cards of great historical figures

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I can't remember where I read it, but there's a probably fictionalized exchange between Lee and Longstreet on the evening before the final day of Gettysburg. Lee says to Longstreet, if Meade is still there (meaning his position on the high ground) in the morning, I shall attack him. Longstreet replies, if Meade is still there in the morning, it's because he wants to be. Then Longstreet tries to persuade Lee to withdraw and retreat, but Lee refuses -- perhaps believing Jackson, had he lived, would have urged an attack.

I never did read Douglas Southall Freeman, it just seemed too long.

At least one account I have read suggests Lee did not fully appreciate what was happening in the battle, when Pickett was driven back Lee allegedly said to him, General, rally your diviision, to which Pickett replied, General, I have no division.

Both those scenes are from The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, and subsequently the Gettysburg film version of it. Shaara’s novel is heavily based on Longstreet’s memoirs. I really like the book and the epic movie. His son expanded into a career of similar novels, most of which are very well done too.

Freeman’s 4 volume biography of Lee is definitely hagiographic, though Freeman was an excellent historian and his sourcing and documentation is good. He includes too many anecdotes running in old Virginian families, though he does always cites the source and notes several times that anecdotes are not really verifiable. His bias is very much in favor of Lee and of Washington (who he also wrote a big biography on) and he does a good job debunking several myths. It is by far the best Lee biography out there even with the unfortunate hagiography; I’ve yet to find one without a heavy bias one way or the other and Freeman’s detail is unmatched by anyone else. It’s hard to find these days in its original form, I believe it’s been several decades since it was reprinted unabridged. I had to pay $75 for my set.

Lee’s Lieutenants, the 3 volume follow up on the commanders of the Army of Northern Virginia is the better work and, in my personal opinion, a masterpiece of historical writing. It’s much less hagiographic as it isn’t about Lee himself, and his weighing of the weaknesses and strengths of division and corps commanders as the war goes on is the best work of its kind still and always fair. Longstreet and Jackson shine when the facts support that and come for heavy criticism when the facts support that. A classic on leadership in general, and military history, if one has the patience to read the behemoth. It too is now published as a one volume abridgment but the uncut version was published through at least the 1980’s and is easy to find.

EDIT: some of the reprintings and the abridgments remove the footnotes that contain a ton of information on his sourcing. A lot of the contemporary academic attacks on Freeman evidently did not have the uncut originals or chose to ignore them.

EDIT 2: sorry for hijacking off cards

[Peter_Spaeth]

Well, Freeman was a Virginian and if I recall his father was in Lee's army, so I guess if he was biased towards Lee it's understandable. I grew up in Northern Virginia in the 60s and a lot of stuff was named for Lee, not sure how much of it the woke movement has now changed.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Well, Freeman was a Virginian and if I recall his father was in Lee's army, so I guess if he was biased towards Lee it's understandable. I grew up in Northern Virginia in the 60s and a lot of stuff was named for Lee, not sure how much of it the woke movement has now changed.

He talks about his Virginian roots in the Introduction off the bat, but you can tell even without him saying it lol. I tend to agree with the 20th century thought that you cannot fully remove yourself from what you are looking at, but I also agree with the 19th century German theory that objectivity should always be the goal. I wish the 5% that's hagiography had been cut out, but I really wish other historians dived into their subjects with the same passion and depth he did. Producing a 4 volume history work and a 3 volume supplemental followup is unthinkable now to a mainstream publisher.

I don't want to get to far into wokeism before people go nuts and this turns into an outrage thread, but I will never understand how Lee and Jackson are held as the symbols of things they had little involvement in and mixed records with for so many of my fellow citizens today. I am simultaneously against the hagiography. It's a shame we can't stick to facts for events within the last ~150 years.

[G1911]

And back to cards, I like the Chrome parallels of the Heritage series, especially the founders:

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

He talks about his Virginian roots in the Introduction off the bat, but you can tell even without him saying it lol. I tend to agree with the 20th century thought that you cannot fully remove yourself from what you are looking at, but I also agree with the 19th century German theory that objectivity should always be the goal. I wish the 5% that's hagiography had been cut out, but I really wish other historians dived into their subjects with the same passion and depth he did. Producing a 4 volume history work and a 3 volume supplemental followup is unthinkable now to a mainstream publisher.

I don't want to get to far into wokeism before people go nuts and this turns into an outrage thread, but I will never understand how Lee and Jackson are held as the symbols of things they had little involvement in and mixed records with for so many of my fellow citizens today. I am simultaneously against the hagiography. It's a shame we can't stick to facts for events within the last ~150 years.

When San Francisco renamed a school named for Abraham Lincoln because of his involvement in the Black Hawk War, I got off the fence and decided all this symbolic stuff really wasn't helpful to solving the very serious issues out there. The Confederate flag, OK I get that.

[Peter_Spaeth]

It's hard to know how to view Lee IMO. On the one hand, it's easy -- he was a traitor to his country; rather than serving it he led an army against it and worse fought to uphold slavery. On the other hand, there has always been this romantic notion of the tormented warrior reluctantly siding with his beloved Virginia, and doubtless too the Civil War was far more complex than free vs. slave states and the South's grievances were not necessarily all illegitimate.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

It's hard to know how to view Lee IMO. On the one hand, it's easy -- he was a traitor to his country; rather than serving it he led an army against it and worse fought to uphold slavery. On the other hand, there has always been this romantic notion of the tormented warrior reluctantly siding with his beloved Virginia, and doubtless too the Civil War was far more complex than free vs. slave states and the South's grievances were not necessarily all illegitimate.

At the risk of getting into !@#$% with the ideologues....

Lee wasn't exactly the proponent of slavery he is cast as today. He said he would eliminate it if he could and prevent the war. Little survives of his own ownership as a young man, the Lee's were prominent as a military family but not a wealthy one. It seems he owned a few he had no use for, as a military man, from an inheritance. What actually happened to them does not seem to survive in the record, as I recall. They must have been rented out for some time but that they just disappear later would suggest they eventually were either freed or sold. The slaves at Arlington were owned by his father in law, not him or his wife (often said today to be his wife's). He left his army headquarters in the 1862-1863 winter partially to file the paperwork to free his father-in-laws slaves pursuant to his will as the executor.

There is certainly a criticism of Lee here. But that criticism is that he was not a man ahead of his time. Lee was never a boat rocker in his social world. From today's view, he should have been. He was certainly racist, no moreso than men of his class and time in Virginia, but also not much less so, maybe a little. Lee was not a proponent of the institution he is now seen as the symbol of by the left, and had minimal involvement with it. It seems to have not been an issue he kept in mind much at all.

My personal opinion is that the traitor tag doesn't mean much for revolutionaries. Washington betrayed his country too by the exact same standard. He picked his state over the feds, after Lincoln raised an army to invade his homeland, just as Washington picked the colonies he lived in instead of the greater State ruling them. A fellow is a patriot when we judge his revolution right, a traitor when we judge his revolution wrong. A revolutionary is by definition a traitor. Lee himself saw it as defensive, he didn't want to do it but he could not join an invasion of his home and so did the obvious. I think most in that situation would, really. If the other states raised an army to invade my state, I don't see how I would join them even though I despise my state's corrupt government and radicalism. My friends and family are still here, it is my homeland. I have a hard time holding a man wrong for this choice. I find it easy to despise, say, the South Carolina planters for whom the slavery issue was the driver, but the North's tariff punishment of the South pushing them to leave surely bears some responsibility too. The South left, and aimed to go peacefully, but the North chose to make it a war of conquest. Raising 100,000 men to invade others, no matter how just the ones raising that army see it, will make the people who live in that place tend to prefer to fight against them rather than for. This seems to me natural more than an issue for political narratives.

History as political narrative of the now is popular everywhere, and usually total bunk, oft absurd, always misused. People of the past did bad things by our standards, we can still look at what happened and why, we can look at how values have changed and ask if they are good (in the particular example of slavery, the answer here is obvious, but am I speaking of a greater context of all history), we can look at the virtues and we can admire Lee's gentlemanly virtue, Grant's grace and honor in victory, Cato's dedication to the republic, Washington's military brilliance, Franklin's wit and practical intellect, Aristotle's genius; slave owners all who we can criticize for their acceptance or even advocacy of a thing we see as wrong and unnatural (which I agree with; I just don't see my moral views as eternal truth).

[Peter_Spaeth]

As has been said, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

The whole thing was so aptly summed up in the exchange between Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun back I think in the 1830s, and I think this one actually happened.

Jackson, at a dinner, but directly addressing himself to Calhoun: Our federal union. It must be preserved.

Calhoun: The union, next to our liberty, the most dear.

And now we are removing Calhoun's name from dorms.

I had a teacher way back in the day who was young then but became a well=known Civil War scholar. His theory was that it was what he called a preemptive counterrevolution by the South.