Posted on 10/01/2010 4:15:03 PM PDT by BigReb555
General Lee died at his home at Lexington, Virginia at 9:30 AM on Wednesday, October 12, 1870.
(Excerpt) Read more at huntingtonnews.net ...
I'm not sure how unfortunate he was. With his proven leadership ability he had class and dignity and attained a (kind of) immortality in life.
In spite of his flawed decision, he belongs in the Pantheon of Americans who made this an infinitely interesting nation.
What about Grant -- Weak on strategy (Vicksburg), but excelled at dogged determination. If equally equipped, Lee would have made mincemeat out of him.
and Sherman? A man who allowed his men to become ruthless against civilians and a war criminal for allowing these actions in Georgia.
This is a fitting assignment to the Lee home. It also adds to the immortalitry of the Lee name. It's kind of awesome to walk the same paths that Lee walked in and about his home.
I think that was Martin Sheen.
General Benedict Arnold was by far the best field commander we had during the American revolution. H did not however feel that we could win the war and was privately talking with the British on the possibility of a truce. He was not tried for treason as many people think,he never actually betrayed our country. He was hanged for misuse of government property( thumped up charges). He was hanged and buried in full military uniform. General Robert E. Lee fought to restore the original Constitution of the United States for the citizens of the South. Lee was a man of honor, something you will not find in Washington D.C.
He finished either 1st or 2nd in his class and
no demerits over the 4 years he was there.
I’m not sure but I think that record still stands.
I doubt thinking people think he needs to be rehabilitated.
Wasn’t it Major General Meigs from Georgia who turned Lee’s home into a burial ground? He knew Lee prior to the war when he worked with him in the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and wasn’t happy about all the dying that was going on.
There is no doubt in my mind that, had Lee prevailed, the Confederacy would - to this day - be the most Christian and conservative country in the world.
If I understand it right, Lee was fighting to get the North to leave the South alone, especially his beloved Virginia. His excursion into Pennsylvania was to get the North to sue for peace.
I've been accused of controversial thinking, but I think Hiram Ulysses Grant was the greatest soldier ever to don a uniform for the United States. He certainly performed the greatest service.
For later read.
A highly dubious claim that rests on cherry picking Lee's victories, ignoring his defeats, and failing to recognize that he had no strategic vision, nor did he learn from past mistakes. Had Lee been educable, thousands of men who died at Gettysburg would have been saved. But he failed to listen to his best general, Longstreet, and he failed to learn from exactly the same blunder he had already committed at Malvern Hill. Flame away; Lee is highly overrated. He had the advantage of fighting mostly defense, mostly from entrenched positions, and mostly against attacking forces that, while larger, were not the three or four times numerical superiority dictated for offensive operations in the nineteenth century. His two Northern Invasions were disasters: the Sack of Chambersburg and the depredations of his army in Maryland hardened Northern opposition, and Gettysburg would have been a war-ending fiasco had he faced a bolder or more able opponent.
I was just reading about Mrs. Lee and today is her birthday. Mary Custis Lee would be 203yrs old if she were still alive. Her great-grandmother was Martha Dandridge Custis Washington our first First Lady or Lady Washington. Arlington House was her inheritance from her father, George Washington Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington, who her and George adopted as their son when her son, his father, died and his mother remarried. The following site tells gives an interesting overview of her life. Beginning in the 1820s she belonged to a group that wanted to end slavery.
http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Lee_Mary_Anna_Randolph_Custis_1807-1873
BTTT
A brilliant commander, a real gentleman, a great American.
I always thought Sherman did what he had to do with a paucity of death almost unheard of in the Civil War.
LOL thanks for the compliment but... yea, I am married with two kids... and can’t have any more kids... :(
But thank you!!! :) I am flattered!
I didn’t know that! I guess that makes us cousins of some sort or another! LOL
So many facts from that era are a blur, but I think Meigs' son was killed in that war, and he thought Lee should be punished for that. I think Meigs erred in his anticipated outcome.
I think his most immediate desire was to force the Federals to take pressure off of Vicksburg in order to meet his challenge.
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