Lee Can Gen. Robert E. Lee still be considered "A great general and honorable man"?

As a general he was great, as a soldier he was honorable, after that it is up to personal determination.

Well, he did put captured black Union soldiers to work on areas that were under fire from Union guns instead of keeping them protected from such fire. That doesn't strike me as a particularly honorable act. In many respects he acted honorably, but then again, there were times when his actions weren't so honorable.

Like anyone else, he wasn't all one thing or the other.
 
What Lee thought of himself is worthwhile - he believed he did what was right, that he had betrayed nothing, that he had acted in the only honorable course available to him. And, he did not take himself seriously, certainly not as seriously as many did after the war. When he became president of a railroad to be built in West Virginia, his son Custis asked him what in the world he thought he was doing - he didn't know anything about trains and it was an iffy financial gamble. Lee replied, "Yes, you are right. I suppose I have led enough lost causes!"
 
As a general he was great, as a soldier he was honorable, after that it is up to personal determination.
He tacitly condoned the practice, during the Gettysburg campaign, of kidnapping free African Americans and sending them south into slavery. There are documented instances of this being done by his soldiers. Was any one of these soldiers even reprimanded for this practice?
 
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He tacitly condoned the practice, during the Gettysburg campaign, of kidnapping free African Americans and sending them south into slavery. There are documented instances of this being done by his soldiers. Was any one of these soldiers even reprimanded for this practice?

In that instance he was following confederate policy as set by the confederate congress and president. As a military man, he was obligated to follow the policy promulgated by his civilian government. Of course, he always had the option of resigning if he felt it was an immoral act he was being told to perform.
 
In that instance he was following confederate policy as set by the confederate congress and president. As a military man, he was obligated to follow the policy promulgated by his civilian government. Of course, he always had the option of resigning if he felt it was an immoral act he was being told to perform.
Wanna bet he gets punished if he ignores policy? An "honorable" man knows, regardless of the feeling toward African Americans, that kidnapping people who were born free and shipping them south into slavery was not only wrong, but evil. Honorable men do not condone evil acts, policy or not. These is no record, that I am aware of, of Lee's protesting against this policy. There were officers in the Army of Northern Virginia whose consciences would not let them participate in the practice.
 
Wanna bet he gets punished if he ignores policy? An "honorable" man knows, regardless of the feeling toward African Americans, that kidnapping people who were born free and shipping them south into slavery was not only wrong, but evil. Honorable men do not condone evil acts, policy or not. These is no record, that I am aware of, of Lee's protesting against this policy. There were officers in the Army of Northern Virginia whose consciences would not let them participate in the practice.

Well, Lee would follow the law because it was the law, not because of his calculation of whether or not he'd be punished for not following it. I agree he didn't see it as wrong while there were a number of others who did see it as wrong.
 
In that instance he was following confederate policy as set by the confederate congress and president. As a military man, he was obligated to follow the policy promulgated by his civilian government. Of course, he always had the option of resigning if he felt it was an immoral act he was being told to perform.

That he didn't think it immoral or not enough to do or say anything about it is where I struggle with him.

There was no policy requiring his army to invade the US to enslave free blacks, or enslave free blacks they came across in their own lands. There was no policy that black US POW's had to be used as human shields. Or a policy that surrendering blacks needed to be shot immediately. Lee promoted those who did those things or did them himself and not once ever reprimanded those actions.

And while yes there was later a policy that black POW's had to be either executed or enslaved, that doesn't make you honorable that you enforce it. EDITED BY MATT MCKEON
 
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Lee did have a request, of sorts, from Davis to pick up slaves while he was toodling through Pennsylvania - that request was because of pressure from planters wanting their slaves back. Lee noted it and forgot it, but the ANV did take back quite a few people. The whole issue just wasn't a priority for him since he had something a whole lot more important to tend to than slave catching. Longstreet knew of it as he'd been directly informed of it and he, too, chose to ignore it. It was quite profitable for those doing it - they could pick up the fat fee that was standard for catching slaves in a free state, as well as selling whoever didn't have their papers on them. Many blacks, free or not, just headed for the hills the second they heard the rebel army was coming.
 
"That was the reason for owning slaves btw, it was for profit."

Do you think owning slaves was always profitable? Do you think profit is sinful?

Consider slavery from the master's point of view. His slaves were the most expensive assets he owned. The going rate for a "full hand" (a man who could do a full day's "task" routinely) was about $1,000. That's several years wages for an Irish day laborer in a Northern city, and more than double the cost of a decent Northern farmhouse.

Now granted, this investment buys the master his slave's labor for life - but owning slaves isn't free. Slaves have to be fed, clothed, and given elementary medical care. If, not, they die. Some slaves also were paid a small wage, especially those who practiced skilled crafts or trades so they could pay for their own "necessaries".

Slavery was a lifetime commitment - for both parties. I've never heard of a master having his slaves killed because they were too sick, old or infirm to work. Compare that with a Northern factory worker employing Irish immigrants. Fire 'em and hire some new ones, there's more coming off the boat every day. By contrast, every slave man, woman, and child got food, clothing, and housing every day for life.

Despite the veneer of luxury in the "big house", Southern plantations were poor. They produced raw materials (cotton, rice, indigo, tobacco) that were sold at relatively low profits to be turned into finished goods. The real profits were made by spinners, weavers, drapers, and clothiers; dyers, and cigar sellers who took advantage of the "value added" at each step in the economic chain. Most of what a plantation owner made went right back into the property for expenses, taxes, and upkeep.

This is why slavery was going to fall anyway - and why Northern states abolished it earlier. It was UN-profitable!

If you want to moralize about profits, why don't you complain about guys like Cornelius Vanderbilt and Isaac Merritt Singer?

I agree with most of you say, except the part about Southern plantations being poor. Many plantation owners were quite wealthy and wielded political power that was disproportionate to their numbers.

I also agree with the claim paraphrased elsewhere that in many cases slaves were better off than many Northern factory workers in terms of their working conditions and diet. But, 5-10% of Northern factory workers were not subjected to physical cruelty, and they never faced the prospect, albeit a somewhat unlikely one (10%-33%, depending on the area), of being forcefully separated from their wives and children. So the living/working-conditions argument can only be pressed so far.
 
That he didn't think it immoral or not enough to do or say anything about it is where I struggle with him.

There was no policy requiring his army to invade the US to enslave free blacks, or enslave free blacks they came across in their own lands. There was no policy that black US POW's had to be used as human shields. Or a policy that surrendering blacks needed to be shot immediately. Lee promoted those who did those things or did them himself and not once ever reprimanded those actions.

And while yes there was later a policy that black POW's had to be either executed or enslaved, that doesn't make you honorable that you enforce it. Just because Hitler had a policy that Jews got the chamber doesn't make Heinrich Himmler an honorable man since he followed what Hitler wanted.

Okay, are you aware that George Washington said nothing when the Virginia assembly passed a law that called for severe punishment for slaves who were caught fighting for the British? Do you care to know that in some cases Continental Army soldiers abused or killed slaves whom they caught fighting for the British? Are you aware that the Patriots considered it a violation of the rules of war for the British to use their slaves as soldiers? Do you care to know about the horrific abuses that some Union soldiers committed against runaway slaves?
 
Longstreet knew of it as he'd been directly informed of it and he, too, chose to ignore it.


Even more so for Longstreet, he didn't just know about it but commanded it. In his orders to George Pickett (of the Picketts charge fame), he wrote through his adjutant Sorrell, that "the captured contrabands had better be brought along with you for further disposition". He was commanding those blacks caught on raids be brought back and "dispositioned" to slaveholders.
 
Okay, are you aware that George Washington said nothing when the Virginia assembly passed a law that called for severe punishment for slaves who were caught fighting for the British? Do you care to know that in some cases Continental Army soldiers abused or killed slaves whom they caught fighting for the British? Are you aware that the Patriots considered it a violation of the rules of war for the British to use their slaves as soldiers? Do you care to know about the horrific abuses that some Union soldiers committed against runaway slaves?

Yes I was.

Back on topic now to Lee which is the topic of this thread, I don't think renouncing your citizenship to join a rebellion that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans that was specifically stated to be about protecting and expanding race based slavery, using American POW's as human shields, enslaving free black American POW's, allowing the executions of surrendering Americans and allowing his armies to engage in slave raids to enslave free American people are "honorable" things.
 
Even more so for Longstreet, he didn't just know about it but commanded it. In his orders to George Pickett (of the Picketts charge fame), he wrote through his adjutant Sorrell, that "the captured contrabands had better be brought along with you for further disposition". He was commanding those blacks caught on raids be brought back and "dispositioned" to slaveholders.
Captured contrabands could be teamsters or other laborers working for the Union army.

The big problem with this "slave raid" story is no one can name any free black (or even runaway slave) who was taken South and "sold into slavery."
 
Captured contrabands could be teamsters or other laborers working for the Union army.

The big problem with this "slave raid" story is no one can name any free black (or even runaway slave) who was taken South and "sold into slavery."

According to the Reverend Dr. Philip Schaff on 27 June 1863:
Source:
https://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2013/06/30/enslaving-the-free-the-gettysburg-campaign/
 
That he didn't think it immoral or not enough to do or say anything about it is where I struggle with him.

There was no policy requiring his army to invade the US to enslave free blacks, or enslave free blacks they came across in their own lands. There was no policy that black US POW's had to be used as human shields. Or a policy that surrendering blacks needed to be shot immediately. Lee promoted those who did those things or did them himself and not once ever reprimanded those actions.

And while yes there was later a policy that black POW's had to be either executed or enslaved, that doesn't make you honorable that you enforce it. Just because Hitler had a policy that Jews got the chamber doesn't make Heinrich Himmler an honorable man since he followed what Hitler wanted.

The policy wasn't to invade specifically to capture African-Americans, but it was to capture fugitives as they came across them in the course of their operations.

It was confederate policy for their army to capture African-Americans they deemed to be "fugitive slaves." Of course, how could they tell a free person from an escaped slave? Why, the escaped slave was black, of course!

In March of 1863, Lee sent out a circular to all his subordinate commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia implementing a policy promulgated in Richmond.

The citation for the circular is: "W. H. Taylor to General, 21 March 1863, Orders and Circulars Issued by the Army of the Potomac and the Army and Department of Northern Virginia, C.S.A., 1861-1865, NA Microfilm M921, reel I, frame 1391. Also see Orders and Circulars, Rodes and Battle's Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865, NA, RG 109, Chap. 2, vol. 66, pp. 175-76. Lee's order to his subordinate commanders in that circular directed the army to comply with an early March directive by the Confederate Adjutant General (General Orders No. 25, Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, 6 March 1863, in OR, Ser. 2, vol. 5, pp. 844-45."

Here's the order:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924079609644;view=1up;seq=856

The order turned every confederate army into armies of slave catchers, and slave catchers were not known for being particular about which African American they accused of being a fugitive slave. Eyewitness testimony shows confederate soldiers rounding up every African American they could find for transport back to the confederacy in compliance with this order.

That they didn't catch more African-Americans shows how African-Americans fled as the ANV approached.

The African-Americans captured during the Gettysburg campaign were brought back to Virginia with the Army of Northern Virginia and there disposed of in accordance with above confederate policy.

The captured African-Americans would have been taken to one of the depots, likely Richmond, for disposition. Around the same time as this policy was developed, another policy, on slave impressment, was developed. You can see the bill here:
https://archive.org/details/billtobeentitled41conf

The bill eventually was passed in March of 1863 and likely any of the captured African-Americans who were not claimed by purported "owners" would be automatically impressed into confederate service to either work on food production or on fortifications.

We have this order, where Rev. T. V. Moore of Richmond interceded for one of the kidnapped African-Americans. Apparently friends in Pennsylvania got the documentary information to Rev. Moore showing Amos Bares was born free in Pennsylvania. Amos was lucky his friends knew Rev. Moore and could lay hands on documentary evidence.

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, WAR DEPARTMENT,
Richmond, Va., December 14, 1863.
Brig. Gen. JOHN H. WINDER:

GENERAL: You will dispose of prisoners named below, embraced in Report, No. 146, of Maj. I. H. Carrington, indicated, viz: Joseph A. Marm, William Tennant, John E. Tennant; send to conscript camp. You will also deliver to Robert Ould, esq., commissioner for exchange, to be transferred to the United States by the first flag of-truce boat, Amos Bares, a free negro from Pennsylvania, whose release is applied for by the Rev. T. V. Moore, of this city, upon grounds which appear to the Department sufficient to justify an exceptional policy with regard to him.
By order of the Secretary of War:
J. A. CAMPBELL,
Assistant Secretary of War.
[OR Series II, Vol. 6, pp. 704-705]

In his book, Mosby's Rangers, James J. Williamson, who was a member of Mosby's Rangers [Company A, 43rd Battalion, Virginia Cavalry], writes that on June 28, 1863, "It was Mosby's intention to join General Lee in Pennsylvania, but when we reached Mercersburg, where we expected to find a portion of the army, it had moved. Our number being so small, and as we were ignorant of the country as well as of the position of our army, Mosby determined to return to Virginia, which he did, but not until he had gathered up 218 head of cattle, 15 horses and 12 negroes. Returning through Washington county, Maryland, we recrossed the Potomac without interruption." [pp. 79-80]
 
"But more on point to this thread, why did the Lees hold on to their slaves against their will and to spite the terms of their legal emancipation?"

I haven't studied the particular incidents in question. I would speculate that Lee thought of his slaves in the same terms he thought of his soldiers. That is, he had certain responsibilities toward them, and they owed him duty in return. No, the slaves had not taken an oath; but they were born into an established system and were legally bound to obey him.

I don't know which "legal emancipation" you're referring to, but I suspect Lee resisted it because he disputed its legality.
 
"But more on point to this thread, why did the Lees hold on to their slaves against their will and to spite the terms of their legal emancipation?"

I haven't studied the particular incidents in question. I would speculate that Lee thought of his slaves in the same terms he thought of his soldiers. That is, he had certain responsibilities toward them, and they owed him duty in return. No, the slaves had not taken an oath; but they were born into an established system and were legally bound to obey him.

I don't know which "legal emancipation" you're referring to, but I suspect Lee resisted it because he disputed its legality.

Lee did not dispute the legality of the emancipation, but the will provided the slaves be emancipated within five years of GWP Custis' death. Here's what the will said on that: "And upon the legacies to my four granddaughters being paid, and my estates that are required to pay the said legacies, being clear of debts, then I give freedom to my slaves, the said slaves to be emancipated by my executors in such manner as to my executors may seem most expedient and proper, the said emancipation to be accomplished in not exceeding five years from the time of my decease."

Note it said after the legacies for his granddaughters was raised and after the estate was clear of debt. Lee decided to work the slaves on the plantation in order to raise the legacies and clear the debt. He was no farmer, though. He wasn't able to raise the legacies or clear the debt by working the plantation, and he was finally forced to do what he could have done at the very beginning: sell off real estate in order to raise the money.
 
Lee did have a request, of sorts, from Davis to pick up slaves while he was toodling through Pennsylvania - that request was because of pressure from planters wanting their slaves back. Lee noted it and forgot it, but the ANV did take back quite a few people. The whole issue just wasn't a priority for him since he had something a whole lot more important to tend to than slave catching. Longstreet knew of it as he'd been directly informed of it and he, too, chose to ignore it. It was quite profitable for those doing it - they could pick up the fat fee that was standard for catching slaves in a free state, as well as selling whoever didn't have their papers on them. Many blacks, free or not, just headed for the hills the second they heard the rebel army was coming.

No, there was no request, and Lee didn't forget anything. It was official confederate policy, and Lee promulgated it with an order to all his commanders prior to setting off on the Gettysburg campaign. See my Post #277.
 
In the interest of light not heat.

Lee inherited the enslaved people from his father in law on the condition that they would be freed in five years. He could have freed them at any time before then, but was required to in five years. He wanted five years of labor, and the income deprived from that labor. I'm generally a Lee fan, but nobody looks very good in the role of slave master.
 
Free people had it better than slaves. They lived longer, and had more secure lives. A poster above quoted the chance of families being destroyed by slave sales was 33%. That's playing Russian roulette with your children with two bullets in the chamber.

There's no way to argue a variation on "slavery, it weren't so bad." Without the unspoken "for black people."
 
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