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Originally Posted by Alabaman Yep, I agree, This interview doesn't even sound like Gen. R.E. Lee's manner of speech. And...as careful as Gen. Lee was post war, with his personal thought and recollection in regard to the war, I'd say this interview was Yankee ad lib City. Lee had one genuine focus in the post-year period: to educate the promising young men of the South as President of his University. |
"Sir, if you ever again presume to speak disrespectfully of General Grant in my presence, either you or I will sever his connection with this University." [Robert E. Lee]
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Originally Posted by Alabaman Cash: In your wildest dream, Lee comes in second as America's Best General. ;-) |
Lost Cause Mythology.
Those who actually know something about military affairs disagree. Between Fort Sumter and Appomattox only one person was able to capture an entire army--Ulysses S. Grant--and he did so three times. Grant's casualty rate was actually less than Lee's.
JFC Fuller said Grant was "the greatest general of his age and one of the greatest strategists of any age."
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Originally Posted by Alabaman Place Gen. Lee with the same numbers of men & material as Gen. Grant; place both Generals & command swithin 20 miles of each other and stand back....way, way back!...and Gen. Grant would have quickly discovered a legitimate need to take a snort from Ol' Barleycorn; a sound miitary defeat! |
"There is no difficulty in composing a final evaluation of Ulysses S. Grant. With him there be no balancing and qualifying, no ifs and buts. He won battles and campaigns, and he struck the blow that won the war. No general could do what he did because of accident or luck or preponderance of numbers and weapons. He was a success because he was a complete general and a complete character. He was so complete that his countrymen have never been able to believe he was real...Grant was, judged by modern standards, the greatest general of the Civil War. He was head and shoulders above any other general on either side as an over-all strategist, as a master of global strategy. Fundamentally Grant was superior to Lee because in a modern total war he had a modern mind, and Lee did not. Lee was the last of the great old-fashioned generals, Grant was the first of the great moderns." [T. Harry Williams]
"There was one Federal general whose name lends luster to the American soldier and to the American citizen, who is respected and revered by every fair indeed man, who understood the prowess of the Southern soldier, and who removed from the South the sting of defeat by the magic touch of his magnanimity in dealing with the vanquished. Grant was the genius of the war on the Federal side. He never made war on defenseless women and old men. He crushed the Confederacy with superior numbers, but he paroled and trusted the Confederate. He knew that if he put the Southern solider on his honor he would make a good citizen and that if the leaders were imprisoned, the Southern people would become a nation of bushwhackers. By that act he bound to him with hooks of steel the Southern hears, which his magnanimity won at Appomattox." [James ****ins, Army of Northern Virginia]
"Grant was necessary to bring the war to a close... his positive qualities, his power to wield force to the bitter end, much entitle him to rank high as a commanding general. His concentration of energies, inflexible purpose, imperturbable long-suffering, his masterly reticence, ignoring either advice or criticism, his magnanimity in all relations, but more than all his infinite trust in the final triumph of his cause, set him apart and alone above all others. With these attributes we could not call him less than great." [Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain]
"The strong and salutary characteristics of both Lee and Grant should live in history as an inspiration to coming generations. Posterity will find nobler and more wholesome incentives in their high attributes as men than in their brilliant career as warriors. General Grant's truly great qualities - his innate modesty, his freedom from every trace of vain-glory or ostentation, his magnanimity in victory, his genuine sympathy for his brave and sensitive foemen, and his inflexible resolve to protect paroled Confederates against any assault... will give him a place in history no less renowned and more to be envied than any other man." [General John B. Gordon,
CSA]
"It will be a thousand years before Grant's character is fully appreciated. Grant is the greatest soldier of our time if not all time... he fixes in his mind what is the true objective and abandons all minor ones. He dismisses all possibility of defeat. he believes in himself and in victory. If his plans go wrong he is never disconcerted but promptly devises a new one and is sure to win in the end. Grant more nearly impersonated the American character of 1861-65 than any other living man. Therefore he will stand as the typical hero of the great Civil War in America." [William T. Sherman]
"Criticism cannot deprecate the really great qualities of General Grant. His task was one to tax a Bonaparte. He had determined, unflinching courage and he adds to the laurels of Lee. No other Northern general could have accomplished more against the genius of a soldier. It was Grant, who, in the face of the gravest difficulties, won the war. He deservedly ranks among the greatest of Americans." [Theodore A. Dodge]
And it's too bad that today's southerners who profess to honor the confederate soldiers of the 1860s don't follow the lead of those same soldiers of the 1860s in their appreciation for a truly great man:
"As to my own fate, I know not what is in store for me. I believe the politicians in Washington are bent on the most extreme measures, and if they have their way will stop at no humiliation they can heap on me. My sole reliance is on General Grant. I have faith in his honor and his integrity as a soldier, and do not believe he will permit the terms of my surrender of the parole given me, to be violated." [Robert E. Lee, May, 1865]
"Lee was correct in trusting General Grant, because at that time, Stanton and President Johnson were intending to put Lee under arrest. But Grant declared to Johnson that if any Federal official molested Lee, then he would surrender his commission in the United States army. I have always felt that General Grant should be entitled to the gratitude of all Confederate soldiers for this act." [Joseph E. Johnston]
In 1869, some members of Congress wanted to put a massive painting of Lee surrendering to Grant in the Rotunda of the Capitol. They visited Grant, who was President-elect, to gain his approval. Grant, who was usually calm, got upset and said, "No, gentlemen, it won't do. No power on earth will make me agree to your proposal. I will not humiliate General Lee or our Southern friends in depicting their humiliation and then celebrating the event in the nation's capitol." This immediately ended any discussion of the painting.
"In common with most Southern soldiers, I had a very kindly feelings towards General Grant, not only on account of his magnanimous conduct at Appomattox, but also for his treatment of me at the close of hostilities. I had never called on him, however. If I had done so, and if he had received me even politely, we should both have been subjected to severe criticism, so bitter was the feeling between the sections at the time. General Grant was as much misunderstood in the South as I had been in the North. Like most Southern men, I had disapproved the reconstruction measures and was sore and very restive under military government; but since my prejudices have faded, I can now see that many things which we regarded as being prompted by hostile and vindictive motives were actually necessary, in order to prevent anarchy and to insure the freedom of the newly emancipated slave.
"I had strong personal reasons for being friendly with General Grant. If he had not thrown his shield over me in 1865, I should have been outlawed and driven into exile. When Lee surrendered, my battalion was in northern Virginia, a hundred miles from Appomattox. Secretary of war Stanton invited all soldiers in Virginia to surrender on the same conditions which were offered to Lee's army, but I was excepted. General Grant, who was then all-powerful, interposed, and sent me an offer of the same parole that he had given Gen. Lee. Such a service I could never forget. When the opportunity came, I remembered what he had done for me, and I did all I could for him." [John S. Mosby]
"The facts of my calling upon Grant in 1885 at Mt. McGregor were these: I wanted him to know the Confederate soldiers appreciated his conduct at every surrender during the war, and after the war in Reconstruction days." [Simon Bolivar Buckner]
"No man could be thrown in for any length of time with Grant, without admiring him with all his abilities and respecting him. He was with all his abilities one of the simplest, most confirming and trustful of men. The greatest mistake the Southern people ever made was not realizing that is they had permitted him, he would have been the best friend they had after the war." [John Wise,
CSA,
Recollections of Thirteen Presidents
Regards,
Cash
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