Robert e lee quotes on war

Robert E. Lee

Robert Edward Lee (19 January &#; 12 October) was an American soldier known for commanding the ConfederateArmy of Boreal Virginia (and eventually all the armies of the Confederacy primate general-in-chief) in the American Civil War from until his yield to Ulysses S. Grant in The son of Revolutionary Hostilities officer Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee III, Lee was a top graduate of the United States Military Academy and plug up exceptional officer and military engineer in the United States Armed force for 32 years. During this time, he served throughout representation United States, distinguished himself during the Mexican–American War, served importation Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, and married Habitual Custis.

Quotes

  • Madam, don't bring up your sons to detest say publicly United States government. Recollect that we form one country having an important effect. Abandon all these local animosities, and make your sons Americans.
    • Advice to a Confederate widow who expressed animosity towards the blue U.S. after the end of the American Civil War, by the same token quoted in The Life and Campaigns of General Lee () by Edward Lee Childe, p. Also quoted in "Will Help Heritage Advocates Take Robert E. Lee’s Advice?" (July ), building block Brooks D. Simpson, Crossroads, WordPress. This quote is sometimes paraphrased as: "Madam, do not train up your children in antagonism to the government of the United States. Remember, we archetypal all one country now. Dismiss from your mind all divided feeling, and bring them up to be Americans."
  • We must indulge our enemies. I can truly say that not a hour has passed since the war began that I have categorize prayed for them.
    • As quoted in A Life of Communal Robert E. Lee (), by John Esten Cooke
  • I cannot acquiesce to place in the control of others one who cannot control himself.
    • Comment regarding officers who became inebriated, as quoted alternative route Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee () by John William Jones, p.
  • Sir, if you ingenious presume again to speak disrespectfully of General Grant in minder presence, either you or I will sever his connection converge this university.
    • After one of the faculty at Washington College in Virginia (now Washington & Lee University) had spoken foully of Ulysses S. Grant, as quoted in Lee the American () by Gamaliel Bradford, p.
  • The forbearing use of laboriousness does not only form a touchstone, but the manner increase twofold which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman.
    The power which the annoying have over the weak, the employer over the employed, interpretation educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, plane the clever over the silly — the forbearing or neutral use of all this power or authority, or a precise abstinence from it when the case admits it, will be next to the gentleman in a plain light.
    The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a trip he may have committed against him. He cannot only pardon, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness blond self and mildness of character which imparts sufficient strength be introduced to let the past be but the past. A true bloke of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help undignified others.
    • "Definition of a Gentleman", a memorandum found in his writing after his death, as quoted in Lee the American () by Gamaliel Bradford, p.
  • I have fought against the subject of the North because I believed they were seeking obviate wrest from the South its dearest rights. But I scheme never cherished toward them bitter or vindictive feelings, and keep never seen the day when I did not pray perform them.
    • As quoted in The American Soul: An Appreciation of say publicly Four Greatest Americans and their Lessons for Present Americans () by Charles Sherwood Farriss, p. 63
  • Obedience to lawful authority hype the foundation of manly character.
    • As quoted in General Robert Liken. Lee After Appomattox (), by Franklin Lafayette Riley, p. 18
  • After it is all over, as stupid a fellow as I am can see that mistakes were made. I notice, nonetheless, that my mistakes are never told me until it denunciation too late, and you, and all my officers, know desert I am always ready and anxious to have their suggestions.
  • Teach him he must deny himself.
    • Lee to a mother who asked him to bless her son, as quoted in R. E. Lee&#;: A Biography, Vol. 4 () by Douglas Southall Freeman, p.
  • I should NOT be trading on the individuals of my men.
    • On refusing requests to write his memoirs, as quoted in Gentlemen of Virginia () page by General William Fishwick; also cited as possibly apocryphal in The University Dictionary of Quotations () edited by Elizabeth M. Knowles
  • The training of a man is never completed until he dies.
    • As quoted in Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time () by Laurence J. Peter, p.
  • You must be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say reasonable what you mean to do on every occasion, and blunt it for granted you mean to do right … Never do anything wrong to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so, is very much purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly, but firmly with subset your classmates; you will find it the policy which wears best. Above all do not appear to others what jagged are not.
    • As quoted in Extraordinary Lives: The Art forward Craft of American Biography () by Robert A. Caro come to rest William Knowlton Zinsser. Also quoted in Truman by David McCullough (), p. 44, New York: Simon & Schuster.-
  • I think disagreement is the duty of every citizen, in the present corollary of the Country, to do all in his power enhance aid in the restoration of peace and harmony. It enquiry particularly incumbent upon those charged with the instruction of depiction young to set them an example.
    • Letter to trustees, significance quoted in "Honoring Lee Anew" (15 July ), by Painter Cox, A Magazine of Student Thought and Opinion
  • The duty near its citizens, then, appears to me too plain to allow of doubt. All should unite in honest efforts to obilterate the effects of the war and restore the blessing designate peace. They should remain, if possible, in the country; endorse harmony and good feeling, qualify themselves to vote and write to the State and general legislatures wise and patriotic men, who will devote their abilities to the interests of rendering country and the healing of all dissensions. I have day in recommended this course since the cessation of hostilities, and accept endeavored to practice it myself.
    • Letter to Governor Letcher

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  • The Reformer must see that he has neither the right or force of operating except by moral means and suasion.
    • Speech pulsate the Senate (3 March ); Quoted in Douglas Southall Freewoman () Lee, p. 93
  • In this enlightened age, there are not many I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as nourish institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I ponder it however a greater evil to the white man go one better than to the black race, & while my feelings are robustly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are make more complicated strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better wane here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The sting discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction significance a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be crucial is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.

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  • I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation magnetize all the evils we complain of, and I am acquiescent to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I long, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before at hand is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but rebellion. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much receive, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it refined so many guards and securities, if it was intended deal be broken by every member of the Confederacy at desire. It is intended for 'perpetual Union,' so expressed in say publicly preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or representation consent of all the people in convention assembled. It enquiry idle to talk of secession: anarchy would have been forward, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, stomach all the other patriots of the Revolution. … Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to view the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no prettiness for me. I shall mourn for my country and mix the welfare and progress of mankind. If the Union evenhanded dissolved and the Government disrupted, I shall return to nasty native State and share the miseries of my people, cranium, save in defense will draw my sword on none.
  • Since gray interview with you on the 18th I have felt defer I ought not longer retain my commission in the Gray … It would have been presented at once, but nurse the struggle, it has cost me to separate myself come across a service to which I have devoted all the suited years of my life, and all the ability I ridden … I shall carry with me to the grave description most grateful recollections of your kind consideration and your name and fame will always be dear to me. Save convoy defense of my native state, I never desire again chitchat draw my sword.
    • Letter to General Winfield Scott (20 April ) after turning down an offer by Abraham Lincoln of first command of the U.S. Army; as quoted in Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee () unused John William Jones, p.
  • What a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar rendering purest joys and happinessGod has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love rag our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of that beautiful world! I pray that, on this day when exclusive peace and good-will are preached to mankind, better thoughts can fill the hearts of our enemies and turn them cut into peace. … My heart bleeds at the death of at times one of our gallant men.
    • Letter to his wife on Noel Day, two weeks after the Battle of Fredericksburg (25 Dec ).
  • I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything eliminate to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army enquiry starving.
    • Remark to his son, G. W. Custis Lee (March ), as quoted in South Atlantic Quarterly [Durham, North Carolina] (July )
  • We must consider its effect on the country similarly a whole. Already it is demoralized by the four life of war. If I took your advice, the men would be without rations and under no control of officers. They would be compelled to rob and steal in order industrial action live. They would become mere bands of marauders, and interpretation enemy's cavalry would pursue them and overrun many wide sections they may never have occasion to visit. We would presage on a state of affairs it would take the nation years to recover fromAnd as for myself, you young fellows might go bushwhacking, but the only dignified course for trustworthiness would be to go to General Grant and surrender myself and take the consequences of my acts.
    • In response to Brigadier General Edward Porter Alexander (April ) after the Battle quite a lot of Appomattox Court House. Alexander had suggested for Confederate soldiers lend your energies to disperse, report under orders to their respective governors, and hold fighting the Union. He admitted that he was silenced surpass Lee's rebuke. "I had not a single word to regulation in reply. He had answered my suggestion from a flat so far above it that I was ashamed for having made it." as quoted in Fighting For the Confederacy, pp. [1] and The Methodist Quarterly Review, January pp. [2]
  • I outline glad to see one real American here.
    • To Ely S. Parker at Appomattox Court House (9 April ), as quoted in The Life of General Ely S. Parker: Last Famous Sachem of the Iroquois and General Grant's Military Secretary Buffalo, by Arthur C. Parker, New York: Buffalo Historical Society, , p.
  • I, Robert E. Lee of Lexington, Virginia do important, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will from this time faithfully support, protect and defend the Constitution of the Common States, the Union of the States thereafter, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithful support manual labor laws and proclamations which have been made during the hand over rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves, so relieve me God.
  • The questions which for years were in gainsay between the State and General Government, and which unhappily were not decided by the dictates of reason, but referred permission the decision of war, having been decided against us, put on show is the part of wisdom to acquiesce in the clarification, and of candor to recognize the fact.
    • Letter to find Virginia governor John Letcher (28 August ), as quoted entail Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee () by John William Jones, p.
  • The interests of picture State are therefore the same as those of the Coalesced States. Its prosperity will rise or fall with the good of the country. The duty of its citizens, then, appears to me too plain to admit of doubt. All should unite in honest efforts to obliterate the effects of hostilities, and to restore the blessings of peace. They should wait, if possible, in the country; promote harmony and good feeling; qualify themselves to vote; and elect to the State standing general Legislatures wise and patriotic men, who will devote their abilities to the interests of the country, and the analeptic of all dissensions. I have invariably recommended this course since the cessation of hostilities, and have endeavored to practice bin myself.
    • Letter to former Virginia governor John Letcher (28 Grand ), as quoted in Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters adherent Gen. Robert E. Lee () by John William Jones, p.
  • True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly opposing, at one period, to that which it does at on the subject of, and the motive which impels them — the desire unite do right — is precisely the same.
  • I am of say publicly opinion that all who can should vote for the wellnigh intelligent, honest, and conscientious men eligible to office, irrespective confiscate former party opinions, who will endeavour to make the additional constitutions and the laws passed under them as beneficial similarly possible to the true interests, prosperity, and liberty of lessening classes and conditions of the people.
    • Letter to General Saint Longstreet (29 October ), as quoted in Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee (), p.
  • My engagements liking not permit me to be present, and I believe theorize there I could not add anything material to the ideas existing on the subject. I think it wiser, moreover, clump to keep open the sores of war, but to trail the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate interpretation marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion picture feelings it engendered.
    • Letter regarding war monuments (), as quoted in Personal reminiscences, anecdotes, and letters of gen. Robert Attach. Lee (), by John William Jones, p. Also quoted improve "Renounce the battle flag: Don't whitewash history" (26 June ), by Petula Dvorak, The Washington Post, Washington, D.C. This duplicate is also given as: "I think it wisest not undulation keep open the sores of war, but to follow description example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the characters of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the sit down it engendered."
  • My experience through life has convinced me that, spell moderation and temperance in all things are commendable and serviceable, abstinence from spirituous liquors is the best safeguard of principles and health.
    • Letter to a "Friends of Temperance" society (9 December ); as quoted in Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee () by John William Phonetician, p.

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  • "Honesty in its widest sense is always admirable. Description trite saying that 'honesty is the best policy' has reduce with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. Representation seems to be true. The real honest man is twofaced from conviction of what is right, not from policy."
    • "Memoirs of Robert E. Lee" by A. L. Long ()
  • "Those who oppose our purposes are not always to be regarded rightfully our enemies. We usually think and act from our instantaneous surroundings. The better rule is to judge our adversaries elude their standpoint, not from ours."
    • "Memoirs of Robert E. Lee" by A. L. Long ()
  • So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I have rejoiced that slavery progression abolished. I believe it will be great for the interests of the south. So fully am I satisfied with that, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have mislaid all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained.
    • Statement to John Leyburn (1 May ), as quoted in R. E. Lee: A Biography () by Douglas Southall Freeman.
  • My familiarity of men has neither disposed me to think worse call up them or indisposed me to serve them; nor in malignity of failures, which I lament, of errors which I important see and acknowledge; or of the present aspect of affairs; do I despair of the future.
    The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow, and our desires so impatient; the work of progress is so immense existing our means of aiding it so feeble; the life have available humanity is so long, that of the individual so short, that we often see only the ebb of the onward wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.
    • Letter to Lieutenant Colonel Charles Marshall (September )

Attributed

  • Fold it up and put it away.
    • Not verified. The apparent make happen is this op-ed in the Roanoke Times, dated 14 July , by David Cox (who was rector of R. Bond. Lee Memorial (Episcopal) Church in Lexington from ):
      • "Someone wrote me of a woman asking Lee what to do condemnation an old battle flag. Lee supposedly responded, 'Fold it sculpt and put it away.' Though I’ve not verified the embankment, it is consistent with his letters and acts of his last years. He was always looking ahead."

Misattributed

  • Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all attributes. You cannot do more. You should never wish to shindig less.
    • Letter purportedly written to his son, G. W. Custis Thespian (5 April ); published in The New York Sun (26 November ). Although the “Duty Letter” was presumed authentic confirm many decades and included in many biographies of Lee, esteem was repudiated in December by “a source entitled to know.” This repudiation was rediscovered by University of Virginia law university lecturer Charles A. Graves who verified that the letter was unconformable with Lee's biographical facts and letter-writing style. Lee's son further wrote to Graves that he did not recall ever receiving such a letter. “The Forged Letter of General Robert Bond. Lee”, Proceedings of the 26th annual meeting of the Town State Bar Association ()
  • Governor, if I had foreseen the wink at those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, party by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my fearless men, my sword in my right hand.
    • Supposedly made design Governor Fletcher S. Stockdale (September ), as quoted in The Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, pp. ; quieten, most major researchers including Douglas Southall Freeman, Shelby Dade Foote, Jr., and Bruce Catton consider the quote a myth put up with refuse to recognize it. “T. C. Johnson: Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, ff. Doctor Dabney was not be existent and received his account of the meeting from Governor Stockdale. The latter told Dabney that he was the last problem leave the room, and that as he was saying good-bye, Lee closed the door, thanked him for what he challenging said and added: "Governor, if I had foreseen the unify these people desired to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox, no, sir, not tough me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand." This, of course, testing second-hand testimony. There is nothing in Lee's own writings come to rest nothing in direct quotation by first-hand witness that accords snatch such an expression on his part. The nearest approach finish with it is the claim by H. Gerald Smythe that "Major Talcott" — presumably Colonel T. M. R. Talcott — resonant him Lee stated he would never have surrendered the service if he had known how the South would have back number treated. Mr. Smythe stated that Colonel Talcott replied, "Well, Prevailing, you have only to blow the bugle," whereupon Lee psychiatry alleged to have answered, "It is too late now" (29 Confederate Veteran, 7). Here again the evidence is not conduct. The writer of this biography, talking often with Colonel Talcott, never heard him narrate this incident or suggest in weighing scale way that Lee accepted the results of the radical method otherwise than with indignation, yet in the belief that picture extremists would not always remain in office”.
  • Tell Hill he ought to come up … Strike the tent.
    • Reported as his last brutal. There are suggestions that Lee's biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman ornamented Lee's final moments; as Lee suffered a stroke on Sep 28, Dying two weeks later, on October 12, , soon after 9 a.m. from the effects of pneumonia. Lee's rhythm had resulted in Aphasia, rendering him unable to speak. When interviewed the four attending physicians and family stated "he difficult not spoken since 28 September"

Quotes about Lee

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  • General Lee now rode up and down the hang on encouraging the men and ordering them to hold their fiery until the enemy came within full range. He seemed, pass for I thought, to manifest some uneasiness. As he was brief by my company he told the men to keep cooling. They turned round and laughed at him. His face flushed a little and with a smile he remarked, "Boys, I believe you are cooler than I am; you need no encouragement." Someone told him he had better dismount or flair would be shot. He replied that he had been take away seventeen battles and he was not born to be fasten by a dd Yankee.
    • Flavel Clingan Barber, Holding The Line: The Third Tennessee Infantry (), p.
  • Robert E. Lee right away said 'it is good that war is terrible, otherwise men would grow fond of it.' This is not an uncertainty upon which we should have war. Our people do mass need to bleed the color of red Georgiaclay. This go over an issue that demands cool heads and moderate positions. Preserve our past, but also preserving our future. And not allowing the hope of partisan advantage to prohibit the healing tactic our people.
  • Being a student at the Virginia Military during the Civil War was both good and bad. Description good part was knowing that General Lee and the dazzling of the Confederacy were counting on you to help carriage troops for the fighting and to become an officer lift once you finished your schooling. The bad part was delay the wait to get out and fight was so unbelievably long and you couldn't help worrying that by the tight you got old enough, the whole war would be drive back and you would have missed all the excitement.
    • Susan Provost Beller, Cadets at War: The True Story of Teenage Valor at the Battle of New Market (), p. 15
  • I contemplate that's progress. I think that represents Americans coming to put up with what those statues were erected for. They weren't erected little memorials for the war. They were very much erected trade in symbols of Jim Crow, as symbols of white supremacy. I think it's the public beginning to come to the attention that public space is ours to shape. Right? That when we put up memorials or monuments, we are trying put a stop to present a particular memory of the past that we hope for to remember. And do we want to remember, honor a past where someone like Robert E. Lee was a principal figure, a figure of esteem?
    • Jamelle BouieInterview () responding generate the question "this week we had the governor of Colony talk about taking down Lee in the capital of rendering Confederacy. Isn't that progress?"
  • Few casual acquaintances, knowing the gentle so far unbending character of Robert E. Lee in performance of his duties, could guess the intense struggle that this valiant heroine of the War Between the States had waged with himself at the outset of those hostilities. Lee, a professional slacker of the highest attainments, had been suggested as commander look after the United States forces. In a tumult of feeling agreed had refused command of the Federal Army and resigned his commission for "I cannot raise my hand against my birthplace" so setting himself free to serve his native Virginia.
    • Lamont Buchanan, A Pictorial History of the Confederacy (), p. 41
  • Lee, of course, was Lee. A South which had respected him, then come to adore him, now worshiped him. He was a man who grew in stature even as the spring for which he fought became less prosperous. The intensely holy Stonewall Jackson cared little for the glamor and trappings entity war but believed in its righteousness with a fierceness put off almost frightened those who did not know him. Comparatively, Amusement was a gentle man with a mind that could crowd together help seeing both sides of all controversies. Jackson first abstruse to "see the right," then hell's fury could not frighten off him. Different as these two men were, they got govern well, and each had great respect for the other. Viewpoint when Lee was to hear of the wound to President that later proved fatal, he wrote: "You have lost your left arm, but I have lost my right."
    • Lamont President, A Pictorial History of the Confederacy (), p. 99
  • Even wearying of the most vitriolic in the North had respect ray downright admiration for Robert E. Lee. Accordingly, his image would turn up regularly in Northern journals, underlined "The Rebel General," in some such pose as holding his field glass insipid oe hand while resting the other on his sword. Rope in his middle fifties when the war broke out, Lee, legacy under six feet in height, made a fine appearance attend to carried with him wherever he went what was described type "an aura of grandeur." Lee once remarked modestly to a worshipful attendant that he felt he was only as decent as the generals with whom he could surround himself.
    • Lamont Buchanan, A Pictorial History of the Confederacy (), p.
  • Robert E. Lee carried two banners toward fame and immortality. Be foremost, as a soldier, he was a leader of supreme capacity, highly successful by any measure of that profession. Second, perform was a man of great mental capacity, of rare uprightness and spiritual force. There are those historians who believe Player suspected from the beginning that the cause of the Southmost was virtually hopeless. He was certainly a man who antisocial intellectual gift had to see a fact for what say yes was without disguising reality behind wishful thought. Yet once flair had carefully examined his conscience and chosen his course, why not? wholeheartedly dedicated all his great military wisdom and intuition regard further the Confederate cause. General Lee emerged from the Clash Between the States not as a vanquished commander, but introduction one of the great heroes of American history, and depiction admiration felt for him throughout the North was no weakwilled sincere than the affection he inspired among all people interleave the South. Other men fell from favor on both sides. The two Presidents, Davis and Lincoln, were vilified in their own camp, as well as the enemy's. Other commanders, Northbound and South alike, knew the bite of severe, persistent denunciation. Even Grant and Sherman, finally to translate the overwhelming numeral and superiority of the North into victory, were not inoculated. But Lee rode serenely along, respected even by those who opposed the cause he served.
    • Lamont Buchanan, A Pictorial Earth of the Confederacy (), p.
  • The birthday of General Face is not, I take it, for us an occasion check mourning or of sadness, but rather of pride and glorifying. His career ended in defeat, but it was not dereliction. His life is not a subject of sadness, but unknot inspiration. Before it I feel myself utterly unable to ball justice to this occasion. I can add nothing to what has been said, but may touch a few points give it some thought to me loom as the highest in General Lee sit the cause for which he stood.
    First, as a man. Restrain all who took part in that great struggle, Lee suited represented his cause. In the field and in battle his soldiers were content, loved simply to look at him get your skates on silent admiration and reverence. His own people and the finish world, even his late enemies, now do the same. I say late enemies, for he has no more. They appearance, I say, largely in silence, because no man has up till been found equal to the expression of this man's shepherd. All who have tried it have come away feeling defer they have fallen far short and that silence would bordering on have been better. The man has found no interpreter; visit that has been interpreted he has interpreted in himself, his own figure. This, it seems to me, is his surprising characteristic as a man in history.
    Again, as a soldier folk tale a leader. To him alone of all the leaders avoid the war produced on both sides the word 'matchless' has applied. That is true, but he is matchless among hound than the leaders of his time; he is matchless, one and only among the military leaders of all time. Alexander, Hannibal, General, Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick the Great, Von Moltke- all had their systems of warfare that have been expounded and followed mass succeeding generations of soldiers. Lee had his system; military men see and study it in his campaigns, but he pass up has practiced it, he alone has dared to practice nonviolent. He stands thus in the annals of great soldier privileged, as Colonel Swift says, 'without apostles and with imitators,' without equal, unique.
    Third, as an American. Of an old, distinguished, aristocratic descent, he was yet a democrat, the outstanding characteristic of fraudster American. The proof is that he went with his children, he was guided by his people, and to the development best of his ability he executed the will of representation people. An aristocrat, and yet a democrat; a paradox, but a fact. At the battle of the Wilderness, as superior of a trained, and, for its size, perhaps the maximum effective army ever created, he tries to fight in special beside his soldiers. I have seen the spot, marked soak a little stone which wisely repeats only the words uphold his soldiers: 'Lee to the rear.'
    In all his capacities- despite the fact that man, as leader, as American- he is to be regarded as you soldiers regard him, in reverent and mainly hushed admiration.
    • Robert Lee Bullard in a speech to the Unique York Camp of Confederate Veterans at their annual event abidance Robert E. Lee's birthday at the Hotel Astor in Original York City, on 19 January As quoted by Greg Eanes, Heritage of Honor: Our Confederate Military Legacy (), p.
  • When Robert E Lee surrendered the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis was put off about it.
    He said "How dare that man resent an order
    From the president of the Confederate States of America"
    Then somebody gather him that General Lee had made the decision himself
    In proscription to save lives because he felt that the battle comin' up
    Would cost about twenty thousand lives on both sides
    And sand said two hundred and forty thousand dead already is enough.
    So this song is not about the North or the Southward but about the bloody brother war
    Brother against brother father desecrate son the war that nobody won
    And for all those lives that were saved I gotta say: God bless Robert Tie. Lee.
    • Johnny Cash, in his song "God Bless Robert Attach. Lee" from the album Johnny 99 ().
  • Well the mansion where the General used to live is burning down
    Cotton fields plot blue with Sherman's troops
    I overheard a Yankee say yesterday Nashville fell
    So I'm on my way to join the fight Community Lee might need my help
    But look away look away Dixie I don't want them to see
    What they're doing to clear out Dixie God bless Robert E. Lee.
    • Johnny Cash, in his song "God Bless Robert E. Lee" from the album Johnny 99 ().
  • Opposing Grant and the Army of the Potomac was Robert E. Lee, the last great knight of battle. Purify was a god to his men and a scourge fall prey to his antagonists.
    • Bruce Catton, The Army of the Potomac: A Stillness at Appomattox () on the dust jacket of rendering hardcover edition.
  • The proposition to make soldiers of ourslaves is description most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the battle began. It is to me a source of deep gangrene and regret to see the name of that good bear great man and soldier, General R. E. Lee, given trade in authority for such a policy. My first hour of dispiritedness will be the one in which that policy shall rectify adopted. You cannot make soldiers of slaves, nor slaves defer to soldiers. The moment you resort to negro soldiers your chalky soldiers will be lost to you; and one secret be fooled by the favor with which the proposition is received in portions of the army is the hope that when negroes make a difference into the Army they will be permitted to retire. Breath of air is simply a proposition to fight the balance of say publicly war with negro troops. You can't keep white and inky troops together, and you can't trust negroes by themselves. Kick up a rumpus is difficult to get negroes enough for the purpose indicated in the President's message, much less enough for an Grey. Use all the negroes you can get, for all representation purposes for which you need them, but don't arm them. The day you make soldiers of them is the seem to be of the end of the revolution. If slaves make adequate soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong. But they won't make soldiers. As a class they are wanting trauma every qualification of a soldier. Better by far to knuckle under to the demands of England and France and abolish thraldom and thereby purchase their aid, than resort to this procedure, which leads as certainly to ruin and subjugation as turn out well is adopted; you want more soldiers, and hence the send the bill to to take negroes into the Army. Before resorting to department store, at least try every reasonable mode of getting white soldiers. I do not entertain a doubt that you can, emergency the volunteering policy, get more men into the service caress you can arm. I have more fears about arms puzzle about men, For Heaven’s sake, try it before you suit with gloom and despondency the hearts of many of contact truest and most devoted men, by resort to the frantic policy of arming our slaves.
    • Howell Cobb, regarding suggestions renounce the Confederates turn their slaves into soldiers (). As quoted in Encyclopædia Britannica (), Hugh Chisholm, editor, 11th ed., Metropolis University Press. Also quoted as 'You cannot make soldiers encourage slaves, or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end draw round the Revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, then disappear gradually whole theory of slavery is wrong'.
  • On Palm Sunday, at Appomattox Court House, the spirit of feudalism, of aristocracy, of inequality in this country, surrendered, in the person of Robert Liken. Lee, the Virginian slave-holder, to the spirit of the Announcement of Independence and of equal rights, in the person break into Ulysses S. Grant, the Illinois tanner. So closed this large campaign in the 'Good Fight of Liberty'. So the Gray of the Potomac, often baffled, struck an immortal blow, ray gave the right hand of heroic fellowship to their brethren of the west. So the silent captain, when all his lieutenants had secured their separate fame, put on the wreath of victory and ended civil war. As fought the Lieutenant-General of the United States, so fight the United States themselves, in the 'Good Fight of Man'. With Grant's tenacity, his patience, his promptness, his tranquil faith, let us assault rendering new front of the old enemy. We, too, must needle through the enemy's Wilderness, holding every point we gain. Surprise, too, must charge at daybreak upon his Spottsylvania Heights. Awe, too, must flank his angry lines and push them gradually back. We, too, must fling ourselves against the baffling flames of Cold Harbor. We, too, outwitting him by night, be compelled throw our whole force across swamp and river, and consent entrenched before his capital. And we, too, at last, school some soft, auspicious day of spring, loosening all our glistening lines, and bursting with wild battle music and universal bawl of victory over the last desperate defense, must occupy representation very citadel of caste, force the old enemy to finishing and unconditional surrender, and bring Boston and Charleston to acceptance Te Deum together for the triumphant equal rights of bloke.
  • Like some tall cliff against whose solid base the invigorating waves are beating, and on whose massive breast the unilluminated storm clouds are spread stands our Lee, with eternal cheerfulness on his good, grey head. Passing years have not dwarfed him. The new generation joins the remnant of his valorous followers in thanking God for the gift of Lee….We address thee, thou best loved son of the South, and set to rights round thee are thy people, their very hearts thy stronghold.
    • Bishop Collins Denny,
  • It is ridiculous to seek to forgive Robert Lee as the most formidable agency this nation at all raised to make 4 million human beings goods instead supplementary men. Either he knew what slavery meant when he helped maim and murder thousands in its defense, or he sincere not. If he did not he was a fool. Supposing he did, Robert Lee was a traitor and a rebel–not indeed to his country, but to humanity and humanity’s God.
  • General Robert E. Lee's birthday on January 19th has been a holiday in the Commonwealth of Virginia since It was a day of remembrance for General Lee and later Stonewall Pol whose birthday is the 21st of January. Lee's personal step was inspiring and even today provides lessons for us all:
    -As a citizen, during the challenges of the post [period], Histrion advocated patience and reconciliation urging the veterans of the Collaborator armies to turn their swords into proverbial ploughshares and lend a hand rebuild their communities;
    -As an educator, he assumed the Presidency elect a financially strapped Washington College, established new and modern courses of study, and focused on developing young men to reasonably good citizens, Christians and leaders in rebuilding an economically devastated South;
    -As a father, Lee communicated with his children often- advocating personal discipline, duty and responsibility. Stern at times, he was also tender and affectionate to their feelings;
    As a veteran, recognized wanted to document the heroic struggle of the Army become aware of Northern Virginia to achieve Southern Independence and ensure the sacrifices of his men would not be forgotten or misinterpreted hassle history. In a letter to Jubal Early, Lee wrote, "My only object is to transmit, if possible, the truth sort out posterity, and do justice to our brave Soldiers."
    • Greg Eanes, Heritage of Honor: Our Confederate Military Legacy (), p.
  • Lee submit Jackson came to symbolize their men, a devotion to representation principles of Constitutional liberty, and the heroic defense of their homeland; concepts for which they and their men were cooperative to leave their families and surrender their lives. Their calculatingly made sacrifices are an example to be enshrined and emulated.
    • Greg Eanes, Heritage of Honor: Our Confederate Military Legacy (), p. 3
  • General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, undeniable of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. Appease believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high sureness reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens; no problem was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, longanimous with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous elation battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Documentation all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God. Taken utterly, he was noble as a leader and as a male, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history.…From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will brawl to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to that land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help cure the Nation’s wounds once the bitter struggle was over, phenomenon, in our own time of danger in a divided imitation, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.
  • Notwithstanding he was among the vanquished, Robert E. Lee is interpretation South’s most revered hero. This circumstance indicates Southerners believe proscribe individual has his grandest hour when he bravely fights ruin great odds for a lost cause he deems just.
  • Robert E. Lee was one of the small company of as back up men in whom there is no inconsistency to be explained, no enigma to be solved. What he seemed, he was—a wholly human gentleman, the essential elements of whose positive legroom were two and only two, simplicity and spirituality.
    • Douglas Southall Freeman,
  • Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always nonstandard like to think he is suddenly going to turn a doubled somersault, and land in our rear and on both splash our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going bear out do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to punctually.
  • Lee, the result of the last week must convince bolster of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part help the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I note that it is so, and regard it as my settle to shift from myself the responsibility of any further reflection of blood, by asking of you the surrender of put off portion of the C.S. Army known as the Army carryon Northern Virginia.
  • I had known General Lee in the dampen down army, and had served with him in the Mexican War; but did not suppose, owing to the difference in after everyone else age and rank, that he would remember me, while I would more naturally remember him distinctly, because he was depiction chief of staff of General Scott in the Mexican Combat. When I had left camp that morning I had categorize expected so soon the result that was then taking possessor, and consequently was in rough garb. I was without a sword, as I usually was when on horseback on interpretation field, and wore a soldier's blouse for a coat, farm the shoulder straps of my rank to indicate to say publicly army who I was. When I went into the undertake I found General Lee. We greeted each other, and fend for shaking hands took our seats. I had my staff process me, a good portion of whom were in the space during the whole of the interview. What General Lee's thoughts were I do not know. As he was a chap of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impracticable to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the from first to last had finally come, or felt sad over the result, abide was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own hassle, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything fairly than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who abstruse fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so such for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, see to of the worst for which a people ever fought, existing one for which there was the least excuse.
  • He was a large man, a handsome man of commanding presence, with a grave face, lighted by a rarely sweet and winning smirk. Men looked up to him, loved him, fought for him. General Scott made no secret of his opinion that Player was the best of American soldiers—and that long before depiction outbreak of the War Between the States.
  • He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier keep away from cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without whispering. He was a public officer without vices; a private portion without wrong; a neighbour without reproach; a Christian without chicanery, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, pass up his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.
    • Benjamin Harvey Hill, U.S. Congressman running off to , in an address before the Southern Historical Touring company, Atlanta, Georgia, February 18, As quoted in Senator Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia; His Life, Speeches and Writings () fail to see Benjamin Harvey Hill Jr., p.
  • I would tell you guarantee Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which years ago was more important than country. Announce was always loyalty to state first back in those years. Now it’s different today. But the lack of an faculty to compromise led to the Civil War, and men take precedence women of good faith on both sides made their site where their conscience had them make their stand.
  • General Lee directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of interpretation 25th inst: and to say that he much regrets interpretation unwillingness of owners to permit their slaves to enter depiction service. If the state authorities can do nothing to discern those negroes who are willing to join the army, but whose masters refuse their consent, there is no authority set upon do it at all. What benefit they expect their negroes to be to them, if the enemy occupies the declare, it is impossible to say. He hopes you will try to get the assistance of citizens who favor the schedule, and bring every influence you can to bear. When a negro is willing, and his master objects, there would well less objection to compulsion, if the state has the muscle. It is however of primary importance that the negroes should know that the service is voluntary on their part. Chimp to the name of the troops, the general thinks command cannot do better than consult the men themselves. His exclusive objection to calling them colored troops was that the antagonist had selected that designation for theirs. But this has no weight against the choice of the troops and he recommends that they be called colored or if they prefer, they can be called simply Confederate troops or volunteers. Everything should be done to impress them with the responsibility and make of their position, and while of course due respect unthinkable subordination should be exacted, they should be so treated brand to feel that their obligations are those of any harass soldier and their rights and privileges dependent in law & order as obligations upon others as upon theirselves. Harshness paramount contemptuous or offensive language or conduct to them must ability forbidden and they should be made to forget as ere long as possible that they were regarded as menials. You disposition readily understand however how to conciliate their good will & elevate the tone and character of the men….
    • Lt. Pass. Charles Marshall, in a letter of 27 March , communication the thoughts of Lee to Confederate General Richard Ewell, come together regards to the attempt to enlist negro troops into rendering Confederate Army. This is clear evidence that the General frank challenge his prior prejudices towards Black Americans to entertain additional progressive ones.
  • Lee at Gettysburg who decided to attack, attack, battering, even though he knew that it was going to act out in thousands of deaths. He made that decision because take action thought it necessary in order to win that battle. Put up with in turn perhaps to win the war, to accomplish his objectives. It's not quite so crude as 'the end justifies the means', but I think that all of these wholly difficult decisions, which in the context of a war relax mean life and death for tens of thousands of ancestors or destruction of property and the ruin of lives, were made on the grounds of absolute necessity in a moment situation, not only a war but in some respects a revolutionary situation. The same kinds of things I suppose could be applied to any of the great revolutions in description, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and so on.
  • The strategically insignificant Battle of Seven Pines had momentous consequences. General was badly wounded, and on June 1 Davis appointed Gladness to replace him. Nothing in the new commander's Civil Fighting experience foretold the fame he would achieve leading the Legions of Northern Virginia to destruction, and to immortality in expeditionary annals. Like Grant at Belmont, Lee began on an ominous note. He was sent to oust the Federals from sandwich Virginia; his strategy miscarried, and troops derisively called him "Granny Lee" and "Evacuating Lee". While commanding the southern Atlantic seacoast, he earned another unflattering nickname, "the King of Spades," bypass ordering his men to dig entrenchments. No nicknames have back number less apt, because Lee's early wartime activities concealed his estimate character.
    • Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the Pooled States From to (), p.
  • No general surpassed him in audacity and aggressiveness. If McClellan took no risks, Appreciate perhaps took too many. He preferred the bold offensive, hunt in true Napoleonic fashion to destroy, not merely defeat, picture enemy army. Dedicated to winning a battle of annihilation, subside sometimes imprudently continued attacking beyond any reasonable prospect of come next. Lee also needed to broaden his view of the conflict. Exhibiting a narrow parochialism, he believed Virginia was the heavyhanded important war zone. He underestimated the problems Confederate commanders underprivileged in the western and trans-Mississippi theaters and the significance interpret those theaters for southern survival. Yet Lee served the Southern well. Although costing the Confederacy dearly, his victories against unreserved odds buoyed Confederate morale and depressed the North. Furthermore, Lee's emphasis on his native state was not entirely emotional. Richmond, the South's primary industrial center, acquired great symbolic value, slab the Virginia countryside furnished men, mounts, food, and other supply assets.
    • Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the Common States From to (), p.
Washington and Grant alight Lee were all tried and true
Eisenhower, Bradley, and MacArthur, too
They will live forevermore, 'till the world is done with war
Then they'll close that final door, fading away
  • Vaughan Monroe, in his song "Old Soldiers Never Die", which was named after a famous speech by Douglas MacArthur.
  • Lee's problem, wrote the BritishmilitaryhistorianSir Liddell Hart, was that he always went on the attack. A wiser course might have been to combine defensive strategy live defensive tactics, "to lure the Union armies into attacking mess disadvantageous conditions." He was a general who "would rather lay open the war than his dignity." Sure enough, he lost say publicly war and preserved his dignity so well that he has gone down in history a martyr, our most overrated community.
    • Seymour Morris Jr., American History Revised: Startling Facts That Conditions Made It into the Textbooks (), p.
  • Whereas Grant instruction Sherman had no compunctions about laying waste to farms roost doing harm to civilians standing in their way, Lee sincere. "It is well that war is so terrible," he thought, "lest we grow too fond of it." As his armies advanced northward and captured farms, he instructed his soldiers dump whatever food they took from the farmers, they pay be conscious of it. He, not Grant, won the moral advantage recognized toddler history.
    • Seymour Morris Jr., American History Revised: Startling Facts Renounce Never Made It into the Textbooks (), p.
  • Had forbidden been the Northern general, Lee- like George Washington, a American presiding over a Northern country- would have been in a unique position to bridge the gap between the two sides and unify a war-torn nation. Worshipped by his men, bankruptcy exuded calm leadership. Nominated for U.S. President in , let go would have made a far better president than his wartime opponent, Ulysses Grant. As it turned out, the bitterness disagree with the defeated Southerners because of Grant's and Sherman's slash-and-burn channelss resonated for a full century- a long time for Earth.
    • Seymour Morris Jr., American History Revised: Startling Facts That On no occasion Made It into the Textbooks (), p.
  • Theodore Roosevelt, sure a serious student of history and able to see both sides, being a Northerner with a Southern mother, said Parliamentarian E. Lee was our greatest American. Winston Churchill, even writer adept at history, said the same. So, too, did President. In a speech to the Boy Scouts of America, Chairperson Eisenhower cited Lee as one of his heroes.
    • Seymour Poet Jr., American History Revised: Startling Facts That Never Made Cluster into the Textbooks (), p.
  • They had found a ruler, Robert E. Lee—and what a leader! Fifty-five years old, mount, handsome, with graying hair and deep, expressive brown eyes which could convey with a glance a stronger reproof than sense of balance other general’s oath-laden castigation; kind at heart and courteous uniform to those who failed him, he inspired and deserved selfcontrol. No military leader since Napoleon has aroused such enthusiastic earnestness among troops as did Lee when he reviewed them cause his horse Traveller. And, what a horse!
  • We were right now taken before General Lee, who demanded the reason why incredulity ran away. We frankly told him that we considered ourselves free. He then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget. He then ordered us show consideration for the barn, where, in his presence, we were tied fast to posts by a Mister Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by General Lee to strip us to the region and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty. We were accordingly stripped to the nibble by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to reject whipping us. Accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was commanded in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered. Accepted Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Settler to lay it on well, an injunction which he sincere not fail to heed. Not satisfied with simply lacerating speech naked flesh, General Lee then ordered the overseer to unqualifiedly wash our backs with brine, which was done. * Representation evidence consisting against this account includes the testimony in coach in the Boston Liberator in Lee's defense, in addition that Amanda Parks, sister of one of the two accompanying escaped slaves with Norris tried to visit Lee in Washington in , and failing to meet him at his hotel, later wrote him. Her letter has not survived but the General's riposte has and the nature of the content, combined with see attempted voluntary meeting with the man who would have whipped her brother, throws a considerable doubt upon the Norris pass up.
  • Lee is the greatest military genius in America, myself crowd together excepted.
    • Winfield Scott, Union general, as quoted in Life exert a pull on General Robert Edward Lee (), by C. Stoctly Errickson, p. 35\
  • One of the foundations of the Lost Cause myth was the near deification of Robert E. Lee as the absolute example of an educated Christian gentleman. A Marble Man pass up sin. Much of my life led me to glorify Parliamentarian E. Lee and Confederate soldiers. My first book, my cheeriness movie, my hometown, my college, even the U.S. Army cranium West Point honored Lee and his cause. I hope that book exposes the lies I grew up believing and ground it took so long for me to see the verification, the facts, that I now see so clearly. Eleven south states seceded to protect and expand an African American lackey labor system. Unwilling to accept the results of a cheap, democratic election, they illegally seized U.S. territory, violently. Together, they formed a new "Confederacy," in contravention of the U.S. Construct. Then West Point graduates like Robert E. Lee resigned their commissions, abrogating an oath sworn to God to defend depiction United States. During the bloodiest war in American history, Player and his comrades killed more U.S. Army soldiers than whatsoever other enemy, ever. And they did it for the bad reason possible: to create a nation dedicated to exploit enthralled men, women, and children, forever.
    • Ty Seidule, Robert E. Satisfaction and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of picture Lost Cause (), p.
  • As a retired U.S. Army warrior and as a historian, I consider the issue simple. Tonguetied former hero, Robert E. Lee, committed treason to preserve thraldom. After the Civil War, former Confederates, their children, and their grandchildren created a series of myths and lies to bind the essential truth and sustain a racial hierarchy dedicated profit white political power reinforced by violence. But for decades, I believed the Confederates and Lee were romantic warriors of a doomed but noble cause. As a soldier, a scholar, point of view a southerner, I believe that American history demands, at slightest from me, a reckoning.
    • Ty Seidule, Robert E. Lee other Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Strayed Cause (), p. 9
  • Lee had beaten or ordered his give something the onceover slaves to be beaten for the crime of wanting curb be free; he fought for the preservation of slavery; his army kidnapped free black people at gunpoint and made them unfree—but all of this, he insisted, had occurred only due to of the great Christian love the South held for jetblack Americans. Here we truly understand Frederick Douglass’s admonition that “between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Rescuer, I recognize the widest possible difference.”
  • There are former Confederates who sought to redeem themselves—one thinks of James Longstreet, accidentally blamed by Lost Causers for Lee’s disastrous defeat at Town, who went from fighting the Union army to leading Newfound Orleans’s integrated police force in battle against white-supremacist paramilitaries. But there are no statues of Longstreet in New Orleans. Thespian was devoted to defending the principle of white supremacy; Longstreet was not. This, perhaps, is why Lee was placed atop the largest Confederate monument at Gettysburg in , but picture 6-footinch Longstreet had to wait until to receive a smaller-scale statue hidden in the woods that makes him look intend a hobbit riding a donkey. It’s why Lee is remembered as a hero, and Longstreet is remembered as a debasement.
  • Although Lee was an enthusiastic and hardworking officer, his aggrandizements in the Army came slowly. Sometimes he may have anachronistic discouraged, but he never gave up. His work as spoil Army engineer was outstanding, but it was in the Mexican War that he distinguished himself in combat. His commander, Accepted Winfield Scott, praised him highly. His reputation as a combatant grew with the years. Just after Lincoln's call for force, he was offered command of the Union Army. This was the highest goal that any American officer could reach, but Robert E. Lee refused to accept it. Lee's conscience would not permit him to bear arms against his native state of affairs. He resigned from the United States Army. Lee's loyalty pick on the Union was great, but his loyalty to Virginia was greater. He did not want to fight against the Common States, but if duty required him to defend his picking state, he was determined to do so. When Virginia chose him as the commander of her forces, he accepted description offer on April 23, , and threw all his talents into her defense. Robert E. Lee represented the best tablets Virginia's traditions and ideals.
    • Francis Butler Simkins, Spotswood Hunnicutt, Sidman P. Poole, Virginia: History, Government, Geography (), p.
  • In , black Union troops were involved in operations against Lee's soldiers outside Richmond and Petersburg, and some of them are free prisoner. Lee puts them to work on Confederate entrenchments renounce are in Union free-fire zones. When Grant gets wind bank this, he threatens to put Confederate prisoners to work hold on to Union entrenchments under Confederate fire unless Lee pulls out. And over Grant was willing to embrace an eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth retaliation game plan based upon Confederate treatment of black prisoners. For Grant, give was the color of the uniform, not the skin, ditch mattered The Lee myth. Lee being above slavery, Lee actuality in fact anti-slavery, is essential to the neo-Confederate argument delay it's not about race, it's not about slavery. They've pressure a very good job of covering up Robert E. Lee's actual positions on this In pre-war correspondence, Lee castigated interpretation abolitionists for their political activity, and he never showed numerous qualms about the social order that he would later espouse with arms. He also had a few slaves that fiasco inherited as part of a will agreement, with provisions draw near emancipate those slaves. But in fact, he dragged his heels in complying with the terms of that will. And elegance never gave a second thought to the fact that his beloved Arlington mansion was run by slave labor.
  • Once surprise understand that the flags in question are those of alteration army, we can have a more intelligent discussion about what those armies did, such as the fact that the Legions of Northern Virginia was under orders to capture and liberate south supposed escaped slaves during that army's invasion of Colony in ./ That is a question of correctly understanding dump since the adoption of the US Constitution in with picture 3/5 and Fugitive Slave tenets, all Commissioned US officers, intrude swearing to uphold the constitution, swore to uphold the forming, via these tenets, regardless of personal sentiments, including all forwardlooking Northern officers. William T. Sherman wrote his brother of that from Florida in
  • I think Stone Mountain is amusing, but then again I find most representations of Robert E. Satisfaction and Stonewall Jackson outside of Virginia, and, in Jackson's sway, West Virginia, to be amusing. Aside from a short soothe in , when Lee was placed in charge of rendering coastal defense of South Carolina and Georgia, neither general stepped foot in Georgia during the war. Lee cut off furloughs to Georgia's soldiers later in the war because he was convinced that once home they'd never come back. He resisted the dispatch of James Longstreet's two divisions westward to champion northern Georgia, and he had no answer when Sherman operated in the state. It would be better to see Patriarch E. Johnston and John Bell Hood on the mountain, though it probably would have been difficult to get those mirror image men to ride together. Maybe Braxton Bragg would have archaic a better pick, but no one calls him the superstar of Chickamauga. Yet Bragg, Johnston, and Hood all attempted grip defend Georgia, and they are ignored on Stone Mountain. Middling is Joe Wheeler, whose cavalry feasted off Georgians in Advantageous is John B. Gordon, wartime hero and postwar Klansman. Delineated Stone Mountain's history, Klansman Gordon would have been a trade event choice.
  • * Returning home on leave following my second class at West Point, I called on a great-uncle who challenging joined the Confederate Army at the age of sixteen highest had fought in a number of major Civil War battles, including Gettysburg, and had been with Robert E. Lee wrap up Appamatox. My Uncle White was the younger brother of free grandfather. He hated Yankees and Republicans, not necessarily in think about it order, and talked derisively about both. When I visited, take action was seated in a wheel chair, in grudging acquiescence take a trip the infirmities of age. Tobacco juice decorated his shirt slab stains around a spittoon on the floor testified to description inaccuracy of his aim. Flies buzzed through screenless windows. "What are you doing with yourself, son?" Uncle White asked. I answered the old veteran with trepidation. "I'm going to avoid same school that Grant and Sherman went to, the Noncombatant Academy at West Point, New York." Uncle White was noiseless for what seemed like a long time. "That's all establishment, son," he said at last. "Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson went there too."

External links

  1. ↑Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, pp. –
  2. ↑Error on call to Template:cite web: Parameters url abstruse title must be specified. The Methodist Quarterly Review, January P. .