dlofting
Sergeant Major
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2013
- Location
- Vancouver, BC, Canada
My local newspaper recently published the following opinion:
Even among slave owners, Robert E. Lee distinguished himself with his cruelty. And even among confederate generals, his troops distinguished themselves with their viciousness.
It's easy (but not unfair) to malign Lee. It's also easy to criticize the racists who waved swastikas and called for Lee's continued veneration at the Charlottesville, Va., rally that ended in a fatal attack.
What is much harder is examining Canada's own history and the parasitical **** movement that mutates and threatens its host country.
We've seen it in Toronto, in Quebec City, and this Saturday we may see it in Vancouver.
It's difficult to know what might persuade a racist to change their mind. Big words are out. Suggesting racial purity is a myth doesn't work. Maybe all you can do is ask if nurturing bile will ever make their lives better; or their children's lives.
But if we can't reach the disease we can still treat the patient. We can reject racism. We can also keep a close eye on our country's leaders.
Incidentally, we praise Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer for finally severing his relationship with The Rebel, a media outlet that provides valuable balance between views that seem racist and views that are racist.
And finally, we can rally in counter-protest. We can champion equality and mercy and debate, and ensure Canada's future is better than its past.
A famous racist recently said there are "many sides" to this issue. We'd argue there should be only two: those who condemn racism quietly and those who condemn it at the top of their lungs. Let's hear from both.
I was totally taken aback and wrote the newspaper. I don't have the text of my letter because it was an online submission, but I basically said that there was no basis for the accusations about Lee.
The editor asked me for sources and I replied with the following EMail.
Hi Layne,
Thanks for the opportunity to provide a bit more information. I put together a file with excerpts that show Lee's relationship with slaves throughout his adult life.
At that point I reread the opinion piece to make sure I was on the right track. The following struck me again.
"Even among slave owners, Robert E. Lee distinguished himself with his cruelty. And even among confederate generals, his troops distinguished themselves with their viciousness."
I've studied the Civil War for over 55 years, have read many books and articles and had discussions with historians and others who cumulatively represent most of the knowledge there is of the war, slavery and reconstruction. There is just no support for either of those statements…..no published information, either fact or supposition….and no opinions, even from people who are normally quite critical of Lee.
As a result I'm thinking that the writer or researcher must have confused Lee with another Confederate general, quite possibly Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest was a slave trader before the war and ostensibly one of the original leaders of the KKK after the war. His men were almost certainly responsible for the massacre of USCT soldiers after they had surrendered at Fort Pillow. Although some would still argue that those two statements don't apply to Forrest either, there are many others who would disagree. There have also been some attempts to move a statue of Forrest that presently stands in a park in Memphis, Tennessee…..so that has been in the news at times over the past year or two.
In North Vancouver this mistake goes right over people's heads…..but if it had been written in Virginia it would have inflamed a discussion that is now out of control. The people of Charlottesville tried to keep the discussion of the monument "in-house". Should it be left as is, re-interpreted, moved or destroyed ? They hoped that could be resolved by a democratic process, with all sides heard and considered. That is now impossible.
Anyways, I'm attaching the file on Lee….hope it helps to convince you that he wasn't the man the article portrays.
Dave
My attachment is long but I hope people on this board find it worthwhile.
The following are excerpted from "Crucible of Command" by William C. Davis, published in 2014 by Da Capo Press. These describe Lee's ownership of slaves. According to Davis Lee inherited 5 adult slaves and 4 children from his Mother. The slaves were in Virginia, and Lee, as a career army officer was usually posted elsewhere so had little if any opportunity to participate in the deployment, management or treatment of the slaves. That was probably handled by his wife, Mary, his father-in-law or an unnamed agent. Lee was a slaveowner in name only.
The narrative begins in 1829.
Lee got his first actual experience trying to manage slaves on Cockspur Island, and it confirmed his ambivalence. Given charge of a gang of ISO hired blacks to excavate foundations for the future fort, he initially felt sympathy for what he called "my Black Walloons," almost regretting that he had to make the "poor creatures" work so hard. 147
But before long, he complained that "no one will do their duty without being made." Spending days knee deep in mud and water overseeing dilatory laborers, he grumbled that "I have to depend upon others, & if they would do as I tell them I should have no trouble, but this they will not do & I must let them have their own way."148
When Mary suggested that he instruct the slaves in religion, he told her "I do teach those men something Good, for I learn them to do their work faithfully handsomely and scientifically."149 He teased her for teaching "those little Plagues," the slave children at Arlington, and belittled her friends' efforts for another Custis emancipationist concern, the African Education Society. 150
If Lee did not endorse slavery now, he did not condemn it either. It was simply a fact of life in the slave states, like the weather.
And now he was a slave owner himself. 151 (Note 151 Historians have never agreed on how many slaves Lee owned personally, or who were. The most common mistake is to conflate his slaves with the Custis slaves at Arlington, White House, and Romancoke plantations, which never belonged to him or his wife. Lee's letters often mention names such as Jane and Philip Meriday and others as servants with his family, but they were Arlington slaves.)
When Ann Hill Lee died in 1829 she bequeathed a few domestic slaves to her two daughters. The residue of her estate, to be liquidated as inheritance for her three sons, contained an unspecified number of others, all out at hire. 152 Her executor William Carter kept them rented while settling the estate, though it took some eighteen months before debts were cleared and Smith and Carter Lee agreed on a division among the three brothers in 1832, conveying to Robert sole title in four women, Catty or Cassy, Lane, Letitia, and a woman named Nancy Ruffin with her three children, as well as a man named Sam whom Lee in 1833 traded with his brother Carter for another slave named Gardner.153 Lee called them "our Georgetonians" and "those people in Geotown," and had little use for any of them. Nancy was neither a good cook nor a washerwoman, and only Letitia was worth keeping at home. Coming into possession of them as he did soon after his marriage, he left their disposition to Mary immediately after she reached Arlington pregnant with their first son. She could keep, hire, or sell them, 'but do not trouble yourself about them, as they are not worth it."154
They kept Catty, Lane, and Letitia no more than a couple of years, and by early 1835 Nancy and her three "plagues," as he called slave children, were "all of the race in my possession." He likely would have been happy to be rid of them as well, for he frankly admitted his belief that obdurance, stubbornness, and unreliability were typical of what he called their "sex, color & caste."155 Oddly, Lee's comment about "all of the race in my possession" seemingly overlooked the slave he sometimes referred to as "my man Gardner," though he probably meant only those slaves actually with him and his family.
His cousin Hill Carter in Charles City County had handled Gardner's hire for Ann Lee after 1822 at least, and Lee may not have seen him since, but the annual rent payments continued coming in to the executors, then to Carter Lee, and after 1834 or 1835 directly to Lee himself.156
He had little interest in or patience with Nancy, but still kept her out at hire at Custis's White House plantation in New Kent County until 1847 or later. Lee was not entirely indifferent to the blacks themselves, regarding them much as he would children. Trying to help his aunt Fitzhugh find a new slave overseer, he emphasized that such a man should be "as attentive to their comfort and welfare, as to the discharge of their duties; and to be neither harsh nor severe in his discipline.
We pick up the narrative again in 1846.
On August 19 (1846) orders sent him to report to Brigadier General John E. Wool at San Antonio, Texas.5o
Before leaving Lee made out his will, leaving everything to Mary; including Nancy Ruffin and her children at White House. Little had changed in his attitude toward slaves. A year earlier Mary Lee had agreed to a proposition from Senator Albert S. White of Indiana to hire "her girl" Judy Meriday for a period of six years, "after which she will be considered as fully liberated."51 But Lee was not giving her freedom. As an Arlington slave, she belonged to Mary Lee's father and in arranging her hire and then freedom Lee simply carried out his father-in-law's wishes-and likely Mary's-for a favored servant, as he would do in future as Custis's agent. Lee himself no longer owned his only other slave. Gardner's hire had gone from $60 a year when Lee inherited him to just $30 in 1844, and though Lee wanted him hired in 1845, no one engaged him and he was still unemployed. Gardner was at least forty-nine now, possibly as old as seventy-two, and no longer an. income-producing asset. Sometime during the past eighteen months Lee had either freed him, sold or given him to Hill Carter, or let him purchase his freedom with money Lee allowed him to earn over the years.52 Now Lee stipulated that in the event of his death, Nancy Ruffin and her children were to be "liberated so soon as it can be done to their advantage & that of others."53
It was an equivocal sort of emancipation. He might have freed them that moment if he wished. By these terms they remained slaves as long as he lived and perhaps much longer. Should he die in Mexico, they could remain in bondage as long as Mary-or their children after her wished, since they were the obvious "others" to whose advantage he referred. His intent was most likely to keep the slaves producing income for his widow and orphans, and leave it to Mary to decide when to emancipate them, probably when they became more trouble than they were worth. That was another reason for freeing or giving away Gardner now that he was not an earner, and might only be a headache for Mary to look after. The only implicit promise was that his heirs would not sell them. Beyond that he hinted at freedom, but gave nothing. Of course, he need not have mentioned liberation at all if he resolutely wanted the Ruffins to remain his family's property. Lee was still ambivalent toward voluntary emancipation. His mother had been content to have slaves if they produced income and caused no problems, and his attitude had been much the same, but he was evolving. The influences of his wife and her family, as well as others, had brought him to the place where he could contemplate manumission, even if only tentatively. It remained to be seen if he could travel farther down that road.
Even among slave owners, Robert E. Lee distinguished himself with his cruelty. And even among confederate generals, his troops distinguished themselves with their viciousness.
It's easy (but not unfair) to malign Lee. It's also easy to criticize the racists who waved swastikas and called for Lee's continued veneration at the Charlottesville, Va., rally that ended in a fatal attack.
What is much harder is examining Canada's own history and the parasitical **** movement that mutates and threatens its host country.
We've seen it in Toronto, in Quebec City, and this Saturday we may see it in Vancouver.
It's difficult to know what might persuade a racist to change their mind. Big words are out. Suggesting racial purity is a myth doesn't work. Maybe all you can do is ask if nurturing bile will ever make their lives better; or their children's lives.
But if we can't reach the disease we can still treat the patient. We can reject racism. We can also keep a close eye on our country's leaders.
Incidentally, we praise Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer for finally severing his relationship with The Rebel, a media outlet that provides valuable balance between views that seem racist and views that are racist.
And finally, we can rally in counter-protest. We can champion equality and mercy and debate, and ensure Canada's future is better than its past.
A famous racist recently said there are "many sides" to this issue. We'd argue there should be only two: those who condemn racism quietly and those who condemn it at the top of their lungs. Let's hear from both.
I was totally taken aback and wrote the newspaper. I don't have the text of my letter because it was an online submission, but I basically said that there was no basis for the accusations about Lee.
The editor asked me for sources and I replied with the following EMail.
Hi Layne,
Thanks for the opportunity to provide a bit more information. I put together a file with excerpts that show Lee's relationship with slaves throughout his adult life.
At that point I reread the opinion piece to make sure I was on the right track. The following struck me again.
"Even among slave owners, Robert E. Lee distinguished himself with his cruelty. And even among confederate generals, his troops distinguished themselves with their viciousness."
I've studied the Civil War for over 55 years, have read many books and articles and had discussions with historians and others who cumulatively represent most of the knowledge there is of the war, slavery and reconstruction. There is just no support for either of those statements…..no published information, either fact or supposition….and no opinions, even from people who are normally quite critical of Lee.
As a result I'm thinking that the writer or researcher must have confused Lee with another Confederate general, quite possibly Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest was a slave trader before the war and ostensibly one of the original leaders of the KKK after the war. His men were almost certainly responsible for the massacre of USCT soldiers after they had surrendered at Fort Pillow. Although some would still argue that those two statements don't apply to Forrest either, there are many others who would disagree. There have also been some attempts to move a statue of Forrest that presently stands in a park in Memphis, Tennessee…..so that has been in the news at times over the past year or two.
In North Vancouver this mistake goes right over people's heads…..but if it had been written in Virginia it would have inflamed a discussion that is now out of control. The people of Charlottesville tried to keep the discussion of the monument "in-house". Should it be left as is, re-interpreted, moved or destroyed ? They hoped that could be resolved by a democratic process, with all sides heard and considered. That is now impossible.
Anyways, I'm attaching the file on Lee….hope it helps to convince you that he wasn't the man the article portrays.
Dave
My attachment is long but I hope people on this board find it worthwhile.
The following are excerpted from "Crucible of Command" by William C. Davis, published in 2014 by Da Capo Press. These describe Lee's ownership of slaves. According to Davis Lee inherited 5 adult slaves and 4 children from his Mother. The slaves were in Virginia, and Lee, as a career army officer was usually posted elsewhere so had little if any opportunity to participate in the deployment, management or treatment of the slaves. That was probably handled by his wife, Mary, his father-in-law or an unnamed agent. Lee was a slaveowner in name only.
The narrative begins in 1829.
Lee got his first actual experience trying to manage slaves on Cockspur Island, and it confirmed his ambivalence. Given charge of a gang of ISO hired blacks to excavate foundations for the future fort, he initially felt sympathy for what he called "my Black Walloons," almost regretting that he had to make the "poor creatures" work so hard. 147
But before long, he complained that "no one will do their duty without being made." Spending days knee deep in mud and water overseeing dilatory laborers, he grumbled that "I have to depend upon others, & if they would do as I tell them I should have no trouble, but this they will not do & I must let them have their own way."148
When Mary suggested that he instruct the slaves in religion, he told her "I do teach those men something Good, for I learn them to do their work faithfully handsomely and scientifically."149 He teased her for teaching "those little Plagues," the slave children at Arlington, and belittled her friends' efforts for another Custis emancipationist concern, the African Education Society. 150
If Lee did not endorse slavery now, he did not condemn it either. It was simply a fact of life in the slave states, like the weather.
And now he was a slave owner himself. 151 (Note 151 Historians have never agreed on how many slaves Lee owned personally, or who were. The most common mistake is to conflate his slaves with the Custis slaves at Arlington, White House, and Romancoke plantations, which never belonged to him or his wife. Lee's letters often mention names such as Jane and Philip Meriday and others as servants with his family, but they were Arlington slaves.)
When Ann Hill Lee died in 1829 she bequeathed a few domestic slaves to her two daughters. The residue of her estate, to be liquidated as inheritance for her three sons, contained an unspecified number of others, all out at hire. 152 Her executor William Carter kept them rented while settling the estate, though it took some eighteen months before debts were cleared and Smith and Carter Lee agreed on a division among the three brothers in 1832, conveying to Robert sole title in four women, Catty or Cassy, Lane, Letitia, and a woman named Nancy Ruffin with her three children, as well as a man named Sam whom Lee in 1833 traded with his brother Carter for another slave named Gardner.153 Lee called them "our Georgetonians" and "those people in Geotown," and had little use for any of them. Nancy was neither a good cook nor a washerwoman, and only Letitia was worth keeping at home. Coming into possession of them as he did soon after his marriage, he left their disposition to Mary immediately after she reached Arlington pregnant with their first son. She could keep, hire, or sell them, 'but do not trouble yourself about them, as they are not worth it."154
They kept Catty, Lane, and Letitia no more than a couple of years, and by early 1835 Nancy and her three "plagues," as he called slave children, were "all of the race in my possession." He likely would have been happy to be rid of them as well, for he frankly admitted his belief that obdurance, stubbornness, and unreliability were typical of what he called their "sex, color & caste."155 Oddly, Lee's comment about "all of the race in my possession" seemingly overlooked the slave he sometimes referred to as "my man Gardner," though he probably meant only those slaves actually with him and his family.
His cousin Hill Carter in Charles City County had handled Gardner's hire for Ann Lee after 1822 at least, and Lee may not have seen him since, but the annual rent payments continued coming in to the executors, then to Carter Lee, and after 1834 or 1835 directly to Lee himself.156
He had little interest in or patience with Nancy, but still kept her out at hire at Custis's White House plantation in New Kent County until 1847 or later. Lee was not entirely indifferent to the blacks themselves, regarding them much as he would children. Trying to help his aunt Fitzhugh find a new slave overseer, he emphasized that such a man should be "as attentive to their comfort and welfare, as to the discharge of their duties; and to be neither harsh nor severe in his discipline.
We pick up the narrative again in 1846.
On August 19 (1846) orders sent him to report to Brigadier General John E. Wool at San Antonio, Texas.5o
Before leaving Lee made out his will, leaving everything to Mary; including Nancy Ruffin and her children at White House. Little had changed in his attitude toward slaves. A year earlier Mary Lee had agreed to a proposition from Senator Albert S. White of Indiana to hire "her girl" Judy Meriday for a period of six years, "after which she will be considered as fully liberated."51 But Lee was not giving her freedom. As an Arlington slave, she belonged to Mary Lee's father and in arranging her hire and then freedom Lee simply carried out his father-in-law's wishes-and likely Mary's-for a favored servant, as he would do in future as Custis's agent. Lee himself no longer owned his only other slave. Gardner's hire had gone from $60 a year when Lee inherited him to just $30 in 1844, and though Lee wanted him hired in 1845, no one engaged him and he was still unemployed. Gardner was at least forty-nine now, possibly as old as seventy-two, and no longer an. income-producing asset. Sometime during the past eighteen months Lee had either freed him, sold or given him to Hill Carter, or let him purchase his freedom with money Lee allowed him to earn over the years.52 Now Lee stipulated that in the event of his death, Nancy Ruffin and her children were to be "liberated so soon as it can be done to their advantage & that of others."53
It was an equivocal sort of emancipation. He might have freed them that moment if he wished. By these terms they remained slaves as long as he lived and perhaps much longer. Should he die in Mexico, they could remain in bondage as long as Mary-or their children after her wished, since they were the obvious "others" to whose advantage he referred. His intent was most likely to keep the slaves producing income for his widow and orphans, and leave it to Mary to decide when to emancipate them, probably when they became more trouble than they were worth. That was another reason for freeing or giving away Gardner now that he was not an earner, and might only be a headache for Mary to look after. The only implicit promise was that his heirs would not sell them. Beyond that he hinted at freedom, but gave nothing. Of course, he need not have mentioned liberation at all if he resolutely wanted the Ruffins to remain his family's property. Lee was still ambivalent toward voluntary emancipation. His mother had been content to have slaves if they produced income and caused no problems, and his attitude had been much the same, but he was evolving. The influences of his wife and her family, as well as others, had brought him to the place where he could contemplate manumission, even if only tentatively. It remained to be seen if he could travel farther down that road.
Bringing the