Did Lee have a Heart Attack at Gettysburg?

[samgrant]

I've read several suggestions concerning this possibility, anyone have any opinions?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

[blue_zouave]

Sam, it's hard to diagnose somebody across the centuries. Lee did have a bad heart, but also I've read it was rheumatic heart disease he suffered from. It's very possible that he had ischemic heart disease also. I've also read that he had a bad case of diarrhea at Gettysburg.

At any rate, he wasn't a healthy man that first week of July in 1863.

Zou

[gary]

One of the Civil War magazines had an article about it a few years back. Unfortunately, I don't recall which magazine or issue.

[ole]

Lee was not a young man when the war broke out. At a time when the average life span did not exceed 60 years, it would be logical to assume that his ticker could easily be giving him problems.

However, the effort to divert the blame for Gettysburg on a possible "condition" that Lee might have had strikes me as trying to preserve Lee's status as the perfect man.

Hood's defenders speculate that the laudanum was responsible for Hood's grevious errors in the West. Grant's detractors call him a drunk while his defenders deny any such claim. Sherman's friends label him as excitable and enthusiastic while his enemies call him insane.

Lee's "condition" might well have been breakfast. In any event, history provides reasons -- not excuses.

Just a thought.
Ole

[hoosier]

I would have to agree with Zou that it's really hard to make a medical diagnosis more than a century later, particularly for someone who, like me, is not a medical person.

The way I read the linked article, it suggests the possibility that Lee may have had a heart attack sometime earlier in 1863 and that the aftereffects may have affected his performance at Gettysburg. But it doesn't seem to be suggesting that he actually had a heart attack while that battle was going on. If he had such an attack, I'm surprised he didn't conduct the battle a lot worse than he did.

By the way, Sam, congratulations on making First Sergeant.

[milhistbuff1]

Bevin Alexander gives credence to the possibility that he hgad either a slight heart attack or mini stroke in March of 1863, but doesnt claim it had any adverse affects at C'ville or Gburg, lays the Gburg health issue to all those raw cherries. I'm not claiming it caused him to lose the battle, just that it was not as great a factor as per timing.
Respectfully
Matt

[lrd89]

I read somewhere, possibly in one of Gordon Rhea's books, that Lee was too sick to ride Traveler and rode in a carriage at one point during the Overland Campaign.

[whitworth]

Lee certainly had health problems during the war. Of course, many of the Confederate generals would not have passed modern, military, medical physicals.
Not a lot of healthy 30 year old military geniuses were out there.

[Miss Markie]

Lee did suffer from heart disease, and that is usually progressive, taking a bit more of a toll with each passing day. Heart not pumping efficiently means blood to the brain delayed or slowed. This affects thinking and clarity.

Accounts of General Armistead's death state he really died more of exhaustion than his wounds, and General Jackson should have been able to survive a routine amputation save for his already depleted state of health. What we know now about constant stress and what it physically does to one make you wonder how any of these men made if four years.

Strictly my humble opinion,
Miss Markie

[ole]

Excellent observation, Miss Markie. I'll buy that.
Ole