General Robert E. Lee and the Hypocrisy of Modern Historiography

By I.M. Ulysses
This letter started as a reply to a friend on the Civil War Round Table on Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/tcwrt/)

Sir, 

I respect your point of view. No one can make excuses for enslaving or re-enslaving black people who were free, or who became free, and were later captured by Lee's or other Confederate armies in the course of the war and returned to slavery. The Fort Pillow Massacre of black Union soldiers is especially horrid and General Forrest (not Lee), under whose command it happened, justly deserves the condemnation for  it that history gives .

Likewise it is known that "slave raids" by Confederate forces on the march in Union-controlled territory were as common as the destruction of property wrought by Union forces in their march through Confederate territory; with results equally as wanton and barbaric as the re-enslaving blacks who had escaped their masters, or who were freedmen by birth. That said, these actions were committed by both sides in accordance with, and justified by their ideological bent and the 'necessities of war' as they saw them.

In short, no side had a monopoly on virtue in during the war. That said, a reasonable and fair assessment of the conflict, and the events leading up to it, reveal that, despite ideology or nationalist aspirations, the Civil War was centered around the issue of slavery and little else.

This may seem harsh words in the delicate eyes of of apologists and Neo-Confederates, who love to point out that the war was fought largely by non-slaveholders in the South. To them, this validates the view that it was a nationalist conflict rather than a conflict over slavery; an early assertion of the 20th century principle of "self determination" that was, itself introduced by American President Woodrow Wilson during the First  World War (I say ironic because President Wilson was a four-year-old Virginian, who lived through Civil War Virginia, may have even met General Lee, and whose father was a patriotic Southerner and Confederate).

Such apologia, however, is disingenuous at best and ignorant at worst. True, a citizen of the Confederacy might have enlisted for the nationalist idea of  'fighting for independence,' but it was an independence to SECURE slavery. Indeed, had the South won, slavery, in some form, would have persisted for a number of years thereafter.  To say or believe otherwise, therefore, is but a weak (if not desperate) attempt to mask Confederate nationalism and self-determination around a lie, which I refuse to do. Likewise, whatever the reasons a citizen of the Union chose to become soldier in the Civil War, the end result was that he was fighting for emancipation, whether he cared a wit about blacks, or slavery. 

In this regard, the Union cause was as a GOOD cause, while the Confederate cause was a BAD cause - that is if we value the idea of human liberty as a good and human slavery as bad, which I hope we do. This said, however, we must be careful to balance our understanding of war (and the circumstances that brought it about) within the context of AMERICAN, and not merely Southern, history.

In his second inaugural address, President Lincoln said "If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?" 

Lincoln didn't cast the blame for slavery (or even the war) primarily on the South but on BOTH the North and the South (as he said, in the same address, "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.").

The key phrase is JUDGE NOT because the responsibility (and culpability) for slavery existing at all in the United States fell on both sides. Indeed, slavery itself, preceded the war and even the Union, having been a common practice all over the world until the 1800's. 

To thus lay a righteous judgement solely upon the South, and to exclusively pin on it what we call the 'sin' of human bondage, is disingenuous, uncharitable, and morally questionable. Afterall, barely 90 years prior the sides at war in 1861 had together fought a revolution to create a country that DID include slavery within it.

Does anyone dare say that the American Revolution was "wrong" and the British were 'right' because the latter freed black people who fought for them; many of whom settled in the country I call my home? Would ANY American, Northern or Southern, TARNISH, SULLY and otherwise  DIMINISH the fame of men like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson (Southerners and slave-owners all), and impute evil upon them, because they help to found a nation that PROTECTED SLAVERY?

How then can ANY vile judgement rest upon General Lee (himself a nominal descendent of Washington (through marriage)), for doing the same as his forefathers did? How, in fact, can any American can justify and promote contempt for the Confederate cause due to slavery when, once again, the Founding Fathers fought a war that created the United States with slavery  in it too? 

What American, therefore, has a right to judge as EVIL this 'Second American Revolution' when it was fought on the VERY SAME criterion (secession from the mother country, self determination, and black slavery) as the FIRST? Or do the words HYPOCRITES and SELF RIGHTEOUS ASSES mean nothing to those people who seek to "enslave" our understanding of American history solely based on the treatment of black men and women?

Were not others treated horribly by Americans? Were not, for instance, my Loyalist forefathers tarred and feathered, lashed and humiliated, and subjected to other horrible and almost inhuman treatment simply because they chose to fight for their King and not for the apparent band of desperate radicals fighting for this thing called "American Independence?' 

Newflash, WARS, are UGLY and people, BLACK AND WHITE, of all backgrounds and political views, DIE IN THEM, including soldiers. General Sherman himself said 'War is hardship' and then proceeded to demonstrate that by demolishing Georgia and South Carolina during his march in the latter part of the Civil War. As a consequence Sherman's men, ended up inflicting upon the region thousands of casualties, and billions of dollars of destroyed property (incidentally, he also left behind thousands of blacks, who were promptly re-enslaved and harmed by the Southerners he did not kill as he passed through these states). Even Lee, after The Battle of Fredericksburg, said, 'it is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow to fond of it.' 

Are Lee's words, his actions, his conduct, and the very CHARACTER of the man himself, now to be thrown to the wolves of political correctness and "modern" scholarship simply because he ACTED as a man of his time and his region; as Washington, Jefferson and others did, only with a different outcome several decades before?  FOR SHAME! For utter SHAME AND DISGRACE upon ANY who dare do so!

Lee was not perfect. While he is studied and admired as a great military leader and tactician, he was also flat-out lucky that his army was not destroyed at Antietam and later at Gettysburg. In addition to this, he only grudgingly (it seems) freed his own slaves, not as a result of hating slavery but in respect of his father's will. 

Despite some glaring failures (he did lose the war), and personal shortcomings (he saw slavery as a positive good for black people, as did many of his peers)  Lee does, however, deserve our respect if not our admiration. He, like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln himself, came to represent the BEST (and not the worst) in all who served under him, as well as all who knew him.  Never known as a harsh, disrespectful, or cruel, Lee is rightly remembered as a rather humble man, despite his Patrician background. 

He prayed often during the war, with little reason to doubt that he was sincere in his love of his enemies, and hatred of the war he waged with much skill, dedication and true patriotic duty. Firm but fair, and almost always courteous, he embodied the best attributes of the gentleman he saw himself to be, as well as the class he represented.

A story, perhaps apocryphal (but which was popularized author Shelby Foote during his appearance in the Ken Burns miniseries,"The Civil War,") tells the tale of what happened to a student during Lee's tenure as the post-Civil War president of what became Washington and Lee University in Virginia. The student had been brought before Lee for some infraction of the rules. He was, naturally, quit nervous if not visibly trembling as he faced the great general. According to the story, Lee said to him "you need not fear anything, you will get justice here." The student, it is said, replied "Yes sir, that's what I'm afraid of." 

True or not, this story says plenty about the so-called "Marble Man of the Confederacy;" the stone 'idol' that has been practically worshipped by every Southern boy since the war, and a good many Northern ones too. Whether Lee truly deserves that, I cannot say. But there is no doubt that when people think of him, it's not as "the guy who fought for slavery," any more than they do for Washington, Jefferson and others who did the same during the Revolution. Rather they impute to Lee and them the best qualities of manhood; honour, duty, patriotism, devotion, compassion, chivalry, and all those other traits that many would ascribe as the virtues of good people even now. Only they do it to a man who fought for a cause that was wrong on many counts. 

But is that, itself, wrong to do? Are we only allowed to have "perfect men" as our historical champions and models of manhood?

Good luck with that, I say, for there are none, except Jesus Christ; and people are even divided in their views of HIM! Indeed, even President Lincoln was a very flawed leader, with some historians going so far as to suggest that he actually PROLONGED THE WAR by several months through poor decisions, thus needlessly causing the deaths of thousands and thousands of soldier that might have returned home safely. 

Despite this Lincoln is REVERED as the 'Great Emancipator' but not the 'Great Black Colonizer,' a man who proposed colonizing freed blacks during the war itself. As for the "Emancipation Proclamation" issued in 1862 and formalized as policy in January 1863, in practice it didn't free any slaves, except those areas of the Confederacy then occupied by Union forces (the abolition of slavery had to await the passage of the 13th amendment just prior to the war's end in 1865).  

Is Lincoln to be loved and Lee hated simply because Lincoln WON and Lee LOST? Is it ok to consider Lincoln a great man because he freed black people from slavery (even though that was not his original intent in waging the war) while Lee is to be seen a bad man because he fought to keep them in bondage? Is this now the only way in which we are to judge 'good and evil'? IF so, it is a limited and a HYPOCRITICAL ONE, especially considering American history and American historical figures as a whole. 

I, personally, feel it is only fair and right to give Lee, and the South, the due credit they deserve for the fight they waged, even if that fight was for a bad cause. Lee was a product of his time, as were the Founding Fathers, and they all did or permitted in wartime things that would, in peacetime, seem atrocious to any right-thinking person with an ounce of decency (unless anyone feels like leveling a city for kicks?). 

That is the nature of war; bringing out the base and bad (and seldom the good) in people. The South took up arms to perpetuate slavery, the Union took up arms to end slavery; that was the end result and the central pivot upon which the war turned, all other things aside. Lee fought for the South and all it represented, good and bad, and his flaws deserve to be noted as well as his good points. But it is WRONG, HYPOCRITICAL, UNFAIR and IMMORAL to see him as a 'bad' man for his treatment of blacks people alone when American history is full of such contradictions and such men;  many of whom are loved and cherished the world over DESPITE their affinity for slavery and mistreatment of slaves too. 

Lincoln said at the end of his second inaugural "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on....to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Let us do likewise. Let us strive to not walk blindly as the self righteous do, judging people, judging history even, based on one characteristic or another, while conveniently ignoring the ramifications of that upon all of history itself.

Rather let us approach Lee, and the Civil War, and other such contentious subjects, "With malice toward none, with charity for all" knowing that we, too,  are all flawed, imperfect people, as well as many of the figures we do cherish universally. Indeed it can be said that, as people, our only real virtue is virtue itself, along with ALL (and not one) of those better qualities we choose to ascribe to it. 

These virtues, however, cannot and must not be held hostage to the political fashion of our times, along with our own contradictions and hypocrisy. To do so is a grave injustice and marks us, I fear, far worse as a generation and a people than those whom we so arrogantly, and precipitously, choose to judge instead.

Peace.