Posted on 10/09/2009 4:00:18 PM PDT by BigReb555
Amen to that. We are no longer a free people.
The Confederacy was not worthy of Lee and the men who fought so that the Confederate elite could sit at home and grow even richer through slave labor while the families of the warriors starved.
dixie ping -- both sides respected him
Your name befits you Sir.I came real close to not responding to the idiocy of your comment,but the better Angles of my nature required me to.Study your history Sir and you will find that your statement is completely without merit
Thanks for the reference!
This Westerner, as a young person, had never been encouraged to study the generals of either the North or the South. In fact, I don’t remember a single full hour being used in my California high school in discussion of the war between the states. I only knew that I shared Robert Lee’s birth date, January 19th.
In the late 1980s our family spent considerable time in the Carolinas, and around dinner tables, listened to many people speak of the war, its causes, and its affects. Many had shelves full of books and war antiques.
I remember several older men in South Carolina discussing how that if Lincoln had let the Southern States go, and had not attacked the South, the USA and CSA would have been re-united again within a generation without a drop of blood spilt . . . with slavery gone as well. I wish I had a recording of that discussion from which to make a transcript to post here.
Later, when I was abroad and hungry for books to read, someone in Kansas City sent me a copy of Grey Fox, on General Lee, of course. At the moment I can’t recall the author’s name (perhaps someone else who has read it can post the author’s name). A read it thrice, back-to-back, and cried many times during my reading.
This Westerner joins you, Larry, in your salute, and the nation’s salute, of a fine Christian gentleman and great soldier, Robert E. Lee.
“One of the greatest generals.”
Fighting a defensive battle, particularly on Virginia soil, Lee was without peer. He was help by the series of non-entities that the Union sent against him. On offense he was a disaster, and got his clock cleaned every time he did it.
He was an honorable man and a good, but not great, general.
I do wonder how he would have fared in the West, where the war was decided, which needed a good defensive general.
Your post is simply wrong. Chancellorsville was Lee on the offense and it was a brilliantly fought battle.
Lee took over the defense of Richmond when McClellan was virtually in position to capture the city and routed him. He did do so at a cost but still saved the city and possibly the country.
At Antietam Lee fought his best battle. He was unfortunate to have his battle plans found by McClellan and Mc realizing what he had, declared that he would destroy Lee’s army within a day. (and he should havd) Lee caught in a very precarious situation, his plans known, the location of all his troops known and badly outnumbered by fine troops ably led.
Lee extricated himself by brilliant moves and counter moves thus preserving his army from total destruction.
At Gettysburg Lee still did not suffer as many casualties as Meade tho they were close. He probably lost that battle due to defective fuses which caused his massive bombardment of Union lines before picket’s charge to all miss their targets.
I forgot to mention that when Lee took over the defense of Richmond, he went on the offensive.
I agree.
Always gotta be one on a thread like this that has no clue as to what they’re talking about.
The problem with Antietam and Gettysburg is that the battles were fought at all. The South was outnumbered from the start of the war. The only way to win it is to hold on and wear the Union down. Every time Lee left Virginia to go North he failed. He also effectively threw away the lives of several thousand soldiers that the Confederacy could ill afford to lose.
To win the Civil War the Rebels have to do four things:
1. Keep the army intact
2. Keep the Union out of Atlanta
3. Keep the Mississippi open.
4. Do the above long enough that the war loses Union support and Lincoln is defeated in 1864. If they do that they win, if they do not, they lose.
Lee lost soldiers on pointless raids into the North that he would disparately need later in the war.
>>Will we as a people choose to cower,or show the backbone of the men who wintered at Valley Forge?<<
Most people will stay glued to the idiot box and the latest “American Idol” show. I would hope that most Freepers would be at a Valley Forge.
On General Lee’s prowess, consider this: he assembled a full army, equipped them with uniforms, drilled them; put them in the field and defeated the Yankees at Manassas- in less than a year. With all our technological and manufacturing prowess, it took that long in World War II to fight in Africa and land on Guadalcanal.
I truly believe that General Lee fought to keep the “united States” as a union of States versus the outcome of the war when the United States became a federal power over the States.
As it is said, before the war is was said that the “united States are”, but after the war the saying became, “the United States is”.
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