The painting had no monetary value; it was really just a print of an original overlaid with brushstrokes to appear authentic.Well, then... no great sacrifice. I clicked through to this because I'm opposed to the destruction of artwork for political purposes, but this isn't really artwork. The headline conned me. Dammit, McChrystal. "Prized Portrait" — spare me.
But 40 years earlier it had been a gift from a young Army wife to her lieutenant husband when the $25 price (framed) required juggling other needs in our budget.You know, it's hard to throw out a gift you don't like. Took him 4 decades to work out the excuse to throw the thing in the garbage. But my question is, what does his wife say?
It was not a simple decision. For almost 150 years, Lee had been a subject of study, and of admiration, not only for his skill, but also as a symbol of stoic commitment to duty. And while I could appreciate the visceral association with slavery and injustice that images of the Confederacy’s most famous commander evoke, for a lifetime, that’s not the association I’d drawn. I’d read and largely believed Winston Churchill’s statements that “Lee was one of the noblest Americans who ever lived and one of the greatest captains known to the annals of war.”The essay continues at great length about Lee, and I got tired of looking for the answer to my question about his wife, whose gift he threw out. Now, I'm down to the last paragraph:
At age 63, the same age at which Lee died, I concluded I was wrong—to some extent wrong about Lee as a leader, but certainly about the message that Lee as a symbol conveyed. And although I was slow to appreciate it, a significant part of American society, many still impacted by the legacy of slavery, had felt it all along....
The picture of fellow soldier Robert E. Lee that hung in my home and inspired me for so long is gone, presumably crushed and buried with the other detritus of life.Including your wife — buried? That would explain the long-awaited freedom to throw out the "portrait."
But the memory remains. The persona he crafted of a disciplined, dutiful soldier, devoid of intrigue and strictly loyal to a hierarchy of entities that began with God and his own sense of honor, combined with an extraordinary aptitude for war, pulls me toward the most traditional of leadership models. I try to stand a bit straighter. But when I contemplate his shortcomings, and admit his failures, as I must my own, there is a caution I would also do well to remember.No, nothing — in all that sententious prose — nothing of the wife. She disappeared after that first mention, unnamed, "a young Army wife."
I looked up McChrystal's Wikipedia page so I could find the name of his wife and whether she is still living. I read this, under "Personal Life":
McChrystal married Annie Corcoran, also from a military family, in 1977. The couple have one son. McChrystal is reported to run 7 to 8 miles (11 to 13 km) daily, eat one meal per day, and sleep four hours a night.Man, I wish I'd kept a list of all the people I've read sleep only 4 hours a night — Donald Trump, Elon Musk, etc. etc. How about Robert E. Lee? Did he only sleep 4 hours? "[Lee] routinely turned down offers to use the homes of Southerners as his headquarters, preferring to sleep outside in his modest tent...." Can't see how long he slept. Don't know if he went jogging 7 or 8 miles a day. Don't know if he threw out presents from his wife.
Posts
173 comments:
"a gift from a young Army wife to her lieutenant husband when the $25 price (framed) required juggling other needs in our budget."
What an asshole.
McChrystal self-identifies as an early candidate for the Democrats in 2020. Deftly handling his inconvenient Robert E Lee hero-worshipping. In stark contrast to wooden Elizabeth Warren.
Detritus of life is a good band name. Robert E. Lee and the Detritus of Life.
"McChrystal self-identifies as an early candidate for the Democrats in 2020."
He's too young. Maybe shoot for 2036.
"Back with my wife in Tennessee, when one day she called to me
"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E Lee"
Now I don't mind choppin' wood, and I don't care if the money's no good
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best."
Damn it, McChrystal, you are an idiot. No wonder you got fired. You let that jerk from Rolling Stone follow you around. Now you are throwing away your wife's gift portrait of Robert E. Lee. That's not going to save you.
Look General! Up in the sky. It's the Virtue Signal! Something MUST be done!
Does his audience even know who Robert E. Lee (and his family) was?
There is some history that the left has dropped down the memory hole.
The surrender by the South, was negotiated. Lots of details, about how citizens and soldiers would be treated. The over arching guiding principle was that the political leaders of the Confederacy, and the Officers and enlisted men of the army, would be respected as honorable soldiers fighting for a just cause. In return, those leaders of the Confederacy, would stand down and lead the citizens of the south to a peaceful conclusion of the worst war ever fought in North America.
Today the leftist are intent to ignore history and inflict the punishment they deem necessary.
In direct violation of the surrender agreed to by the North and the South.
It really is odd that the side that got Ayers tenure after he failed to kill his political enemies with terrorism really seems to think it has moral authority on who should and should not be cast down from history.
Robert E. Lee fought on the wrong side; slavery is evil. But, he was a skilled general. The fact that the left wants us to pretend he wasn't (and that he had no values that might be worthy of holding in esteem) seems counter productive when Che Guevera can still go on t-shirts.
Barf !
I often sleep 4 hours a night. But I'm an insomniac and hate it when I wake up stupidly early, knowing I'll be exhausted all day because my body rejects sufficient sleep.
Whenever Confederate symbols are discussed, I think of a friend I had in college. He strongly believed in equality, gay rights, feminism, abortion, the whole deal. He spent many a night in jail after getting arrested at some protest or other. He was as woke as a white kid could be in the late 1980's, and this in the semi-rural South (he was from Alabama and went to college in Gainesville, FL).
And he flew the stars and bars. To him it had nothing to do with slavery. The Confederate flag was a symbol of the struggle against tyranny, against strong central authority, for states rights and, ultimately, individual autonomy.
The Confederate flag is a symbol of slavery if we all insist it is. But it could be a symbol of many other things as well if we'd allow it. And if this Army general can't look past modern activist politics to see what made Robert E. Lee, a man of his times though he may have been, a great man worthy of admiration, well, maybe I'm naive but I like to think career soldiers are made of sterner stuff. Enjoy your retirement Gen. McChrystal.
I’ve found I get along quite well on 4 hours of sleep a night, as long as I can work in a 4 hour nap each afternoon.
Political correctness is more honorable than honor these days.
Well done exposing his navel gazing for the pablum it is.
He had Brad Pitt portray him in the Netflix film "War Machine"..... and his poor wife is portrayed as well.
"sententious" indeed! Times 10. I suspect his wife died or left from boredom years ago. Stanley, please, stop navel gazing and writing and go play golf or something.
Read Lee's surrender
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2015-04-11.html#06
The self-righteous murder of our ancestors continues.
This story hit home: Last month I threw away my portrait of Hillary Clinton. For not-too-dissimilar reasons.
This seems to be an issue out there.
Not for me, but for,...someone.
I certainly hope that this post by the famous blogger Althouse gets back to Stanley and his wife. I want to hear the rest of the story.
And I do *love* how Ann stands up for women and the institution of marriage. Yeah, what about the wife? What about the thoughtful gift from a loving wife? A wife who endured all the sacrifice that an Army career requires.
Stan is angling for SecDef in a President Harris administration. Sorry, Stanley. Not happening.
McChrystal also threw out his boxed set of "The Dukes of Hazzard" and his model of the General Lee. He tried to keep his Catherine Bach/Daisy Duke poster, but his wife said "If Lee goes, she goes!"
NBC is working on a sitcom called "The McCrystals of Chrystal City" about a goofy warrior general trying to adjust to politically correct civilian life (he is a senior official in the Patent Office) within sight of the Pentagon.
"He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward." - Benjamin Harvey Hill of Georgia referring to Robert Edward Lee during an address before the Southern Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia on 18 February 1874
I thought he threw it in the Atlantic.
This was reported in Fortune a month ago. He's milking it for all it's worth.
Maybe McChrystal will throw out his Johnny Cash CDs next:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvIU6VQAWpo&start_radio=1&list=RDxvIU6VQAWpo&t=0
I'm disappointed in McChrystal but he has chosen his friends.
I thought he threw it in the Atlantic.
Perhaps he threw it over the White House fence. Along with his lucky hat.
What a strange article this is, does everyone announce, in The Atlantic no less, what they toss out on trash day? This post needs a virtue signal tag.
Btw, I sleep 4 hours a night also, in various parts of my 7-8 hours in bed.
-sw
NBC is working on a sitcom called "The McCrystals of Chrystal City" about a goofy warrior general trying to adjust to politically correct civilian life
They should be!
He thought it was important to mention that he threw the framed pairing away. In his mind, merely taking it down and storing in the basement with all of the other items from times gone by was not enough. I think Althouse is right. He never liked the silly picture painting from his silly wife anyway.
I'll bet McChrystal also has a "little library" box on a post in his front yard. Does he drive a Leaf or a Prius?
Althouse, that was terrific. What kind of animal throws away presents from his wife?
One suspects Stanley is divorced, as are so many senior officers in this day and age (think Petreus). The fact that it is not in his Wiki page indicates he's an active Democrat - such information would never be omitted (in in such curious phrasing) for any Republican, or Republican leaning figure who is divorced.
"Look General! Up in the sky. It's the Virtue Signal! Something MUST be done!"
Quick, to the Prius!
I don't see how anyone can ever deny that as as military tactician and strategist Lee was anything less than a great general.
Perhaps even greater than Grant given how well he did with so many fewer resources.
We can certainly argue the rightness oc of the southern cause (do states have the rigjt to secede? Does Britain?)
It seems inconceivable to me that his military competence could be questioned.
John Henry
i'll never understand the fascination with robert e lee. The extent that he was a good general was completely dependent on people like George McClellan being his opponent.
If the south wants to respect a general, they should respect Joe Johnson; he was WINNING the War* for them right up until JB Hood got his boyfriend Jeff Davis to replace him.
Winning the War* spring of 1864, Joe Johnson was SLOWLY falling back towards atlanta, keeping his army intact; the north was sick of stalemate, and sick of the war. Joe Johnson's trench warfare would have drug the war out, for years; and come the election, Lincoln (and the war) would have been OVER... But NO! JJ was hired, and JB Hood ran a series of frontal attacks that disintegrated his army which had to pull out of atlanta: Winning the reelection a lincoln. JB then DESTROYED his own army in the ruinous invasion of tennessee .
Leave Joe Johnson in; the stalemate continues, and lincoln loses the election and the war
Fortune reports he was given the portrait in '76, but he married in '77, so someone's lying.
If he wants to run as a Democrat, he should have said he asked his wife's permission, or he's screwed.
This post is as meandering as a Trump rally oration.
I like McChrystal, but he was fired in 2010 by Obama, so if this article is some weak-ass exercise in virtue-signaling to get noticed by some Leftwing friends somewhere, well, it still remains a weak-ass article.
Yes, slavery was evil. Everyone knows that. It ended 160 years ago in the US.
McChrystal’s a smart guy but has always been a window-licking aspie. Kind of a Steve Jobs type.
The US military needs to purge itself of democrat helper monkeys.
You'd have more credibility, gilbar, if you'd spelled Joe Johnston's name correctly.
Perhaps it was his wife who wanted the thing gone. Gifts are not fetishes.
The presumption that there's some kind of anti-wife subtext to McChrystal's almost entirely personal musings is a weird example of how not using loved one's as props is just as bad as using them.
Imagine this essay getting the full-blown angry poet treatment with score-settling throughout. All we have here is a reference to the wife giving the gift and otherwise she's given her privacy.
Grant won the war, but Lee won the hearts and minds of people who valued a stick up the ass over winning.
Lee was a very good tactician and one of the great masters of what soldiers call the “operational arts.” Absolutely legendary.
He was not a strategist in any way. Grant was much greater at the strategic level, and by 1864 has Lee’s equal as an operator or better.
The Vicksburg campaign and the turnaround after taking over from Rosecrans outside of Chattanooga proved his worth before he ever got to DC.
Joe Johnston's skills at slow retreat would have had him ably defending the Florida Keys in time for Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.
I've read sleep only 4 hours a night
Susan Sontag too, I think.
I'm not even going to google.
Meh! I still keep a framed photo of Erwin Rommel. I admire his tactical and operational genius, but not the cause he served.
Methinks the General is pandering a bit.
Lee was a superb officer, both in the US Army and the Confederate Army. He fought with skill and honor.
Didn't we get enough revenge by turning his house into Arlington National Cemetery?
There's not too many people who quite literally could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives with a single decision. Lee likely is one of those people. Had he stayed with the union the war would have ended quickly. Even if he had stayed out of the war, not fighting against Virginia but not fighting for the Confederacy, then the war would have ended earlier. He fought for his state and he fought for the continuation of slavery by default. It led to great tragedy and heartache.
He was honored by the officers on every side, but of course he was. Folks like Grant could honor him, as Grant was a nobody before the war. Lee gave Grant glory, and the Presidency. But the soldiers who died in battle, of disease, in POW camps, men who should have been home with their families suffered, and the USA suffered, because of Lee. Good people can lead people into awful suffering. And that's Lee's legacy.
He should have stood against rebellion by anyone who encouraged it like he stood against John Brown. Sadly, he stopped John Brown but looked the other way when people did much worse.
I live in Lee County, Florida. Every so often, the local NAACP makes noises about wanting to change the county's name. I say, "Hell, no!"
Amadeus 48 said...NBC is working on a sitcom called "The McCrystals of Chrystal City" about a goofy warrior general trying to adjust to politically correct civilian life (he is a senior official in the Patent Office) within sight of the Pentagon.
I could see people watching that. Like an updated Major Dad.
My first thought was that this post is delightfully whimsical. Then I thought that whimsical might have been a little off but I looked up the definition and I was right. Thanks for the whimsical post. I enjoyed it. Now off for a run then to vote in TX for the first time.
Similarly, in one of the Agony Aunt columns this week -- maybe Dear Amy? -- a letter writer (male) bemoans his past loutish behavior that he now believes might have been rape. What to do what to do!!?
Hair shirts for everyone.
Amy, foolishly, says go to the Police. The correct answer: Consult a lawyer.
I think the long game for this #MeToo navel-gazing on the left is going to be reparations.
Ms. A is right in one sense -- no monetary value. The focus on how the wife felt about it is appropriate, but I have to say, that with rare exceptions, Army spouses are in the background. As a retired Army officer married to another retired Army officer, the female in the pairing often gets overlooked. On the print, it's the emotional and inspirational attachment to small and inexpensive things. The thing of value he threw away was his long held positive perception of Lee.
I was disappointed in his description of Lee after the war. The theme of "let us have peace" and "we are one nation again" didn't last long after Appomattox. Chernow's biography of Grant shows Grant's frustration as President with Lee's silence about the growing insurgency and KKK activities. It parallels Montgomery Meigs' assessment about Lee during the war. The gentlemanly facade never influenced his unwillingness to lift a finger to either shorten the war or work for reconciliation.
So when does he get rid of his photos of Obama?
And he flew the stars and bars. To him it had nothing to do with slavery. The Confederate flag was a symbol of the struggle against tyranny, against strong central authority, for states rights and, ultimately, individual autonomy.
tim, I would never say a person couldn't believe that, and I can see how the logic works, but it's a completely ahistorical belief. The original battle flag was a symbol of the struggle agains the tyranny of people who refused to support slavery. It was reintroduced in the South after WWII as a symbol of the struggle against the tyranny of people who didn't like being segregated. Its brief Dukes-of-Hazard run as a symbol of fun-loving rebellion against the man can't really disguise that history.
Yes that bogus narrative by hastings, which put an end to the surge, they eventually forced out Petraeus and then Mattis
It's only a matter of time until Lincoln was a Democrat.
Blogger Gahrie said...
Lee was a superb officer, both in the US Army and the Confederate Army. He fought with skill and honor.
Didn't we get enough revenge by turning his house into Arlington National Cemetery?
That's my opinion, too. Lee may have been the only West Point graduate without a single demerit.
I think it is difficult to remember the days when states were more important than the federal government.
Yes, he could have saved a lot of lives if he had joined the Union Army or just refused to serve.
Had Sherman not taken Atlanta in 1864, Lincoln would likely have lost the election to McClellan and an armistice would have resulted.
Bob Boyd said "It's only a matter of time until Lincoln was a Democrat"
The time has already come and gone Bob:(
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/college-plaque-in-land-of-lincoln-labels-abe-a-democrat
People who blame soldiers for the wars they fight in are assholes.
Shelby Foote, noted Civil War historian, was quoted in the PBS's "The Civil War" as believing the war produced two genuine geniuses, "One being Nathan Bedford Forrest and the other being Abraham Lincoln."
This always stood out because although Forrest was probably the finest cavalry officer since Pierre Terrail, Le Bon Chevalier, Lee was arguably more influential and decisive at a strategic level. Lee's 10 Great Battles are a master-class in almost all of the great tactical and strategic concepts of pre and post-modern warfare.
Interestingly, Lee ultimately regretted his decision in life choosing a military career and mentioned it numerous times towards the end of his life.
Perhaps that's enough to give McChrystal the necessary justification over throwing out the portrait. Lee probably wouldn't mind.
"The time has already come and gone Bob"
Shit. Well that's depressing.
Lee ordered Picket’s charge. That didn’t turn out very well for him. The risk he took on this decision was huge. And he lost.
Lee defined gallantry in defeat, and there's nothing you can credibly say against a guy who does that, though ignoramuses will try. That he fought on the wrong side can even go without saying, because A) it's obvious, and B) how he came to do so was noble.
Let the man rest in peace, I say. He was one of the good ones.
A former student of Ulysses S. Grant High School in Los Angeles.
Yes, he could have saved a lot of lives if he had joined the Union Army or just refused to serve.
Colonel Robert E. Lee was a career U.S. Army officer and indeed would have been offered the command of the Union Army, but that he had left to go to Richmond one hour before Lincoln's messenger reached Arlington.
Lee knew that and did not make excuses. He just was caught between a rock and a hard place and made his choice.
This is a very Althouse post, and that is why I come here several times a day.
McCrystal, yet another example that not everyone who wants to to West Point should be allowed into West Point.
As I get older, I have a much harder time reading pretentious and narcissistic prose.
As Strunk would say: "Omit needless words!" Half this article would disappear.
@Crack Emcee,
You often surprise me. Well said.
McChrystal joined the Obama team in 2011.
He knew which side his bread was buttered then.
What a crock. Must be running for political office as a D. Robert E Lee accepted defeat and perhaps saved the union by not supporting a prolonged guerrilla insurgency. Many of his junior officer core did not want to stop. Lee was a great general and his loyalty was too his state not the union. I can respect that especially when the country was so young. There were many causes of the civil war slavery was just one part. To judge Lee by the standards of today is unfair. It is just racial pandering and virtue signaling.
I don’t think any general should be “rethinking” Robert E. Lee. Like no general since, Lee had a way of getting into his opponents’ heads, both deducing their next move, and their responses to his counters to their moves, to the point where many Union officers were almost paralyzed by him. If McChrystal was half the commander that Bob Lee was, we wouldn’t still be fighting in Afghanistan.
Scene: The Battle of the Wilderness
A senior Union officer rushes to General Grant to tell him that their left flank is collapsing and their fight is under pressure and any minute now Lee will be between them and Washington. Grant responds.
“Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do."
Good for Grant, but it says volumes about the impact that Lee has on his opponents.
Robert E Lee honorably served a dishonerable cause. One could admire him for his honorable behavior despite having served a dishonerable cause. Or one could declare that the cause taints all who served it to the extent that "honorable service" becomes meaningless.
Yet all heroes have flaws, and no cause has ever been 100% pure. And therefore all must be discarded?
I'm not a fan of Lee, but, I am concerned about this latter-day Jacobinism that insists that since all historical heroes were flawed and all historical causes flawed and all nations flawed (etc.) therefore all existing culture and all values must be burnt to the ground and rebuilt anew, as we construct our Brave New World beginning at Year Zero.
Our latter-day Jacobins would discard much that is valuable and often replace it with much that is far worse. But then, hasn't utopianism always been far better at destroying the past than building a future worth building? For inevitably people will fail to meet the utopians' standards. And then, well, they must be punished, harshly, lest others follow them into error.
McChrystal wasn't going to be one-upped in the liberal press by Bradley Manning who recently threw away some of his junk.
I'll pile on and say what a douche. His reasoning isn't wrong, but to air his virtue in public makes him no different than any other social media drama queen. He's dishonored himself.
SDaly,
"In any event, he has no political career ahead of him because he's only 5'7"."
Nah. Bob Gates is 5'7", and McChrystal towers over him in the pic where Gates pins his retirement medal on him.
No, McChrystal has no political career ahead of him because he's politically tone-deaf and (with some justification) arrogant. I don't see him connecting with a wide range of people, though I know people who worked closely with him and think the world of him.
General Lee was not loyal to his county, which did not secede.
"Blogger EDH said...
McChrystal wasn't going to be one-upped in the liberal press by Bradley Manning who recently threw away some of his junk."
Damn. Well done.
McChrystal is kidding himself if he thinks this serves some political ambition. They make a lot of noise about it, but Democrats don't do generals.
So what did he do with his balls? Did he throw them out too, or does he still have them in a little jar?
So I suppose this virtue signalling shithead is running for president. Only question is America hating Democrat party member or greedy weakling republican cuck?
Rhhardin observes: Political correctness is more honorable than honor these days.
Alas. I daresay it has replaced it.
McChrystal is kidding himself if he thinks this serves some political ambition. They make a lot of noise about it, but Democrats don't do generals.
We have no idea of the desperation that may seize the Democrat Party after the election.
They have gone full Socialism and that is no place to be with the economy humming.
A general with the right PC instincts, like throwing away his "treasured" poster of RE Lee, might look good to a party with a small minority in the House.
WEAKEST. VIRTUE SIGNALLING. EVER.
As Strunk would say: "Omit needless words!"
"Omit words" is shorter.
I'm a Northerner and I love Lee. He's the only man I've ever considered buying a portrait of.
"At 63, I Threw Away My Prized Portrait of Robert E. Lee."
When I was sixty-three
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for signaling virtue
Of #MeToo memes
We'd ride in limousines
The media would report with glee
When I was sixty-three
From what I know, Lee was a superior military general to General McChrystal and without doubt a better man.
We think of our military personnel as brave men and women, etc. But when it comes to the very senior ranks, they're more often bureaucratic cowards protecting their own rice bowls.
One problem with "year zero" thinking is that it creates an opening for every flavor of "year zero". Removal of constraint licenses everything that was constrained.
Customs that have been overthrown were usually evolved to solve a persistent problem, and since they evolved, its not often apparent what that problem was.
Such as, in this instance, many sorts of cultural palliatives were applied over fifty years and more to reconcile the South to the failure of Southern secession. Some are monuments, some were laws, some was Federal spending, and many were sorts of cultural license, a general permission to, say, admire Robert E. Lee.
The "year zero" effect here could easily be the revival of Southern nationalism and to make secession a modern political goal.
You assume it was his wife. Maybe he was shtupping the wife of afellow officer. He seems the type.
Best comment ever heard from the Crack at 8:47.
Fact: the greatest strategist of WWII was von Manstein. This is the consensus of military historians and strategists who have studied the war. He was on the wrong side. He may well have been a rat bastard Nazi, I really don’t know, but he was a great general.
Fact: Patton thought Rommel worth learning from. “Rommel you magnificent bastard, I read your book.” But Patton was keen to destroy Rommel and his works. You can admit, admire, and learn from skill even as you deplore the possessor of that skill.
Most of the people who only sleep four hours a night take two hour naps in the afternoon,
Hagar said...
Colonel Robert E. Lee was a career U.S. Army officer and indeed would have been offered the command of the Union Army, but that he had left to go to Richmond one hour before Lincoln's messenger reached Arlington.
Lee knew that and did not make excuses. He just was caught between a rock and a hard place and made his choice.
Nope. Lincoln sent Francis P Blair to meet with Lee and Blair offered him the rank of major-general if he would stay loyal to the Union. Lee turned him down and later in the day met with Gen. Winfield Scott to tender his resignation.
Napoleon sent an army of 25,000 to restore slavery in Haiti. When he invaded Russia and Egypt, he did not free the serfs and slaves in those environs. The family of his wife Josephine owned the biggest sugar plantations in the West Indies.......Napoleon was a big hero of the left for many generations. Nowadays it's starting to dawn on them that he was a kind of proto-fascist, but still he gets less flack for his history regarding slavery tha, say, Thomas Jefferson.
I don’t think it’s even remotely possible for someone in the 21st century to completely understand the minds and motivations of 18th and 19th century people. And even by the standards of his day, Robert E. Lee seems to have been complex.
He runs 7-8 miles a day but there seems to be no limit to how much he can virtue-signal.
Lincoln had his virtues, but he wasn't such a shrewd judge of character. He married an emotionally labile woman who overspent and made scenes. He appointed a drunk to be his Vice President. He anointed a pretty young man who looked good on parade grounds and irresolute on battlefields to carry on the war. That very same General came closer to defeating Lincoln in election than to defeating Lee in battle. Altogether a very sorry choice to lead the Army of the Potomac.......For these reasons, I have recently decided to stop using Lincoln pennies. It's time we stopped honoring that flawed man.
Blogger RK said...
We think of our military personnel as brave men and women, etc. But when it comes to the very senior ranks, they're more often bureaucratic cowards protecting their own rice bowls.
Trust no one over O 6. They are all politicians. Especially the past 25 years.
General Casey after the Fort Hood massacre, "I certainly hope this does not affect our efforts at diversity."
Blogger William said...
Lincoln had his virtues, but he wasn't such a shrewd judge of character.
I don't know about that. Some one complained about his Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, who had a reputation as a bit of a scoundrel. When asked if he did not think Cameron would steal, Lincoln responded, "I do not think he would steal a red hot stove."
Edwin Stanton became Secretary of War in 1862.
Lee defined gallantry in defeat... That he fought on the wrong side
The man, the soldier, and the cause are separable. With this, even Hitler, Stalin, Mao et al have noteworthy features, if only for the people they represented.
Althouse said:
I clicked through to this because I'm opposed to the destruction of artwork for political purposes, but this isn't really artwork. The headline conned me. Dammit, McChrystal. "Prized Portrait" — spare me.
I clicked through to this to find out how bad the portrait was to get Ann so riled up.
But I see no portrait of any kind, prized or otherwise.
MacChrystal had a successful record in Afghanistan. Not that many generals can make such a claim. Obama relieved him of his command for saying some disloyal things--not to the country but to Obama. MacChrystal looked indiscreet, but Obama looked petty. Maybe now that MacChrystal has trashed his Robert E. Lee portrait, Obama can forgive him.
As contemptible an example of opportunistic virtue-signaling as any I have yet seen.
Go away, General. The only people who want to see you sell your honor for a mess of PC pottage are the commissars and cadres who enjoy watching men debase themselves. Good luck in getting the expected return for this from these people.
It's easy to condemn a man a century and a half later.
But if federal troops were to march over your property on their way to kill your neighbors and family members and destroy their homes and livelihood, you might not think it so easy to join them in the slaughter or to sit idly by. You might even think there is some obligation to defend them -- as well as be a bit annoyed at the notion of a nation warring against its own citizens.
buwaya: The "year zero" effect here could easily be the revival of Southern nationalism and to make secession a modern political goal.
The South is far too overrun with newcomers who have no attachment to (and often a lot of hostility toward) the regional history and culture for that to be plausible. And even the "heritage Southerners" of the sort who go in for public office seem eager to clamber aboard the Woke Wagon.
I think the "year zero" Jacobins are going to get reactions they're not counting on and are too stupid to see coming, but "Southern nationalism" won't be among them.
He is auditioning for the role of Wesley Clark.
Yes, he could have saved a lot of lives if he had joined the Union Army or just refused to serve.
This business of blaming Lee for the carnage of the Civil War is annoying and simply wrong.
Many, many people could have prevented the carnage with their own crucial decisions. The biggest example is Lincoln, who could simply have let the southern states secede. That was Horace Greeley's advice. "...if the Cotton States shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace.," he wrote in the New York Tribune.
http://www.ditext.com/bonner/greeley.html
That would have saved a hell of a lot more lives than a different Lee decision would have.
Does McChrystal have a portrait of Lincoln hanging in his home?
I slept only four hours last night, but that's because I had a lot of job anxiety.
On the plus side, I have never hung out with and blabbed drunkenly to asshole (dead) journalists.
Many, many people could have prevented the carnage with their own crucial decisions. The biggest example is Lincoln, who could simply have let the southern states secede. That was Horace Greeley's advice. "...if the Cotton States shall become satisfied that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace.," he wrote in the New York Tribune.
Excellent point. The same could, and has been, said about England's guarantee to Poland in 1939.
One problem is that there might have eventually been a war anyway since the Confederacy wanted to expand west and California was an ambition. They also had some designs on Mexico and Cuba, which might have been OK with me.
Is there a biography of Wallace? There should be, he was a fascinatingly complex man. There were depths to him.
Ken B, 10:06:
"You can admit, admire, and learn from skill even as you deplore the possessor of that skill."
Which reminds me of the thread on the recently departed Joachim Ronneberg. General Falkenhorst visited the severely damaged heavy water plant after the raid on Vemork and remarked, "This is the most splendid coup I have seen in this war.”
"I think it is difficult to remember the days when states were more important than the federal government."
I think that is a big part of it. At the end of the Revolutionary War (which the Lees prominently fought in), we had 13 independent former colonies, and now states. Despite significant differences, esp between north and south, they banded together for mutual protection against the rest of the world, and presumably esp the British. The alliance under the Articles of Confederation didn't work out, because the states were still too independent, so our Constitution was drafted and ratified. At that time, the states gave up as little power as they could to the central govt. Maybe 2-3.generations later, with our country's founding still fresh in the minds of many, it should be a surprise to no one that it was thought throughout much of the country, and esp the South, that a voluntary confederation of States could be undone simply by those States dissatisfied by the status quo just walking away. They tried, the noble experiment failed, and they would just rescind their voluntary joining of the Union and go their own way. Of course, Lincoln and the Republicans felt the other way, that the Union was more important than the individual States, and fought to, among other things, settle that question, which they did. The point here is that it was completely rational for Lee, coming from one of the First Families of Virginia, would chose to put his loyalty to Virginia before his loyalty to the Union. Not all Southerners did, of course, but many did, regardless of their views on slavery.
Not all Southerners did, of course, but many did, regardless of their views on slavery.
Also, it is forgotten that slave owning residents of Tennessee and Kentucky, among others, stayed with the Union.
That is why Andrew Johnson was Lincoln's VP in 1864.
I just discovered a Tennessee born ancestor who was a Union veteran. He did better than my two Illinois ancestors who both died in the war, He died in Arkansas in the 1890s.
Here is a biography of Wallace.
I haven't read it but you have a good point.
At the end of the Civil War, there was much concern that the South would continue guerrilla warfare after their military defeat. Lee's surrender and the terms given by Grant did much to reduce that risk. There was guerrilla warfare equivalent with organizations like the KKK but without Lee's gracious surrender and disavowal of further military action, it could have been worse. He basically told his army to go home and Joe Johnston followed suit in North Carolina after two weeks of negotiations. Sherman followed Grant's lead and issued ten days' rations to the hungry Confederate soldiers, as well as horses and mules for them to "insure a crop." He also ordered distribution of corn, meal, and flour to civilians throughout the South. Lee, Grant, Johnston, and Sherman knew that it was important to "win" the peace after winning the war. In some ways, this was the seed that grew into the Marshall Plan after WW2.
The modern democrats and antifa could learn much about losing graciously from Robert E. Lee. Maybe that's why they need to purge him form history.
@ NorthOfTheOneOhOne,
I thought I got my story of Winfield Scott's dismissal and Lincoln's offer to Lee from Sandburg's biography, but that bears out your account, so mine must have been from one of the more colorful, but perhaps less reliable authors.
However, we are in agreement that Lee was offered the command of the Union Army and that it was not an easy choice for him to refuse it.
Lee was no kind of a secessionist and in fact stated that if it had been left to him, he would have been more than happy to let all the slaves go if that would have saved the Union.
But the Federal Government had invaded his Home State, and in 1861, that was a bridge to far for him.
Blogger Jupiter said...
So what did he do with his balls? Did he throw them out too, or does he still have them in a little jar?
Manning or McCrystal?
McChrystal based his judgement of Lee on Lee's resigning his US Army commission which included his oath to Defend the Constitution and honor a loyalty to a State. That is hindsight, because the North's victory actually replaced the old Constitution.
Lee was not that smart as a General, but he was a Great Leader of men. He attacked the enemy. Until Grant out did Lee using his attacking method , and waited at Petersburg until Sherman won at Jonesboro.
OTOH, the anecdote may also be true, and Lincoln made a last try at getting the best man for the job - a known competent military officer and a Lee of Virginia, which would have been a serious political blow to the "secesh."
Lee will be remembered as a historically significant figure, and a man who had some elements of greatness and some serious flaws but whose life can teach us important lessons about the good and the bad, when McChrystal is not even a footnote in specialized histories.
Sherman got into a serious spat with Stanton over his generous terms to Johnston.
Stanton was a zealot and, after Lincoln;'s assassination, basically took over the government. We will never know what difference it might have made if Grant and Sherman's conciliatory treatment had continued.
Stanton flooded the south with carpet baggers and Nathan Bedford Forrest retaliated with the KKK.
As late as 1890, most Republicans in the south were black but Wilson put an end to that.
Someone pointed out that the KKK revived in the 1920s but made no connection with Wilson.
By chance and out of boredom this past weekend I watched "War Machine" on Netflix. It's a thinly veiled account of McCyrstal's time in Afghanistan - specifically the circumstances leading up to his dismissal.
Loathe though I am to make judgements of a man based on a fictionalized account, Brad Pitt's take on him was that he was a singleminded, unpersuadable, awkward, flinty and ambitious General. I suppose that's a pretty apt description of most of them. Pitt's take though was comedic. The way he moved was exaggerated and affected. He usually had a quizzical look on his face. He said inappropriate things that were voiced in military hyperbole.
Can't really recommend the movie, but one interesting thing I learned was that his aide de camp was Michael Flynn, who doesn't come across well either.
Lee was not that smart as a General, but he was a Great Leader of men. He attacked the enemy.
Lee was fortunate in his opponents. McClellan and Hooker and Burnside were all second rate.
Jackson was Lee's right arm until Chancellorsville. After that he made mistakes, his worst was at Gettysburg.
Meade defeated him at Gettysburg but failed to pursue, probably not possible.
Grant was a slugger in Virginia and lost huge numbers of men.
Sherman was the nest Union general after Vicksburg,
Joe Johnston said of Sherman's army, "There has been no such army since Julius Caesar."
Lee was a genius, and McChrystal is a pussy.
I didn't watch the interview, but my very first thought on hearing this bit about the Lee painting was that the former general was planning to run for office as a Democrat.
From here, FWIW: https://www.mylife.com/anne-mcchrystal/e519349683780
Summary
Anne McChrystal is 63 years old and was born on 1/7/1955. Currently, she lives in Alexandria, VA; and previously lived in Fort Bragg, NC, Fort McNair, DC and Fort Benning, GA. Sometimes Anne goes by various nicknames including Anne Corcoran Mc Chrystal and Ann Mcchrystal. Her ethnicity is Caucasian, whose political affiliation is currently a registered Democrat; and religious views are listed as Christian. Anne is now married. Other family members and associates include Anne Mcferren. She has a reported annual income of $100,000 - $149,999 and a current net worth value of less than $1.....
Birthday: 1/7/1955
Political Party: Democrat
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Religion: Christian
Income: $100 - $149,999
Net Worth: Less than $1
Relationship: Married
Kids: Info Pending...
It would have meant a lot more if he had done it in secret.
LOL. Good work General. Is your high horse named Travelled?
Did McChrystal keep his old copies of Rolling Stone?
Meade defeated him at Gettysburg but failed to pursue, probably not possible.
More than one historian has speculated that Meade failed to counterattack after Pickett’s charge because he found it too hard to believe that he had actually beaten Lee and his army.
Grant said he knew Lee from the Mexican War and thought him a good man and a good officer, but not 10 foot tall, and Grant thought he could take him.
Which he did.
Lee ran the Army of Northern Virginia while Grant ran his own Army of the Potomac and also directed the Army of Cumberland, the Army of the West, and Sherman's Corps.
There was more to Grant than he generally is given credit for.
Levi Starks said, "It would have meant a lot more if he had done it in secret."
But then no one but the general would have known, and how much would we have known that it meant to him, and Althouse couldn't have blogged a story that wasn't, and how much would his anticipated supporters admire his new-found "wokeness" and wonder, Why not McCrystal for President? Yeah!
Grant actually let Meade run the Army of the Potomac but was the overall boss.
The western army was run by Sherman who asked for Grant's approval of his plans well in advance.
Sherman had three corps commanders, one of whom, MacPherson, was killed by rebel soldiers.
He left Thomas to deal with Hood while he set off across Georgia.
Johnston may have been the best Confederate general after Jackson died. Lee had the best time with his opponents.
Johnston had to deal with Sherman.
I just finished an excellent biography of Sherman called "Fierce Patriot" that goes a lot of good analysis of Sherman. The author also credits VD Hanson in his portrait of Sherman in "The Savior Generals."
Johnston and Sherman ended up as life long friends.
Some speculate that Lee's decision to fight for Virginia prolonged the war and needlessly cost thousands of lives. Of course, we don't know that. I believe the opposite may have been the result had Lee chosen to sit out the war or serve on the Union side.
As the defeat of the South's army was becoming increasingly inevitable, the leaders of the Confederacy did not want Lee to surrender. Instead, they wanted the army disbanded with the war to be continued by loosely affiliated units that would strike and harass Union forces and then melt back into civil society. Lee thought such tactics dishonorable and might provoke a scorched earth approach across the whole of the South.
It took Lee's commitment to honor and Lincoln's magnanimity, as implemented by Grant, for Lee's surrender to happen. But, it took Lee's status as an admired -- a loved -- leader for the surrender to be accepted by virtually all the rest of the Confederacy. Lee earned that admiration, respect, and love, on the battlefield. Had Lee not led the Army of Virginia, and had he not had success that he did, he'd not have been there at the surrender. Nor would he have had the status to prevent the South from experimenting with guerrilla war tactics. (Think the James/Younger gang x 1,000.) What lesser man could have fulfilled this destiny?
Did he make the wrong decision when he chose Virginia over the US? Yes! But, that decision, may have placed him on the path to do for his country and even greater service.
Lee was able to work with the president of the CSA and subordinated himself to Jeff Davis. McChrystal and his staff bad mouthed their CIC and were duly relieved. No matter how good McChrystal might have been he could accomplish nothing once forced into retirement. Lee held the Army of Northern Virginia together when almost anyone else would have given up in despair.
@Mike K Sherman was, perhaps, tactically the equal of Grant, but remember he was executing Grant's plan to end the war. While Grant very literally pinned down the most dangerous army (remember Longstreet had gone west to Chattanooga earlier in the war). Sherman was able, once past Atlanta, to proceed almost unopposed. The march itself was an incredible physical and logistical feat but there really was no organized opposition. Joe Johnstone may have been a good general - and he was when it came to maneuver and picking ground. HIs problem was that he was a bit like McClellan in his unwillingness to engage. The damage that Thomas did to Hood showed that Johnstone was right to recognize that his army was outclassed. Sherman might have pushed Johnstone all the way to Savannah had Johnstone not been relieved.
Also remember that Grant's objective was to destroy Lee's army, not free Richmond or Northern VA, but destroy Lee's Army. Everything he did from the Shenandoah to Appomattox had that as its objective. I am sure he would have gladly accepted Lee's surrender at any point from the Wilderness south.
Johnston and Sherman ended up as life long friends.
As did Longstreet and Grant.
Hagar makes the very good point that it was Grant's plan that coordinated the efforts that ended the war. Halleck served as his very effective chief of staff, but Grant had overall command of all theaters.
@DKWalser We have lost track of how important each state was, prior to the civil war, to its loyal sons and daughters. This was true in both the North and South.
Certainly our little discussion regarding Lee makes you marvel at the ignorance of the people that want to remove his statue or other reminders of him.
@William 10:27 You really need to do more reading on Lincoln. He was an extremely shrewd judge of character. Read Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
With all his faults McClellan ( and he had a wagon load) created the Army of the Potomac from whole cloth. He did not know how to use it , but he served a very useful purpose for Lincoln.. A lot of Lincoln's early personnel decisions were highly influenced by political necessity.
@Mike K Sherman was, perhaps, tactically the equal of Grant, but remember he was executing Grant's plan to end the war. While Grant very literally pinned down the most dangerous army (remember Longstreet had gone west to Chattanooga earlier in the war).
Several good points but that was Montgomery's argument in Normandy.
The book I linked has an excellent analysis that Sherman, for several reasons, did not want to be #1 and always preferred to be a "wingman." Grant was superior at Shiloh and Vicksburg, where he actually did a prolonged raid living off the country as Sherman did in Georgia. Only once did Sherman try to attack entrenched troops, at Chickasaw Mountain, and backed off.
Grant might have won the war earlier and with better underlings. His lieutenants in the Army of the Potomac were weak. Only Meade was the equal of Thomas.
Longstreet was a good general but after the war he was ostracized because he was a Republican.
We need more monuments to Longstreet.
McClellan was one of the greatest deputy commanders in the history of the Army. The problem was they kept putting him in command.
Grant is underrated, Lee is overrated. But Lee was still a great general.
Lee had an interesting reaction to the only Native American--an officer in the Union Army--at Appomattox:
'I am glad to see one real American here.'
McClellan was one of the greatest deputy commanders in the history of the Army. The problem was they kept putting him in command.
And he was a megalomaniac on top of it. Letters imply he'd have been happy to be a dictator.
He ran against Lincoln in 1864. Thankfully for all of us, he lost.
"Lee ordered Picket’s charge. That didn’t turn out very well for him. The risk he took on this decision was huge"
Longstreet certainly had problems with Lee after this.
Of course Lee isn't the cause or the blame for the Civil War, there's way too much else. Seems weird that there's a lot of excusing of the Southern side, though. The best thing would have been for the Southern leaders to realize they were coming to the end of their slaving train. England had made sure of that, and the trend of the 19th century was making it clear.
That slavery was the issue is shown in bleeding Kansas, the radical impact of John Brown on North and South, and the fact that the South could be its own nation now had it let go of slavery and thus received major support from England and a lot of others. England knew exactly what they'd be supporting if they threw their hat in and their politicians wouldn't have gone along.
With Lee, it's not the blame for the war, but the fact that his decision certainly did have a massive effect on how the war developed.
He made some bad decisions that got a lot of people killed.
Grant was the greatest general of the Civil War. Whether at Vicksburg, Chattanooga or his Northern Virginia campaign, he understood the strategic situation and implemented the operational orders to win. He led the final campaigns over the entire theatre of war.
The only time Grant was cheered in the field by the Army of the Potomac was after the repulse in the Wilderness. Grant was on horseback at a key road junction as Union troops pulled back from the Wilderness. The marching troops expected to reach the junction and be pointed north. Grant was taking them southeast to Spotsylvania to continue to fight. The Union columns cheered and cheered. Here was a general that wouldn't run and would take the army to victory.
McChrystal is lucky he didn’t serve in Vietnam. His troops would have fragged him. Petraeus, too.
There is nothing more phony than guys like McChrstal using words like ”honor.” They are like televangelists.
Doug said...
Lee was a genius, and McChrystal is a pussy.
10/24/18, 11:59 AM
Per Michael Yon, the ex-SF journalist, McChrystal is some kind of warrior monk and a "great killer" (his words, intended as praise), but apparently not the brain you want at the top.
Pretty much my assessment of McChrystal, too. Damn good man to have around ramrodding the staff and directing intelligence analysis and collection. But he shouldn't be the green-tabber. Not many men are great at both.
I've always gotten a thrill out of imagining that moment, after Longstreet had nearly pulled another 2nd Manassas and crushed the Union flank at the Wilderness and everybody knew it, when the word went out among the Union troops to execute a left face instead of a right face, and go right after Lee. It must have been an amazing moment.
Check out this very moving lecture about Lee's crisis at the Wilderness when he nearly got many of his guns overrun, along with his headquarters, and Longstreet's dramatic arrival. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh590o6zJNw
Michael,
Have you read Sherman's autobiography? Available free on Kindle. Interesting and well written.
I almost read Chernow's new bio of Grant recently. (portal) sample looked great and I've liked Chernow's other bios. I'll probably get to it eventually.
I decided to read Grant's own memoirs first. Like Sherman's interesting and well written. Only complaint is thet it ends in 1865. I would have liked to read his account of his presidency.
Otoh, he was dying and we are lucky he gog this far.
Growing up, mh father had a 10-15 volume set of Matthew Brady's photos of the war. I spent untold hours looking at them.
John Henry
1. I have read that, antebellum, it was “the United States are...” but that, ever after, it has been “the United States is....” The war unified the country.
2. That the South fought for “States’ Rights” is belied by the fact that the differences between the Federal and Confederate Constitutions are all about slavery.
3. States don’t have rights, anyway; they have powers. Only individuals have rights—and they have them independent of State.
Lee rarely slept more than two hours at a time. Always in a tent and on a wooden cot with no mattress during the entire war.
Lee was without a doubt the best General of the Civil War. Almost everyone, North or South, thought so after 2nd Bull Run, and everyone continued to think so, until well after the war.
After that the revisionists came and its been fashionable to say Grant or Sherman.
Sherman was a great strategist, but a mediocre battlefield commander. Kennesaw Mountain, Shiloh, and Chickasaw Bayou, come to mind.
Grant outnumbered Lee, sometimes 3-2 and usually 2-1. So, of course, he won. After almost 1 year of fighting and losing massive amounts of men.
As for Longstreet, he was a pretty good general -with a pen in his hand 30 years after the war.
If you want to see how good Longstreet was, look at his record in Tennessee and North Carolina, where he didn't have Lee there. There's a reason he ended up back with the ANV.
McChrystle reminds of Comey. Supposedly, an upright man of honor in a profession we think is full of conservatives.
Then it turns out they're actually preening liberal careerists - and 50% politician.
And how the hell does he eat one meal a day. If he jogs an hour day, he'd be packing away 2800 calories just to stay alive. that's one hell of a meal.
The closest the South came to winning the Civil War was not in Lee's campaign in Pennsylvania but rather in McClellan's campaign for President. If McClellan had won election, the South would have been allowed to secede. If Sherman had not taken Atlanta, that very well might have happened......McClellan was a "peace Democrat". He argued that anything we won by our efforts to preserve the Union were not worth the sacrifices we had made and were still to be made. It's an argument that can be made in any war, and it's a strong argument. It's a shame no one thought to advance it against Jefferson Davis,........Sherman and Sheridan used scorched earth tactics in their campaigns. Those tactics were meant to starve the opposing troops, but they also had the effect of starving the civilian populations. These same tactics were used by Sheridan and Sherman in their Indian campaigns. These tactics are called genocidal when applied to Indians but the bolts of God when directed at white southerners.
rcocean - I am not a revisionist, but Lee was second rate.
He knew what he needed to do to win and he didn't do it.
Before you get too offended - we both know that, maybe, he is, from a certain point of view, better than Grant - who did not know what he needed to do to win, but did it - but ...
there was not a single moment in the war where Lee made a small mistake that led to the loss. He was not a military victim of bad chances, a bad day of weather, an unexpected failure from the artillery officers, a wave of pneumonia in the infantry. No, it was his strategic vision that was the reason why he was second-rate. Not a mistake here, or a mistake there, or a little bit of bad luck here, or a little bit of bad luck there -
just the simple fact that the war was winnable for his side and he lost it for his side.
My best guess is that he was a one in a thousand (and it does not get better than that) strategic thinker, a one in a thousand tactical thinker, and on top of it a person with strong moral convictions and the kind of energy that only people who live decent lives can understand. However, despite these advantages, he grew up entitled, he grew up with a better vision of himself than was warranted by circumstances (the relevant circumstances being millions of people, among them really good Generals for the other cause, wanting him to die in disgrace, losing on a battlefield) - and so the grandson of military privilege, when faced with military challenges, failed, overwhelmed by the fact that being one in a thousand was not good enough. He did not die in disgrace, and although he did lose on several battlefields, the losses were never personal - he was never close enough to the enemy to get captured. But he lost, and if he were a first rate general, he would not have lost.
Just my opinion. I am sure that, if Lee had met me, he would have had just as low down and nasty an opinion of my skills as you think I do of his.
Also, McChrystal is a disgrace. You kind of knew, when he sucked up to Rolling Stone in Kabul hotel rooms while his soldiers were out there fighting in cold dark dusty Central Asian battlefields, that he was no Robert E. Lee. We kind of knew it then, and we certainly know it now.
just the simple fact that the war was winnable for his side and he lost it for his side.
I'm not sure how to respond. The other Big Confederate Army - the Army of Tennessee, got its ass kicked from Shiloh to NC. Its only big victory occurred at Chickamauga, when the Confederates attacked a spot in the Union line PRECISELY at the moment a Union general mistakenly took his unit out of the line.
Meanwhile, the Army of Northern VA - beat larger Union armies at 7 Days, 2nd bull Run, and Chancellorville, beat off a Union attack at Frederickburg, and came within an ace of wining the whole shooting match at Gettysburg. Lee with his smaller army had the Union so terrified the Union, he invaded the North twice, and forced the North to keep back huge numbers of troops to defend Washington and Maryland.
Lee had the best battlefield record of the Civil War. By 1865, everyone knew he was the best General, which he why the Confederate Congress FORCED Jefferson Davis to make him Commander in Chief.
As for Grant, he was taken by surprise at Shiloh and almost lost his entire army. He would've been sacked, except he had friends in high places. He took forever to take Vicksburg, and he won at Chattanooga because the Union troops ignored his orders to halt, and ON THEIR OWN, advanced up Missionary Ridge and broke Bragg's Center.
The Overland campaign was a bloody mess, with Grant losing 2 men for Lee's one. And after bleeding the AoP white, he ended up in front of Richmond, where McClellan had been 2 years before. Despite outnumbering Lee 2-1, he did almost nothing from July 1864-March 1865. He made occasional attacks on Richmond or the Confederate lines, but they all failed.
Luckily for Grant, Sherman had come up with the "march to the sea" AND Jeff Davis and John Bell Hood decided to go Kamikaze with the Army of Tennessee. And all's well that ends well.
rcocean, that was a good response. I was not questioning your ability to assess Lee's skills as a general. Obviously you know what you are talking about.
God looks down on the last 70 or 80 generations of generals and they all are wanting in one way or another.
So, I take it as a given that the ability to win a winnable war without making some kind of mistake is vanishingly rare, and obviously, Lee did not have it.
My best guess is that he grew up slightly too proud of himself (the grandson of a Revolutionary War hero, which is fine .... but the best generals have not spent their youth picturing themselves as heroes like their granddaddies were). And, even if you are as good at being a General, you are not going to be assured of winning a winnable war unless you have lived your life seeing yourself as a possible sergeant, as someone who would be happiest as a company commander, or even as a humble soldier, dreaming of life in peacetime, when war is forgotten and one is just raising one's family. Lee, from that point of view, lacked the necessary humility simply -maybe- because of his illustrious ancestry. If his grandfather was, say, my grandfather's grandfather, a simple cavalry NCO, Lee and the Confederates might have achieved victory (and the victorious Lee may have been more magnanimous in victory than Lincoln's Republicans were - but that is another story).
Anyway, imagine we are having this conversation late at night, early in our military careers, when we are unhappily serving as instructors at West Point or some other Academy, and we would rather be at some armor test ground or commanding the crew of some ship, somewhere east of Norfolk. Robert E. Lee, if such things were possible, would be happy to listen in, and might be eager to say that I am right, or that you are right, and to add some details that you or I missed.
Stanley McChrystal, meanwhile, would rather be writing pulp words for the Atlantic. My best guess is he writes that nonsense to impress some young woman. He should be better than that.
the grandson of a Revolutionary War hero,
SON of Light Horse Harry Lee. Putting the Gen in genealogy.
William said...
Lincoln had his virtues, but he wasn't such a shrewd judge of character. He married an emotionally labile woman who overspent and made scenes. He appointed a drunk to be his Vice President. He anointed a pretty young man who looked good on parade grounds and irresolute on battlefields to carry on the war. That very same General came closer to defeating Lincoln in election than to defeating Lee in battle. Altogether a very sorry choice to lead the Army of the Potomac.......For these reasons, I have recently decided to stop using Lincoln pennies. It's time we stopped honoring that flawed man.
Ha! You do realize you're talking about human beings, trapped in the amber of history, right? Lincoln married "up" but it was she (much less than he) who had no idea the maelstrom that would bring with it - or the sacrifice. That she became unstable is something he coped with admirably, but others took advantage of, just as they do today. I got a lot of sympathy for a man trapped in that position. Especially while it's he - her husband - conducting the war that, in part, is driving her crazy.
I always feel pretentious lecturing so I won't - I'm an artist, Ann's the artist/professor, and neither of us are Lincoln when it comes to speaking - but, what I want to say is, we're all doing the best we can with what little we have. That's why Lincoln's on the penny. (Or wannabe Goddesses end up with Too $hort.) That the greatest amongst us are "flawed" should be expected by now. Where they're flawed, and how they handle it, defines their character. And, if Lincoln trusted too much, I'll take that - over the myriad of other choices I can think of? - any day. He also learned. And he paid for what he did with that knowledge. Hell, Man, if we can't honor Lincoln, then, who?
I'm telling y'all: Every time I hear someone say we don't need anymore movies about slavery, I feel like my head will explode. No - we need a LOT more - from every possible angle imaginable, because it ain't real to people. It's a cartoon, with heroes and villains, and not this same life, featuring everything under the sun.
As a General himself, McChrystal should know it, which is what makes his actions - and, especially, writing about it - so bizarre.
You mean when Longstreet took advantage of a small tactical error at Chickamauga and broke the Federal line destroying the army of the Tennessee. If Bragg had not been Bragg this one act could have brought the war to Chicago. And possibly resulted in a negotiated peace in the political environment of the time.
Rcocean I did not full read your series of comments, just the one about Longstreet being poor and lying in writing after the war. Longstreet was considered for command in the West to replace Bragg but Davis was not capable of making good decisions. The South had considerable power left in the West after Atlanta and if Longstreet had taken a Corps to threaten Indianapolis instead of Hood making Kamakaze assaults on Nashville Longstreet and Forrest may have changed things. I a glad this did not happen. Jackson’s death resulted in stalemate in the east but Jackson would have not been Jackson without Lee.
Btw Grant having friends in high places that saved him is hard to fathom. Lincoln came around to support him later after Halleck savaged him.
Sorry for over commenting.
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