Oh boy! Did someone really try to do that? Yes, in the Gainesville Times Letters to the Editor.
Robert E. Lee who did not want former slaves to have a vote in the post Reconstruction Era gets praised equal to Martin Luther King who wanted every American to have an equal part in democracy.
King is called famous for “disobedience, disorder and civil unrest.” But Fred N. Chitwood thinks Lee should be praised for leadership in armed rebellion that claimed a million lives. Absolute violence versus non-violent protest? Praise war!
Fred Chitwood claims that Lee “completed his studies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point without so much as one demerit. He is the only cadet to have accomplished this remarkable feat.”
In fact, the year that Lee graduated, five cadets passed without any demerits. Others who graduated without a single demerit are equals of Lee including these Civil War enemies, Generals George Meade and William T. Sherman. (The Journal of Military History 70.3 (2006), pp. 841-842)
Chitwood also claims Robert E. Lee “has no record of an attack on his character and integrity by either friend or foe.”
Mr. Chitwood has not done his homework on this issue, either. When given the task of executing the estate of George Washington Custis, Lee did not follow the spirit of the will. The will demanded the Custis slaves, all 196, be freed in the “most expedient and proper” manner. Lee, who had no ownership rights to the nearly 200 slaves, used them harshly as slaves, including having women stripped to the waste and whipped in public. The details of the harsh treatment included using the slaves at Arlington plantation and hiring them out for cash to other plantations. We can be certain that Custis was not giving Robert E. Lee use of the slaves but expected him to grant them freedom as soon as possible.
A very good bio of Lee done by Douglas Freeman can be found online here.
Robert E. Lee was a remarkable man but no where near the Chitwood’s saint of the South. Nor should we compare Lee to King.
Both did face death but Lee could see his enemies coming. King’s killer or killers struck from hiding.
Lee did not follow his country nor work for unity. He picked one state over the good of all states.
King lived and died to make a whole nation from a segregated nation.
January 26, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Facts. Ain’t they a bitch.
January 26, 2010 at 4:30 pm
the truth shall set you free but only if you are free to accept the truth.
March 6, 2010 at 9:10 am
Femdom games are just my stress relief!
April 5, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Voltaire said history is an agreed upon delusion. Few things are more delusional than the myth we have formed about Robert E Lee.
We know now things about Lee no one ever dealt with before — many things.
Such as Lee kept “hunting list” of escaped women slaves he wanted captured, and that when they were captured, he had them stripped and whipped, screaming at them during the whipping.
We know now he sold children and women — that he broke up every “family unit” of the Custis slaves, when he got his hands on them.
Far from being an abolitionist, Lee defended slavery — and even claimed the pain and cruelty of slavery was God’s intended way to teach the blacks.
For all his flowery verbage about hating slavery — Lee is the only slaver I know of, who defended the CRUELTY of slavery, and said God intended slavery to be cruel and painful. And Lee lived up to that — personally keeping hunting list, personally being involved in whipping the slaves — and personally screaming while they were whipped.
It is nothing short of hideous how Lee has been revered, even by people who pride themselves on “objective” history.
Lee was not worse than many slave owners – but power corrupts. And it sure corrupted Lee.
Many people say “well, you have to judge him in his times”. His times? Many people hated slavery — in his times. Lee himself said he hated it.
Even many slavers (like Custis) refused to sell children away from the mother, which Lee did without any hesitance whatever. Lee lived just a short distance for the slave auction house — he had to have seen children in chains, in the famous coffles, taken to their fate.
Alexander Stephens evey wrote that much of what he saw about how slave women were treated was “disgusting”. Lee would have seen those exact disgusting things too.
In fact, Lee had disdain for slaves — blamed them for “being lazy” yet they did all his work. Lee’s famous “gentlmanly” demeanor was like a cloak thrown off when he inflicted terror on his slaves.
We know Lee consciously strove to impart terror – he would tell his slaves before they were whipped, that this would be a lesson they will long remember. But apparently history would soon forget.
Lee’s supposed “military genius” is as much a farce as his honor. First of all, geniuses don’t get their true believers killed off. Lee’s men deserted him by the tens of thousands. Lee was very willing, even eager, to send men to their certain death stupidly and repeatedly.
But when Lee faced danger — he ran. He fled Richmond like a pussy. And he tried to surrender for days — his aides kept talking him out of it. SO he got rid of his aides, and went to find the Union so he could surrender.
But the Confederates needed a hero – an honorable one, a brave one. All they had was Lee and Davis – each were cowards, each were slavers, each were terrorist.
May 8, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Wow, well then you should really read about what William T. Sherman thought about the slaves. And you think HE is not a terrorist? Just because he had the blessing of the Imperial Federal Government.
Lee chose to side with his HOME. It is sad to think some people have no concept of home, they only care about their government in DC that does not give a damn about them–just as long as you keep voting for them. If that war were to happen again today, I would gladly side with home then become a slave to this government.
May 10, 2010 at 8:56 am
Gregg,
Lee took the side of the South and fought under a central government. His central government introduced the first income tax and the first draft of civilians into military service.
That government printed paper money until the paper was worthless. Thousands of Southerners bought ‘war bonds’ that were worthless within months AFTER the war started.
Here, right here in Georgia, corporations run your government. And people openly talk about how important it is to have the corporations run the economy instead of the government regulate ethical and legal behavior.
There are slaves already in the South. But not to the federal government.
Keep voting for the Southern incumbent but blame the North for your place in life.
MD