TFSmith121
Banned
Seriously?
The fact you "don't know if he (Lee) owned slaves" raises a real question of the depth of your knowledge of this period, but just to make certain:
Owning slaves, in your opinion, doesn't have any relevancy to whether serving US officers remained loyal in 1861?
Overall, I would suggest you may wish to read a little deeper into the cause of the American Civil War, and the events of the "secession winter" of 1860-61, and thereafter into 1861.
I would suggest starting with Apostles of Disunion by Charles Dew, U. Press of Virginia. It is about 80 pages of text; not difficult to get through at all.
Asa far as Scott, I have already suggested Eisenhower's biography; a recent and solid choice on Lee is Elizabeth Pryor's Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters; a worthwhile analysis of Lee historiography is Alan Nolan's Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History, which is well worth reading along withThomas Connelly’s The Marble Man.
After that, you can get into DS Freeman and the rest.
But just to make it clear, as far as Lee and slavery goes, his life is easily summed up as follows:
Whether that is ASB, is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder.
Best,
You say that as if that has any relevance to the question....
The fact you "don't know if he (Lee) owned slaves" raises a real question of the depth of your knowledge of this period, but just to make certain:
Owning slaves, in your opinion, doesn't have any relevancy to whether serving US officers remained loyal in 1861?
Overall, I would suggest you may wish to read a little deeper into the cause of the American Civil War, and the events of the "secession winter" of 1860-61, and thereafter into 1861.
I would suggest starting with Apostles of Disunion by Charles Dew, U. Press of Virginia. It is about 80 pages of text; not difficult to get through at all.
Asa far as Scott, I have already suggested Eisenhower's biography; a recent and solid choice on Lee is Elizabeth Pryor's Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters; a worthwhile analysis of Lee historiography is Alan Nolan's Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History, which is well worth reading along withThomas Connelly’s The Marble Man.
After that, you can get into DS Freeman and the rest.
But just to make it clear, as far as Lee and slavery goes, his life is easily summed up as follows:
- Lee was born into a family of slaveowners, going back for generations, who owed his wealth and position to the enslavement of men, women, and children;
- As an adult, Lee married into direct ownership of nearly 200 slaves at Arlington and adjoining properties, and embraced mastery and white supremacy;
- Although Lee wrote he "disliked slavery and found it a burden," he was no "good" master, communicated badly with his slaves, and considered them naturally indolent and incapable of freedom.
- He confronted an "epidemic of runaways" in the late 1850s and oversaw at least one brutal beating of a returned fugitive, including brine sewn into the wounds.
- Lee broke up families and without a doubt, denied his slaves’ humanity;
- During the Antietam and Gettysburg campaigns, forces under his command took civilians in northern territory as prisoners and sent them into slavery in CSA-controlled territory, which is, undoubtedly, a war crime;
Whether that is ASB, is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder.
Best,
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