Robert E Lee: A Traitor Redeemed?

Today we analyzed Robert E Lee: A Traitor Redeemed?
0:00 Early Life
2:34 Civil War
4:45 Post-War
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[@HistoryBitts]

I flipped part of my script around and forgot to edit it in post! Chancellorsville was before Gettysburg as the dates provide, they just show the wrong order in the video. Sorry!

[@Raycloud]

A great and principled man. As a general and military strategist he was bold and talented, but not flawless. Historians to this day debate his decision to charge the federal lines at Gettysburg because it seems to an obviously bad choice, though we should remember that the picture on the ground during the battle would have been quite different from what we know today. You could probably spend years reading texts about the Battle of Gettysburg despite the actual battle itself lasting only three days, with the armies resting at night. So, really, just some 36 hours of fighting. We will never know. The people attacking him today are better described as traitors than he was. They hate their own country and race and destroy historical icons in a malicious effort to demoralize their enemies; heritage Americans. Make no mistake; they hate this country and the people who built it and have already turned their ire against Grant, Lincoln, and Sherman, the Founding Fathers, and later great Americans like Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. Don't be fooled by their thin veil of feigned righteousness. They are hateful, lying, hypocrites to the core. Evil can only destroy; not create. America is in the sorry state it is in today precisely because it can no longer produce great men like the Founding Fathers, Roosevelt, Grant, or Lee.

[@VerbalVantage]

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

[@mavigogun]

If so, his "principles" were grotesque. Fighting to keep people as your slave is repugnant- as is celebrating the application of talent to that end.

[@tebo1958]

Jefferson Davis was never tried for treason because there was significant fear that they could not convict him (largely due to the precedent of the not too distant revolutionary war). Calling them traitors is a bit of as slippery slope to get into this treasonous or not argument. However, Lee supported a nation with its economic bedrock based on agrarian slavery - it's in their constitution - read it. While I respect him as a general and Virginian, I cannot respect his ultimate decision to side with the south (my home of origin - TN).

[@Maximoootom]

Traitor.

[@codybailey855]

McClellan had a copy of the Confederate battle plan, and was still only able to come out with a draw at Antietem.

[@tommywolker5787]

Whew, this was a short video -- a nice relief, compared to some others out there! However, I don't know that I learned any new info in this episode

[@DavidWilliams-qr5yj]

Grant did not fear Lee. And rightly so. In retrospection , Grant was a brilliant General. His Vicksburg campaign is to this day studied in Westpoint. Lee had a better publicists... Grant was not a butcher, his casualties were similar to Lee's. In the end Grant whipped Lee. It has taken time to overcome Lee's shining reputation. Grant was THE man 👨

[@ron88303]

Absolutely correct.

[@Andyerpointiz]

But Lee did drive Grant to hysterics during the Wilderness.

[@gregshirley-jeffersonboule6258]

Yes. Grant has a memorial, right in front of the Capitol, facing the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Lee can FRO.

[@Andyerpointiz]

When you say Grant's "casualties were similar to Lee's" - do you mean throughout the entire war? Remember, Lee was the longest serving leader of any army on either side of the war. Of the ten largest civil war battles, Lee was the head of the Southern army. Obviously, he would have more casualties at the end of the war. What is most important is that he inflicted much more casualties than he sustained, especially since during most of those battles he was facing 2 to 1 odds.

[@Andyerpointiz]

@@gregshirley-jeffersonboule6258 Grant went on to become president of one of the most corrupt administrations ever (save for Trump). Lee went on to teach university students to become loyal citizens, did everything he could to push reconciliation, and his influence most likely led to the disbandment of the KKK in Virginia after only one month of existence (the Klan formally organized in March 1868, and disbanded in Virginia in April of 1868. It remained in existence in all other states until federal intervention in 1871.)

[@Andyerpointiz]

Lee is the general you want if you have limited resources and man power. Grant is the general you want with unlimited access to the same. Grant had no qualms with abandoning his wounded to die on the field, even when truces were offered.

[@bettycrocket1360]

Lee suffered 55,000 more casualties then grant and I can’t find any official evidence of grant leaving men to die during a truce. It was common however to not let soldiers stop to help the wounded while fighting was going on as is understandable.

[@Andyerpointiz]

@@bettycrocket1360 Of the ten largest battles during the Civil War, Lee was in command of eight for the south. And despite constant overwhelming odds, he inflicted more casualties than he received. He was the longest serving leader of one of the largest armies throughout the war. So, of course he would have a higher number of casualties - for and against. And during the Overland Campaign, Grant would never agree to a formal, temporary truce to retrieve the wounded in no-man's land until pressured to by Lee at Cold Harbor. Even then, it took four days of negotiation until Grant relented. Unfortunately, by that time, of the hundreds of wounded troops between the lines, only a few were recovered alive.

[@bettycrocket1360]

@@Andyerpointiz He suffered more at Gettysburg. The other battles were usually him as a defender in which you expect for the attacker to suffer more. With Grant not accepting truces during the overland campaign it is a simple reason for it. With giving the Confederates a truce it would allow them time to regroup and strengthen their position. We can see how allowing the Confederates time in other battles allowed them to continue fighting. There’s a reason he was called unconditional surrender grant. He quite possibly saved more of his men’s lives by not negotiating with rebels.

[@Andyerpointiz]

@@bettycrocket1360 Gettysburg was the largest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere - and Lee and the South lost. It was also one of the rare times that Lee had about the same number of troops as the North. Of the other battles - prior to the Overland Campaign - Lee often was either the aggressor (the Seven Days) or started off on defense before switching to offense (Cedar Mountain, Second Manassas, Chancellorsville, Antietam.) In those battles where there was a stand-off - Fredericksburg, Antietam - there were formal truces between the sides to recover the wounded. During Grant's Overland Campaign, Grant never agreed to a truce and never stayed long enough to recover his wounded - until Cold harbor. During this campaign, Grant never had less than two to three times the number of troops as Lee. He simply abandoned the battlefields, and his wounded to die.

[@meisteckhart]

The capture of Vicksburg by Grant was the single greatest achievement by a general north or south during the entire civil war. It required all three areas of expertise that are crucial to a general: strategy, tactics, and logistics. It was arguably the turning point of the war along with Gettysburg (though Vicksburg I think was more important) Lee was great. Grant was better. The enduring myth that he was a cold heartless butcher was post war confederate propaganda that continues to this day. The man wept after the Wilderness. He certainly had qualms. He did it anyway because that what was needed to end the war. And I'll add that while Meade had a solid plan (that admittedly fell into his lap) at Gettysburg, Lee lost that battle and likely the war when several Confederate generals warned him against attack. Lee was great, but not as great as people like to think he was.

[@davidlee7722]

Omg, I can’t believe some of the childish remarks on here. People act as if they know all about the generals and what they thought. Ridiculous. It was long ago and everything was much different than today. One thing I do know is THE WINNERS write the history books, not the losers.

[@LibertarianJRT]

Chancellorsville was before Gettysburg

[@tupperlake100]

Right now we rewriting history. And facts are not part of the evaluation process.

[@ron88303]

Sometimes history needs to be corrected as new information becomes available.

[@alexs5744]

With any luck the Lost Cause is deleted from history and is only remembered as historical revisionism.

[@gregshirley-jeffersonboule6258]

@@alexs5744 Yes

[@mavigogun]

"History" isn't what happened- it's the story we tell of what happened. When the story diverges intolerably from events, revision is the remedy. Here, we are asked to pretend that one responsible for the death of so many in the cause of slavery was redeemed by a life of privileged peace following his crimes. In those post-war moments, he was no less depraved than had his plans played out as he desired. Better men died so that Lee could play at being a civilized man of letters- and we would be complicit, spinning equivocating stories that style that self-serving path as "redemption".

[@kohtalainenalias]

Lee was the best general of the war

[@alexs5744]

No he wasn’t.

[@DavidWilliams-qr5yj]

It's possible he wasn't the best in the south, but Grant bested everybody.

[@kohtalainenalias]

@@DavidWilliams-qr5yj Grant had enormous resources and get took the wheel while the south was already worn down.

[@kohtalainenalias]

@@alexs5744 2nd Manassis, Chancerollsville for starters here. Secondly, he could stem the yankee tide with much smaller force. He was like Manstein ;)

[@alexs5744]

@@kohtalainenalias Ultimately the traitor lost the war and he lost to superior tactics, logistics, resources and manpower. Also fuck Manstein.

[@MegaBloggs1]

no

[@gregshirley-jeffersonboule6258]

The only Confederate general with any decency was Longstreet.

[@gregshirley-jeffersonboule6258]

No, just a traitor who fought for slavery. RIH.

[@mavigogun]

Nope- just a traitor. Redemption is possible- but exceedingly rare -and he was not that big of a man.

[@joeg9112]

Typical response from a revisionist. Adding today's mores to the past is wrong. You have to live in that day to understand that day. State loyalty was different then what it is today. But your opinion is noted but not agreed to.