Current Events > Why is Robert E Lee so overrated

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If he was such a great general than he wouldn't have lost derp when his objective was to defend. The confederates were so skilled at war that they couldn't invade Washington D.C which was literally across the street. I don't get what I'm missing here?

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Southern mythologizing and the general over-emphasizing of the eastern theatre of the Civil War.

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He was a good general, just not the type that the Confederates needed if they were going to win.

That goes for pretty much all the confederate generals. They wanted to beat the union army into submission. But they fucked up their economy before / early in the war so a fight of attrition was going to be hard.

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It's the same people who think Christopher Columbus was a good person

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Probably similar to the reasons Tecumseh Sherman isn't recognized as a sadistic war criminal, in the north anyway.

As the war went on, he slowly regressed from doing incredibly tactical moves to basically just ordering his troops to march straight at the union. And lets be honest, when he was facing off against the likes of McClellan, he wasn't exactly going up against the best and brightest.

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The confederacy was a losing position even if you don't account their leadership

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KILBOTz posted...

They wanted to beat the union army into submission

false, they wanted to hold out long enough to get enough international support so they could force the union into a situation where they could parlay into getting independence. Remember the north had ~4x the population of the south at the time, there was no real way for them to slug it out long term with the more industrialized and well funded north.

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JBaLLEN66 posted...

If he was such a great general than he wouldn't have lost derp when his objective was to defend. The confederates were so skilled at war that they couldn't invade Washington D.C which was literally across the street. I don't get what I'm missing here?

he couldnt win because his army was too small

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pogo_rabid posted...

false, they wanted to hold out long enough to get enough international support so they could force the union into a situation where they could parlay into getting independence.

"Wait until America gets bored and goes home" has worked at least twice since then.

well, for one he's the primary reason we didn't have decades of gorilla warfare all throughout the south at the end of the civil war. many of the other southern leaders were pushing for it. its the only reason off hand i can think of to respect him.

the classical reason brought up is that he took an inferior army from a technological standpoint and won a bunch of battles against superior forces, though mostly that had to do with truly shit generals in the northern army.

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KILBOTz posted...

He was a good general, just not the type that the Confederates needed if they were going to win.

That goes for pretty much all the confederate generals. They wanted to beat the union army into submission. But they fucked up their economy before / early in the war so a fight of attrition was going to be hard.

The South could never win a war of attrition against an enemy that had a larger population and a larger economic and industrial base than they did.
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He was a gentlemun, suh.

It's not about racism. It's about preserving history. That's why we erected a bunch of statues in protest of the Civil Rights movement. #I'mNotRacistButt

<_<

UnholyMudcrab posted...

The South could never win a war of attrition against an enemy that had a larger population and a larger economic and industrial base than they did.

uh, a war of attrition is exactly how smaller less economical forces historically have beaten larger forces. See: american revolutionary war, vietnam, afghanistan (2x) etc. make them come to your land, have a bend but dont break strategy, live to fight another day, make it expensive for the opponent.

sure it comes at really high costs but its pretty much only chance they ever had.

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sabrestorm posted...

he couldnt win because his army was too small

but great generals do not make excuses. This dude literally has statues in Louisiana

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Questionmarktarius posted...

Probably similar to the reasons Tecumseh Sherman isn't recognized as a sadistic war criminal, in the north anyway.

Doesn't help that the dude looked like a insane hobo.



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KILBOTz posted...

uh, a war of attrition is exactly how smaller less economical forces historically have beaten larger forces. See: american revolutionary war, vietnam, afghanistan (2x) etc. make them come to your land, have a bend but dont break strategy, live to fight another day, make it expensive for the opponent.

sure it comes at really high costs but its pretty much only chance they ever had.

Southern Sympathizers have a plethora of excuses for why they couldn't win the war, but their army was efficient af though

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well when you're fighting for the preservation of slavery and everyone around you is an uneducated racist you don't exactly have a lot of role models to choose from.

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I told my summer field program class that REL was on the wrong side of the civil war and they about dragged me down to their stepdaddys moonshine still to take care of me.

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Questionmarktarius posted...

"Wait until America gets bored and goes home" has worked at least twice since then.

If you look at the general resolutions to wars at the time, it's pretty standard. I mean just look at europe and the whole Napoleonic era.

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PrettyBoyFloyd posted...

Doesn't help that the dude looked like a insane hobo.

No wonder the Union won. We had Darkseid on our team.

monkmith posted...

well, for one he's the primary reason we didn't have decades of gorilla warfare all throughout the south at the end of the civil war. many of the other southern leaders were pushing for it. its the only reason off hand i can think of to respect him.

the classical reason brought up is that he took an inferior army from a technological standpoint and won a bunch of battles against superior forces, though mostly that had to do with truly shit generals in the northern army.

And good subordinate generals in the south. As the war goes on the shitty commanders in the north eventually get killed or fired allowing the good officers to rise to higher positions whereas in the south the more competent officers get killed throughout the war and the confederacy has very few people to replace them.

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pogo_rabid posted...

false, they wanted to hold out long enough to get enough international support so they could force the union into a situation where they could parlay into getting independence. Remember the north had ~4x the population of the south at the time, there was no real way for them to slug it out long term with the more industrialized and well funded north.

They were looking for large wins on the battlefield to sway international opinion. Gettysburg happened because the CSA was on the offensive. They never should have stepped foot into union territory.

They could have gone for other ways to sway opinion but their diplomats sucked, their government was a joke with no centralization or power. if they had a working government with a meritocratic appointments and didn't waste the early war holding off exports before the union blockade happened, they would have had a much better chance than what they did.

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why did poor Whites fight and die so rich Whites could keep free labor rather than fill a poor White man's pocket with a living wage?

you'd think a tradition of getting suckered into rich people's problems would have been broken by now, but Southerners dug their heels in the dirt and made it part of their heritage.
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RickyTheBAWSE posted...

why did poor Whites fight and die so rich Whites could keep free labor rather than fill a poor White man's pocket with a living wage?

you'd think a tradition of getting suckered into rich people's problems would have been broken by now, but Southerners dug their heels in the dirt and made it part of their heritage.

Propaganda.

The whole pre-civil war people viewed themselves first as a citizen of their state, then the US. South Carolina secedes in December 1860 before Lincoln even takes office. First shot fired was April 12 1861. At that point only the deep south had seceded. April 15 Lincoln calls for 75k troops. Then the border states start seceding.

This is all spun in the south that South Carolina was merely trying to reclaim their rightful territory. So this became the war of northern aggression. Average CSA soldier felt they were fighting for their home and right of self determination, not slavery.

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RickyTheBAWSE posted...

why did poor Whites fight and die so rich Whites could keep free labor rather than fill a poor White man's pocket with a living wage?

you'd think a tradition of getting suckered into rich people's problems would have been broken by now, but Southerners dug their heels in the dirt and made it part of their heritage.

People just simply fight for the side they are on.

Like why do some people fight for the U.S. when they hate it?

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People also forget that conscription was a thing.

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FortuneCookie posted...

No wonder the Union won. We had Darkseid on our team.

This is definitely a "I'm gonna burn your whole fucking city down" look.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Probably similar to the reasons Tecumseh Sherman isn't recognized as a sadistic war criminal, in the north anyway.

He is down here

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IDK. I guess racists and redhats need a hero, and Lee wasn't the biggest lover on a side composed entirely of lovers.

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Questionmarktarius posted...

This is definitely a "I'm gonna burn your whole fucking city down" look.

Lol such an accurate description

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That's nothing.

There's a Robert E Lee waifu you can fuck.

Yeah

Lee was a decent general but his success at the start of the war was more due to Union foolishness than his own school.

Once Grant took over, Lee was fucked. Grant was twice the general Lee was and it's kinda insane that Southerners deny this and psuedo religiously deify and worship Lee

He was a decent general but a grotesque man and really not someone to be proud of/celebrated or remembered historically. He's a blight on US history.

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Eab1990 posted...

There's a Robert E Lee waifu you can fuck.

Grant is still a rampant alcoholic though, right?

Smackems posted...

He is down here

If anything Sherman was too gentle on the south.

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YugiNoob posted...

Lol such an accurate description

this would be more accurate



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pogo_rabid posted...

this would be more accurate

Were that Grant, the bottles would all be empty.

KILBOTz posted...

Propaganda.

The whole pre-civil war people viewed themselves first as a citizen of their state, then the US. South Carolina secedes in December 1860 before Lincoln even takes office. First shot fired was April 12 1861. At that point only the deep south had seceded. April 15 Lincoln calls for 75k troops. Then the border states start seceding.

This is all spun in the south that South Carolina was merely trying to reclaim their rightful territory. So this became the war of northern aggression. Average CSA soldier felt they were fighting for their home and right of self determination, not slavery.

KILBOTz posted...

Propaganda.

The whole pre-civil war people viewed themselves first as a citizen of their state, then the US. South Carolina secedes in December 1860 before Lincoln even takes office. First shot fired was April 12 1861. At that point only the deep south had seceded. April 15 Lincoln calls for 75k troops. Then the border states start seceding.

This is all spun in the south that South Carolina was merely trying to reclaim their rightful territory. So this became the war of northern aggression. Average CSA soldier felt they were fighting for their home and right of self determination, not slavery.

This simply isn't true.

We see from letters home, diaries, newspapers, voting habbits etc all the time that soldiers in the South were fully aware that they were fighting for slavery and proud of it.

Yes the "War of Northern Aggression, defend our homes." shit was there too but that was the side note. They knew the war was about slavery, they never denied it. There's a reason soldiers were 40% more likely to own slaves than the general populus.

They feared ending slavery would destroy their economy, lead to serville inserruection, would make them "not white anymore" and just plain didn't like black people.

This whole idea that Johnny Reb simply was unaware of what slavery was and fought over Taxes and States Rights is known as the Lost Cause and while popular is a complete myth not backed by any historical sources.

Hell just a glance at what happened to black dudes in the South during post war reclamation alone disproves the whole "It wasn't about slavery for the average soldier" claims

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Questionmarktarius posted...

Were that Grant, the bottles would all be empty.

the picture was taken early in the morning

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pogo_rabid posted...

the picture was taken early in the morning

Still though, Grant.
That's just breakfast.

Like the Dems of Today. The Republicans of their era were too soft on the traitorous assholes. They let them make this Lost Cause narrative that many still live by.

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UnholyMudcrab posted...

The South could never win a war of attrition against an enemy that had a larger population and a larger economic and industrial base than they did.

It wasn't about winning.

IT was about keeping the conflict ongoing and making it so costly and unpopular for the North that they simply gave up. And it could have worked. The war was divisive and expensive up North. Especially once they started a draft. Most of the North was racist and didn't want to die to end slavery.

Worth noting this is how the US beat the British in the revolutionary war and how the Taliban just beat the US recently. Also how the Viet Cong beat the US.

You don't have to conquer your opponent to beat them. Just keep it going until they give up. All you need is more passion.

And the Confederacy had more passion than the Union. They easily could have "Won" the civil war in respect to becoming a seperate nation.

It wasn't until Grant stepped up and went "Fuck it, let's just break their fucking back" that they truly were fucked.

And as seen in this topic, people call Sherman a war criminal for that tactic. Even though his march was pretty much a conventional military advance done in pretty much every European war before, during or for a century after.

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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/
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RickyTheBAWSE posted...

why did poor Whites fight and die so rich Whites could keep free labor rather than fill a poor White man's pocket with a living wage?

you'd think a tradition of getting suckered into rich people's problems would have been broken by now, but Southerners dug their heels in the dirt and made it part of their heritage.

The Confederacy, including the president Jefferson Davis and the VP Alexander Stephens and hundreds of pamphleteers sold the idea of "White privilege". They coined the term.

Even if you didn't own slaves, you could benefit from being of the same skin tone of those who did and be de jure above the black race. That is how slaveowners got non slave owning whites to fight for them.

As LBJ put it:

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

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brestugo posted...

As LBJ put it:

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

Schadenfreude and scapegoats are easy politics. If anything, that's how politics was invented.

ScazarMeltex posted...

If anything Sherman was too gentle on the south.

What an opinion. Special

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brestugo posted...

The Confederacy, including the president Jefferson Davis and the VP Alexander Stephens and hundreds of pamphleteers sold the idea of "White privilege". They coined the term.

Even if you didn't own slaves, you could benefit from being of the same skin tone of those who did and be de jure above the black race. That is how slaveowners got non slave owning whites to fight for them.

As LBJ put it:

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

Exactly

People today legitimately don't seem to comprehend how people at the time, especially in the south viewed black people.

They saw them as inferior and ending slavery was going against God's plan. Even poor hard worker rural farmers would go off and fight and die to defend slavery.

Unintentionally great quote to sum this up from Howell Cobb:

"The proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began... You cannot make soldiers of slaves, nor slaves of soldiers... The day you make soldiers of [Negroes] is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong."

This was his argument for slavery being right... When the Confederacy was getting it's ass kicked and out of desperation was considering letting black people be soldiers.

He just literally couldn't see that his theory of slavery was wrong LITERALLY as the Confederacy were losing and aware of it, against an army made up of about 10% black dudes.

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UnfairRepresent posted...

This simply isn't true.

We see from letters home, diaries, newspapers, voting habbits etc all the time that soldiers in the South were fully aware that they were fighting for slavery and proud of it.

Yes the "War of Northern Aggression, defend our homes." shit was there too but that was the side note. They knew the war was about slavery, they never denied it. There's a reason soldiers were 40% more likely to own slaves than the general populus.

They feared ending slavery would destroy their economy, lead to serville inserruection, would make them "not white anymore" and just plain didn't like black people.

This whole idea that Johnny Reb simply was unaware of what slavery was and fought over Taxes and States Rights is known as the Lost Cause and while popular is a complete myth not backed by any historical sources.

Hell just a glance at what happened to black dudes in the South during post war reclamation alone disproves the whole "It wasn't about slavery for the average soldier" claims

Sure CSA soldiers knew that for the nation it was about slavery. but they didn't write about it all that often in their letters. Union soldiers wrote about slavery much more often, and within the CSA those that owned slaves were far more likely to write about it than those that didn't. And I believe the 40% number is for volunteers, not total percent of CSA soldiers.

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KILBOTz posted...

Sure CSA soldiers knew that for the nation it was about slavery. but they didn't write about it all that often in their letters. Union soldiers wrote about slavery much more often, and within the CSA those that owned slaves were far more likely to write about it than those that didn't. And I believe the 40% number is for volunteers, not total percent of CSA soldiers.

Just stop.

Everyone knew what they were fighting for.

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Smackems posted...

What an opinion. Special

You can make an argument that he's right.

At the start of the war, Sherman showed tremedous restraint towards the South. He even returned escaped slaves to their masters and only fought soldiers. He believed that the Southern people weren't that pro-slavery and loved the Union. That they would be happy to end the war ASAP.

Years of war and suffering changed his opinion and basically broke him into being ruthless.

But he never targeted civilian targers, he targeted raillines and business ventures. Several other generals on both sides did the same thing, you don't hear much about Grierson being a war criminal. (Hell if you're into whataboutism, Fort Pillow was way worse than anything Union folk did)

And while he sacked a lot of Atlanta's industry, the fires were actually started by fleeing confederates scuttling resources so the Union couldn't take them.

And the strategy worked. The confederacy lost it;s ability to get reinforcements, lost food supplies and suffered immense dessertions. Sometimes having to impose stronger picket guards at the rear of their armies to prevent dessertions than the front to defend from the Union.

Really all Sherman and Grant did was succeed at the same strategies and tactics used by everyone in warfare (including the Confederacy) the idea that it was some kind of strangely brutal and unusual war crime of mass murder and rape of civilians while burning down houses isn't true and is kind of a testament to how both sides in the war didn't really treat it like a "Real" war until the end. The union never acted liked the South was an enemy land but states with rebels in them.

The tactics Grant did could have been done successfuly before. But McClellan and Sherman and Lincoln and Banks and Butler really were way too soft on the South at the Start. At least arguably. From a cold calculated pragmatic perspective, Union bleeding hearts and lack of military skill led to the war lasting years and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men that would have been prevented if they were harsh and aggressive.

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