Why is General Lee such an icon?

Factual Questions
1

I was flipping through the channels, and there was a tv series with general Lee in it, and as always he was portraited as a great, great man - handsome, wise, in possession of all the characteristics a man could wish for, and

while he seems to be a rather capable general, was he really this Sitting Bull meets Rommel meets Kasparov character, bit of a Sean Connery for the looks, and if so, how did it manifest in his biography, and if not, how come he got this Lincoln kind of rep, as one holy cow of America?

2

There’s a story, very possibly apocryphal of course, that when he rode by several residents of the town of Gettysburg, ramrod straight and (only recently) white beard and a study in equestrian dignity, a lady is said to have remarked “Damn but I wish he was ours”. While it seems shallow, I actually think that’s a part of it: he looked the part of an icon- regal, sad, erect and world weary.

I think the fact that he was anti-war also plays into his cult- he did not want to see disunion, when it happened he resolved not to fight against Virginia but could not fight for her, but then after the first year of the war (which he spent in ordnance and not combat) he could no longer NOT fight in the defense of his home.

There’s a lot I don’t like about Lee (he was a classist snob for one thing- ironic since he grew up a poor relation) but I think the look and the “I will not fight against my family and neighbors” factors added to his very capable (at times brilliant) generalship are why he’s iconic.

It could also be asked why Jefferson Davis is not an icon. He was very tall, dignified, et al, but he’s waaaaaaaaaay behind Lee as an iconic figure.

3

Also, he had a very pretty horse.

4

At the time of the Civil War he was, and always had been AFAIK, a person that commanded respect and admiration.

Here’s a short list of things I’ve read about him. No cites and it’s heavy on the memory of a mind that has been exposed to huge quantities of alcohol.

He did look the part.

He had been described as the perfect officer several times.

Lincoln had offered him command of the Northern Armies but he turned it down as he would not take up arms against Virginia (identifying yourself as being a citizen of an individual state as apposed to being an American was very common then).

His actions in the Mexican War were admired by all his co-officers.

He was the only person to ever graduate from West Point without a demerit.

He was the officer-in-charge at the John Brown-Harper’s Ferry incident.

He possessed the ability to make others believe in themselves. The rank and file of the Army of Northern Virginia held him in almost godlike reverence.

He never unbent. When he spoke with junior officers it was never, “You did very well today, Bob.” It was always, “Excellent, General Smith.”

Critisisim, when given was almost always constructive and generally given in private.

Other than being on the losing side in the Civil War, he just didn’t fail.

He was a gentleman. When personal papers of a Northern general fell into his hands Lee allowed no one else to read them. When he determined that they were indeed personal and contained nothing that touched on the war he returned them with a note saying that no one else had read them but himself.

There was a similar event when somebody’s dog was captured and returned.

5

Although it’s a bit of circular logic*, I knew what The General Lee (Bo and Luke’s car from* The Dukes of Hazard* was before I knew who General Lee was. It made me quite a bit more interested when we studied him in school.

*Circular, because the car wouldn’t have been named The General Lee had he not been an icon.

6

The 1969 Dodge Charger is one of the iconic muscle cars of the era. Big engine, light weight for a car of it’s size and they were a sharp looking car. I am kind of biased towards Mopars and 69 Chargers, I raced a couple of them back when I drove race cars. During the years that the Dukes of Hazzard was in production, they went through over 70 Chargers, the production company had a team of over 20 folks just to build and maintain the Chargers used in the show.

Oh, that General Lee. Never mind.

7

I think partially the “why” is that almost immediately after the War there was a “Lost Cause” school of History of the CW being written. It was started purposefully - to romanticize the southern cause and explain it’s defeat.

Lee was beyond criticism in this school and really the link provides a great list of it’s main beliefs. Lee is above all the foundation of this view.

8

Also, he threatened firing squad for any of his troops to pillage, steal, or “molest” (not just a sexual connotation) the civilians of Pennsylvania when he was en-route there. He very much disbelieved in warring on civilians, and thought Sherman’s policy twas on par with Attila the Hun. His main beef with Grant was not political or military but was based on Lee’s fury that Grant wouldn’t allow Lee’s men to come and bury the dead after a battle. (Until that point it had been customary for the victors of a battle to allow the defeated to send a burial detachment to I.D. and bury their side’s dead, and said detachment would not be fired on or subject to capture even if their army was in retreat.)

After the war he was penniless, and it’s known from his private writings (not published until a few years ago) that he was extremely despondent about this, particularly his inability to provide for his unmarried daughters. He was offered $50,000 (well over $1 million today in terms of purchasing power [probably not if it was NYC, but in war ravaged Virginia]) to use his name and image for an insurance company, yet he turned it down flat when he wasn’t sure it was run by people of good character, instead taking the presidency of a dirt broke college that had to pay him mostly in housing and IOUs the first couple of years. (He did amass some wealth in his remaining years, leaving an estate of around $60,000; his sons successfully sued the government and received a $150,000 settlement for the confiscation of Arlington, which set the family up rather well.)

There’s also the story of his act at St. Paul’s Episcopal in Richmond in June 1865. There are two competing interpretations of the story, but both sides agree that the priest, Dr. Charles Minnegerode, prepared to give communion at the bar of the church. The church had always had black worshipers, though most were the slaves of the congregation members and all were segregated to the balcony, but this Sunday for the first time a black man came down the aisle and knelt to receive communion. The congregation was shocked, many gasped, many were mortified at the nerve of the man, and Minnegerode honestly did not know what to do. Lee rose from the back of the church, walked to the bar, and knelt beside the black man and the two received communion. Some interpret this as noble- Lee accepting “the war is over, the world is changed, we are brothers before God and before man”; others interpret it as “No uppity negro is going to stop me from worshiping”. Personally, and I’m not really a super admirer of Lee, I think it was at least mostly the former- though possibly political (“there doesn’t need to be any more hatred or bloodshed”) as he wasn’t an arch-liberal on race by any means, but he also just wanted the war and all about it behind him.
Some buttressing for this interpretation is from the acts of his daughter many years later. His daughter Mary (none of his daughters ever married, incidentally) used her inheritance and share of the Arlington settlement to travel constantly and, not surprisingly for a woman of her station, her traveling companion was her black maid. When she became elderly- 1902, when she was in her late 60s- she was a bit feeble (her mother and both grandmothers had been invalids due to rheumatoid arthritis and other frailties, Mary was slightly better off but still had to use a wheelchair for long distances) she took her black maid with her onto the whites only train car, assuming that she’d be allowed since her mistress required her. The train conductor ordered the black maid off the car and was evidently extremely belligerent when Mary and the maid tried to explain why she was there with a “No excuses just get your black ass back to the colored cars now!” attitude (paraphrase since the actual exchange, which was probably not as polite, is not recorded). The maid complied, and Mary Lee accompanied her, where she was promptly- old and feeble as she was- ordered to get up and get back to the white section (unlike the Montgomery buses, whites were not allowed to sit in black sections either- complete segregation) and in an “upside down and backwards” precursor to Rosa Parks, Mary Lee refused to give up her seat in the black section and was arrested. (News article from the time.htm).)
The railroad was of course mortified when they found out who she was (not for arresting a feeble old woman who wanted to be with her maid, obviously, but this would be about like arresting the daughter of Jesus). She was fined $5 and there it ended, with people even at the time being split between “she had it coming” and “poor old gal- rules were meant to be broken”.
Old and feeble as she was, she was older and more feeble 12 years later when World War I broke out, still traveling with her black maid, this time in Germany. For a time she actually lived as a half-prisoner/half-honored-guest in a German castle (i.e. house arrest for protective custody, but in a very nice suite rather than a dungeon and treated with every courtesy) until she could be relayed to London, where she lived until it was safe to travel by sea. She returned to America and died in Virginia a few days after the Armistice was signed.

9

While he was against the war, he was active in combat in the early part. He attempted to reclaim West Virginia (which wasn’t West Virginia yet, but whatever) and then arranged the coastal defenses. In fact, prior to taking voer from Joe Johnson, Lee had a bit of a bad reputation due to the southern press, which was as fickle and venemous as the media usually is.

10

Because he was a politician, not a general. Losing military leaders perceived to have fought ably and with honor on the are often accorded respect, even by the victors. Rommel and Yamamoto, for instance. Political leaders of failed movements are usually in for rough sledding, and take most of the blame.

11

The losers from your example, of course, would be Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo, though from what I understand of history, Davis certainly wasn’t any of those men by any stretch, which is probably why he is more forgotten or ignored than hated.

12

Lee was by every account a gentleman and a gentle man. He was a smart and accomplished soldier, a reluctant supporter of the CSA, and a person that people could not help but admire.

Of course, he did believe in slavery, and he violate his officer’s oath to preserve, defend, and protect the Constitution of the United States. And not everyone liked him; George Pickett hated him for ordering the charge on the third day of Gettysburg. It was a horrible mistake, that charge (although Lee admitted it).

Jefferson Davis looked tall and dignified, but he was no Lee. He was stubborn, meddling, thoroughly racist, silent, and cold. Few people liked him even before the war. Oddly enough he too was against secession at first.

Lee had many successes on the battlefield. He stuck with the army to the end. He already had a wonderful reputation. He maintained that reputation afterwards. Losers need heroes, too, and Lee fit the bill.

Davis had many failures. Politics is not a military exercise. He angered many politicians, who as a class have long memories. He tried to make the CSA a real government, which considering its reliance on state’s rights was a hopeless task (as Mary Chesnutt said “the epitath of the Confederacy: died of a theory?”). He fled from Richmond ignomiously, leaving the Confederacy to fall apart. After the war, he became eccentric. Losers need someone to blame. Davis fit the bill.

13

Probably because he accepted the outcome of the war, didn’t spend the postwar years ranting about it, kept out of postwar politics unlike, say Grant or Longstreet, neither of who enhanced their reputations in the process, and died fairly soon without writing any controversial or self-serving memoirs.

14

Robert E. Lee came from a prominent family of southern patriots, and married into another. His boyhood home–two miles from me–is said to have produced more patriots than any other building in America. And while Lincoln established Arlington Cematery in Lee’s mansion’s back yard as a punishment, it added to Lee’s cred as an officer and gentleman.

The South is really into its own myths and aristocracy, and he is one of our princes. While Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis loomed large as well, they really weren’t exactly personable. Lee absolutely was.

15

I was CERTAIN that the thread was about the Dukes of Hazzard. I was all prepared to come in and say, “It’s a cool car, man, despite the rebel flag!”.

Too bad it’s about the BORING one.

Joe