Robert E. Lee graduated from West Point at the head of his class and is still one of only six cadets to graduate from West Point without a single demerit.
Unlike Union general, Ulysses S. Grant, General Lee never sanctioned or condoned slavery.
Upon inheriting slaves from his deceased father-in-law, Lee immediately freed them.
Wife’s people trace their heritage to Lee.
I think very highly of Robert E Lee, for reasons listed in this article, and for many others I’ve learned over the years studying the Civil War.
That said, no reason to take a cheap shot at Grant as you do here.
He never owned slaves. He didn’t support slavery.
Bump - before the Yankees invade this thread.
bttt
That must be why the escaping slaves followed his army, and some gave him valuable intelligence.
Grant saw the Mexican American war as unjust, and nothing more than an attempt to expand slave territory. Had did Lee feel about it?
Great article. It makes me proud to have been born at the army hospital at Ft. Lee in Petersburg Virginia. My dad was in the army stationed at Ft. Lee at the time.
I’ll be flying Lee’s flag tomorrow, its my way of saying FU to DC.
Thanks for your article! I’ve always heard good reports on Robert E. Lee, and glad to reconfirm tose reports. A man beyond reproach!
Thanks for the reminder!
Robert E. Lee was a traitor to the United State of America. He should have been hanged along with all Confederate officers.
I have never read anything that suggested US Grant as a slave owner or pro-slavery. Can you point us to your source please?
I don't think this is entirely correct. What I've read said that he promised to release them after they fulfilled their "contract" of sorts. And when that time came he did release them. In fact, I believe it was in an article I read here.
....Happy Birthday Robert E. Lee!!
Stonewalls, whose g-grandfather was at Appomatox with I Company of the 23rd SC Inf and saw Lee....a sight he never forgot.
Lee did make some brilliant military moves, but his success was mostly due to the gross incompetence of the Union generals. And Lee’s actions at Gettysburg were just plain stupid. He is not the most over-rated general in history (Macarthur and Montgomery vie for that honor), but he is in the top ten.
Who were the other five?
Very enlightening article. Thanks.
Say what? "Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both. I should therefore prefer to rely upon our white population to preserve the ratio between our forces and those of the enemy, which experience has shown to be safe." That was Robert Lee in January 1865.
Upon inheriting slaves from his deceased father-in-law, Lee immediately freed them.
No. George Washington Parke Custis died in October 1857. Under the terms of his will his slaves were to be freed once the legacies of his estate were paid, but in any event no later that 5 years after his death. Lee signed the emancipation documents on December 31, 1862.
There are a lot of facts to admire about Lee without resorting to myths. And one fact is that Lee's opposition to slavery was tepid at best.
BTTT
God Bless Bobbie Lee
I can’t celebrate Robert E. Lee, but I can acknowledge that on many personal issues he was a great and moral man.
He and Stonewall Jackson were personally against owning slaves. Both were devout religious men (Jackson in particular).
But they were on the wrong side.
These men and many like them went to war to defend their freedom while systematically depriving it from other men. It is impossible to morally separate “fighting for freedom” from “fighting to own human beings as slaves based on race.”
It is too bad that Lee and those like him did not realize this fundamental hypocrisy in the cause of the South.
Grant - as you said - had his problems (I had never encountered his stand on slavery). But he also had his virtues. But in either case, it was Grant - and Lee - as great generals that made them significant, rather than either as “pious men.”
General Lee was a great man. It’s too bad the liberal historians ahve decided to destroy his memory.
Here’s a question or several that, so far in my rather brief study of the War I haven’t found a satisfactory answer to (yet).
What happens to slavery if the South had won the War? Would it have continued much later, say, into the 20th Century? Is it possible to say that, though it didn’t really start out as a war concerning the owning of slaves, it became one after 1 Jan 1863?