The American Spectator

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Civil Warring

1.31.07 @ 12:01AM

CIVIL WARRING
Re: H.W. Crocker III's Robert E. Lee: Icon of the South -- and American Hero:

I cannot believe your publication would refer to Robert E. Lee, the military leader of a treasonous rebellion, as an American hero. If a man who tried to destroy this country can be described as a "hero" then the word has no meaning.

I will no longer purchase your publication, nor read your website.
-- Matt Patterson

Concerning H. W. Crocker's article on Robert E. Lee, while I agree that Lee had many admirable personal qualities, I nevertheless have to recognize that he was effectively fighting for slavery and disunion, and that he needlessly prolonged the Civil War, resulting in more deaths and suffering in both sections of the country. That is why this Southern white man would no more consider Lee a great national hero than he would Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the Japanese General recently memorialized by Clint Eastwood in Letters from Iwo Jima. Great generals, yes, fine human beings, maybe so, great Americans, no.
-- C.J. Evans

I am writing concerning the article asking why Robert E. Lee is no longer revered as he once was. As an American whose has an ancestor who came to this country in 1574 and has numerous ancestors who fought primarily in the North during the American Civil War let me offer reasons why Lee is no longer given the respect he once was.

First, he was a traitor. Regardless of the high intellectual arguments about state's rights the truth is he fought for these rights using Slavery as the reason for secession. I must confess to throwing snowballs at a statue of his in a Park near where we live thinking that because of his treachery and beliefs many more people died than would have had he offered his services to the Union where they belonged.

Also, as a student of modern history, one can't help thinking what would have happened if we had let the South succeed. No rational person believes that everything would have been peaceful between the two "countries." We would have fought with them all the way across the continent, in much the same way that Pakistan and India fight over the Kashmiri region or European countries have fought with each other over a multitude of reasons. It would have been never ending. This country would never have been united and there would have been further fractionation over every little disagreement once the precedent had been made for secession. Again, examine India where every state wants its independence and autonomy, and the violence that is engendered through these fights. Or more recently examine the former Yugoslavia.

While anyone who has read about Lee would not deny that he was a complex man and even an honorable man I do not believe that he deserves the American Hero label any more than Aaron Burr. I believe that his previous popularity had more to do with his military genius, his fighting on even in the face of what became certain defeat, and his charisma which lasted for a long while after his death.

I think it is a strange and indeed a specious argument that people are uncomfortable with Lee's religious sensibilities in a time when everyone expressed themselves in Christian terms, especially President Lincoln.
-- M.J.M. Spano

Excellent article.

And today, perhaps Lee's noblest moment is set off in stark relief. At the end of the war, at Appomattox, several of Lee's staff, doubtless reflecting widespread opinion in the army, wanted to continue the war with guerilla war. Lee said no. The issue is settled. Guerilla war would destroy the country.

Thus, Lee turned his back on the endless violence that we see, for instance, in the Middle East today, the endless refighting of historical battles. Lee's prestige was so great that his opinion became the opinion of the South. In fact, history has no instance of two greater souls making peace than Grant and Lee at McLean's house in Appomattox. Grant offered a generous peace and Lee accepted it. And the country was rejoined.

There is a famous story that 19-year-old Henry Wise, Jr. the son of Confederate general and former governor of Virginia, Henry Wise, returned home after the war only to find his father barring the door to the family house.

"You cannot enter," the elder Wise told his son. "You have disgraced our family by seeking a parole from those Yankees."

"But father," the son said, "that is what General Lee said I should do."

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