Rising Hegemon
Because southerners were more greatly affected by the war and had a need to rationalize its origins and results, southern-oriented historians dominated Civil War historiography for the first century after the war. They created the “Myth of the Lost Cause” and designated Lee as the god of this mini-religion. Their creation was so effective that many Americans have perceived Lee as the greatest general of the war (and perhaps in “American” history) while Grant often was denigrated and rebuked as a butcher, a drunk, and a victor by brute force alone.
In no way, shape, or form was Robert E. Lee a greater general than the man who won both in the West (arguably the most tactically important victories) and in the East (the most politically important victories). Grant, with some stumbles causing great loss, was with his most important deputy Sherman, the man who figured out how to win the war at a time when defensive weapons were supreme (How did Lee do on the attack? See Seven Days, Antietam and Gettysburg -- not very well, won the first with heavy casualties, lucked out in the second, and was obliterated when he met the very tactically solid Meade). Note that Grant had an unknowing early assist from the brilliant and too often forgotten Winfield Scott the greatest American general between Washington and Grant.
The South's cause was lost because it was morally indefensible in every way. It was a cause that fought for the rich to hold all power while keeping blacks so low in the social structure that non-wealthy whites would tolerate it because at least they weren't on the bottom and could dream of heading west where they could be the wealthy planter. When that option ended because of Lincoln and the free-soilers all hell broke loose.
There was, at heart, very little that is ever moral about a Civil War, though sometimes there are beneficial side effects. In this country those beneficial effects were the 13th through 15th Amendments.
And yet, we continue to hold ourselves and our history hostage to the great sin of the American experiment (along with the simultaneous and then post-civil war ethnic cleansing of Native Americans) and it's malignancy.
9 comments:
Oooh, I'll bet this is going to touch a nerve.
I can already hear OnAn and a chorus of fellow wingnuts crying about how hurt their little feewings are!
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
-Privatize the Profits! Socialize the Costs!
from Malaga, Spain
where it is currently too hot to sit in the sun
Robert E. Lee would have won the war of northern aggression led by the infamous traitor and tyrant Lincoln if the usurper Obama hadn't delivered a super secret death ray to Grant by traveling back in a time machine invented by a super secret black ops program that he ran illegally out of the White House bowling alley during his anti-constitutional occupancy of the presidency that was built by Kenyan and al Qaeda operatives. True story. How else to explain the south going down so hard?
Atta, what you said, with one addition: Grant (and Lincoln in the days before he was assassinated) interceded on Lee's behalf so Lee would not be tried for treason after the war.
Please. Meade was the general who controlled the Army of the Potomac and won all the battles but Cold Harbor (which Grant tried to do himself). Grant controlled where it went and when, Meade controlled how it fought. Sherman had the same role in his army. Comparisons of Grant to Lee are inexact. Lee controlled troops in battle, Grant essentially didn't after his move east.
By the way, although Antietam and Gettysburg could be attributed to strategic offense, both battles were actually initiated by either attacks by the Union army (Antietam) or accidents (shoe hunting in Gettysburg). In neither situation did Lee position his army and attack the Federals directly.
Grant gets the credit, but he was very fortunate to have Meade, a far superior tactical general to Grant and arguably Lee, and Sherman as his main agents.
lee would have beat mccant. might have executed mccant.
The Union was too kind and gentle with the South.The Union didn't win the civil war with an unconditional surrender after all, just called it a day. The Union coulda woulda should have crushed the South by eradicating its leadership, its way of thinking, like Nurenberg, or even like Genghis Khan, stacking the skulls of entire Southern cities as the only memorial to that damned Confederacy.
vox
fought for the rich to hold all power while keeping blacks so low in the social structure that non-wealthy whites would tolerate it because at least they weren't on the bottom
Thank goodness our society doesn't operate like that anymore!
Thank goodness our society doesn't operate like that anymore!
And it should be noted that the South was far more religious back then, so much so that Lee made decisions based on his sense of divine guidance.
Thank goodness our Presidents don't do that anymore
god dissed lee.
ppoo
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