve moved beyond the hate. Stone mountain is a memorial to the KKK and southern racism, I hope they dynamite it off the face of the earth. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/68 "2018-07-10T02:20:12Z")
> [@gtyj](#): > > And at night, they do a laser show off the side of the mountain, which IMO is tastefully done to show that after the war, the nation became one again. United in keeping the uppity black folk in their place, do you mean? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/69 "2018-07-10T04:12:41Z")
> [@gtyj](#): > > Stone Mountain, GA, has a great Confederate carving on the side of the mountain. It’s in a state park that’s visited by millions each year, people of all ethnic groups and from all walks of life. And at night, they do a laser show off the side of the mountain, which IMO is tastefully done to show that after the war, the nation became one again. The show isn’t done to showcase hatred, but to showcase reconciliation. I hope they leave the carving on the mountain, and continue the show as a way to show that we’ve moved beyond the hate. Stone Mountain depicts the President of the Confederacy and two Confederate Army generals in bas relief commissioned by Venable Brothers, founders of the revived Ku Klux Klan on that site in 1915, and opened on the centennial of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It does not present any image of reconciliation, celebrate any former slaves who resisted and escaped from slavery, or do anything other than venerate he Confederacy as a wronged party in a war of their own creation and an issue opposed by the other fledgling democracies and liberal republics of the industrial world. How precisely does Stone Mountain “showcase reconciliation” or “show that we’ve moved beyond the hate“? Please feel free to use as many words as necessary to explain your prevarication. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/70 "2018-07-10T07:17:29Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yeah, Lee has quite a bit of stuff up. However, he was a great general, and a gentleman, and knew when the war was lost. > > The #2 memorialist is Nathan Bedford Forrest, which is 99% a dog whistle, and NBF was a terrible general (altho a very good cavalry raider) and the worst sort of illiterate racist. He shot captured black POWs down like dogs. > > He founded the KKK, and most of the memorials are really memorializing the KKK and his racism, not him. Yes, later on he was threatened and gave up the KKK. But I dont think he even stopped believing in it. > > There are still a LOT of Confederate memorials. > > [There Are Still More Than 700 Confederate Monuments In The U.S. | FiveThirtyEight](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-are-still-more-than-700-confederate-monuments-in-the-u-s/) > > Note, those that simply memorialize the dead or a battle are perfectly OK. Those that make heroes out of racist traitors are not. Quite a few black prisoners were killed after the Battle of the Crater. Guess who was in command? Marse Robert I’m not excusing Forrest for Ft. Pillow, but he was hardly the only Confederate general who was okay with murdering blacks. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/71 "2018-07-10T12:58:08Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > None. > > Nobody was “American” until 1783. Please, do try to keep up. I hate to nitpick, but must; people were most assuredly “American” before 1783. The word “American” to describe people from what would become the United States was being used before the Revolution, and in fact was a reasonably common use of the term in Britain. In in 1760 you had said to someone in London that you had an American friend, they would have known exactly what you meant. “American” originally meant Native American, though it was swamped in English by “Indian.” “English-American” appears in the mid-17th century and just “American” was pretty common by the time the 18th century rolled in. Nationality is not the same as nation-states, after all. People were being called “Canadians” before Canada was independent. People in occupied Poland were still Polish. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/72 "2018-07-10T13:12:29Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Stone mountain is a memorial to the KKK and southern racism, I hope they dynamite it off the face of the earth. I get this. I do. But it’s a pretty spectacular piece of craftsmanship. It’s not on the level of Rushmore or the Pyramids (I’ve seen all three up close) but it’s up there. I just wish that, instead of destroying it, we could rebrand it somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/73 "2018-07-10T13:17:37Z")
Lee had a larger need to fight in the name of his hometown than to defend the oppressed. Really, the only thing that lifts him from the bottom of the barrel is that everyone at the time was racist. The South seceded because of the economic ramifications of losing slavery, and the North went to war because it couldn’t allow the Union to splinter. People often find it racist to say that the war wasn’t about slavery. But really, the sad thing is that it largely wasn’t. If the slaves had been robots and the North was going to block the South from importing them and instead say that they had to hire humans, it would have been the same war, and that’s a tragedy. But even in that context, Lee supported his home state over the Union and that’s sacrificing the greater good for his own personal interests. I think it’s fair to say that no matter how much you might care for your loved ones, there’s a point at which preventing the nation from fracturing and weakening, preventing it from becoming prey to all comers that would love to take advantage of the rift, becomes more important. Lee helped to support a war that got the people he cared about killed and risked the general freedom of all Americans, and he did it all for really no reason. He was too afraid to go against his family and connections, in the name of what was right. In all respects, he failed to make any sort of morally justifiable choice. Maybe it served a purpose to treat him as a hero for a while. But today, that shouldn’t be necessary. The man wasn’t no hero. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/74 "2018-07-10T13:40:21Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Lee had a larger need to fight in the name of his hometown than to defend the oppressed. > > Really, the only thing that lifts him from the bottom of the barrel is that everyone at the time was racist. The South seceded because of the economic ramifications of losing slavery, and the North went to war because it couldn’t allow the Union to splinter. > > People often find it racist to say that the war wasn’t about slavery. But really, the sad thing is that it largely wasn’t. If the slaves had been robots and the North was going to block the South from importing them and instead say that they had to hire humans, it would have been the same war, and that’s a tragedy. But it wasn’t about robots. Saying the war was “about the economics of slavery” but not about “slavery” is a distinction without a difference. But, yeah, the South and the North had different motivations. The North did not go to war to end slavery, even if the South went to war to preserve it. As you say, the North went to war to preserve the Union. Ending slavery came later. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/75 "2018-07-10T13:52:41Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > How precisely does Stone Mountain “showcase reconciliation” or “show that we’ve moved beyond the hate“? Please feel free to use as many words as necessary to explain your prevarication. Gtyj said it was the laser show that showcased reconciliation not the mountain itself. I haven’t seen the laser show (or Stone Mountain other than in pictures) but that’s certainly possible. People can stage an exhibit or ceremony at a site with the specific intent of repudiating the site’s original meaning. Like a memorial service held at Auschwitz or a freedom ceremony held at the remains of the Berlin Wall. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/76 "2018-07-10T13:59:10Z")
Sure, provided the show is based on the premise that Auschwitz and the Berlin Wall were massive wrongs. Does the laser show featuring three white supremacists repudiate them? ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/77 "2018-07-10T14:06:32Z")
Another fallacy used by Confederate (and other) apologists: that the only kind of loyalty is loyalty to individuals or causes. People who opposed corrupt causes were (often) choosing loyalty to \*principle \*over those causes. But apologists getting all gooey over loyalty to the Confederacy make it sound like theirs is the only kind that counts. It ain’t. PS: I knew a woman once - a naturalized citizen, and an Iranian immigrant - who admired Richard Nixon because he stayed loyal to the Shah. It amazed me that someone who had betrayed pretty much every moral principle in the book - not to mention plenty of people - could draw praise for his loyalty. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/78 "2018-07-10T14:09:58Z")
Curious : if southern apologists value loyalty to a cause so much, how do they deal with Andrew Johnson, who stayed loyal to the cause of the Union? (To the point that he left instructions that when he died, his head was to be pillowed in his coffin on a copy of the US Constitution) ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/79 "2018-07-10T14:41:58Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Hell, hardly anyone in the US knows who Hitler was! Who? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2018, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/80 "2018-07-10T14:50:23Z")
He meant Twittler, one of my favorite Twitter accounts [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591.md?page=5)