Lee Lee and Reconstruction

[cash]

In his book, Robert E. Lee: A Biography, Emory Thomas wrote of the White Sulphur Paper, "The White Sulphur paper affirmed: 'It is true that the people of the South in common with a large majority of the people of the North and West, are, for obvious reasons, inflexibly opposed to any system of laws which would place the political power of the country in the hands of the negro race.' Those 'obvious reasons' included the conviction that 'at present, the negroes have neither the intelligence nor the other qualifications which are necessary to make them safe depositories of political power.' Having consigned African Americans to some subcitizen class, the paper said little else." [p. 390]

 

[Drew]

There was no request there, only a statement. Do you not know the difference?

Certainly weakness of something to call that assertion a request for a source.

OK then, you have no sense of, "nuance."

I asked you, indirectly, to support your significant assertion at post # 21. You haven't done that, probably you can't.

You quoted extensively from Elizabeth Brown Pryor. I provided everyone with evidence that you were wrong to do so.

Then, you offered Elizabeth Varon's work. Make up your mind?

You don't like Robert Lee's memory. Get your act together as to why and present your reasons.

***Edited***

 

[matthew mckeon]

The students at Washington College appear to have formed a chapter of the KKK and there was at least one threat to lynch a black person. Freedmen's Bureau and US Army officials warned Lee to have the students stop that behavior, and Lee sent out official word to the students to forbid participating in such behavior. He seems to have treated racial harassment less stringently than he treated other transgressions.

In the interests of moving things along, I believe the request was for the source of this statement about the students forming a Klan chapter, the threat to lynch, and the warning from the Freedman's Bureau. I hope this provides a little more light and a little less noise.

 

[Drew]

In the interests of moving things along, I believe the request was for the source of this statement about the students forming a Klan chapter, the threat to lynch, and the warning from the Freedman's Bureau. I hope this provides a little more light and a little less noise.

Thank you, Matthew. It's not a lot to ask where this came from.

 

[matthew mckeon]

Thank you, Matthew. It's not a lot to ask where this came from.

Maybe its the way you ask.

 

[cash]

In the interests of moving things along, I believe the request was for the source of this statement about the students forming a Klan chapter, the threat to lynch, and the warning from the Freedman's Bureau. I hope this provides a little more light and a little less noise.

If you are asking for a source I am happy to provide.

Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Reading the Man, p. 455.

She cites letters in the Moran papers, Washington College faculty minutes, and a few other sources.

 

[matthew mckeon]

If you are asking for a source I am happy to provide.

Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Reading the Man, p. 455.

She cites letters in the Moran papers, Washington College faculty minutes, and a few other sources.

Thank you.

 

[Drew]

If you are asking for a source I am happy to provide.

Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Reading the Man, p. 455.

She cites letters in the Moran papers, Washington College faculty minutes, and a few other sources.

At post #24 I provided a link to her lecture on Robert Lee's life. She spoke directly to his behavior after the war. Her assessment is not consistent with yours. Anyone paying attention to this thread has already figured that out.

 

[cash]

For those who are able to comprehend the OP, rather than doing "all in his power for Reconstruction," Lee set, as General Grant said, an example of forced compliance. He didn't do all in his power for Reconstruction. He was, in fact, openly hostile to Congressional Reconstruction as it pertained to civil rights for black Americans, as we can see from the White Sulphur Paper and his testimony to the Joint Committee in which he clearly said he wanted all blacks removed from Virginia.

Since no one has any evidence to the contrary I can say unequivocally Lee did not do everything in his power for Reconstruction.

 

[WJC]

She gave a talk about her book that anyone can take the time to watch. It was done for the Library of Congress and is archived there: https://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4083

Note her words at about 48:00.

For those who are interested, Ms. Pryor said:

What was very revealing, that I found -- there is a lot of revealing stuff in these new letters about Lee's feelings after the war. He's always been portrayed as extremely dignified, and almost transcending any unhappiness, bitterness, from the war. And he did conduct himself with tremendous dignity. But it is very clear that he was very, very unhappy. It must have been an awfully painful period for him, because these -- he writes a lot of unfinished essays and unfinished notes on war and on government, and these little unfinished descriptions of battlefield scenes that are not quite exactly accurate, that are very skewed, and with tremendous hostility toward the North. His language is tremendously hostile in these notes.
He doesn't publish them, and he doesn't send some of the letters. The only letters I know that he sends that have those qualities to them are some letters that he sends to a nephew who lives in Paris. Maybe he thought sending it out of the country, you know, would be okay. But they are very revealing of how hard this must have been for him, how much he must have had trouble letting go of this terrible experience of the war, and also that although he was a very good role model in trying to get the South to rise, to move beyond the war, not harbor hostility and so on, that he himself, you know, was feeling many of the same, many of these more negative feelings.​

 

[Drew]

For those who are interested, Ms. Pryor said:

What was very revealing, that I found -- there is a lot of revealing stuff in these new letters about Lee's feelings after the war. He's always been portrayed as extremely dignified, and almost transcending any unhappiness, bitterness, from the war. And he did conduct himself with tremendous dignity. But it is very clear that he was very, very unhappy. It must have been an awfully painful period for him, because these -- he writes a lot of unfinished essays and unfinished notes on war and on government, and these little unfinished descriptions of battlefield scenes that are not quite exactly accurate, that are very skewed, and with tremendous hostility toward the North. His language is tremendously hostile in these notes.
He doesn't publish them, and he doesn't send some of the letters. The only letters I know that he sends that have those qualities to them are some letters that he sends to a nephew who lives in Paris. Maybe he thought sending it out of the country, you know, would be okay. But they are very revealing of how hard this must have been for him, how much he must have had trouble letting go of this terrible experience of the war, and also that although he was a very good role model in trying to get the South to rise, to move beyond the war, not harbor hostility and so on, that he himself, you know, was feeling many of the same, many of these more negative feelings.​

Thank you for this. I, apparently, do not understand the point of this thread, but appreciate that someone has made the effort to show what Elizabeth Pryor had to say about General Lee.

Yes, he was conflicted. Who wouldn't be after this ordeal?

She made it pretty clear he did his best, after the war, to support and encourage the New Order. Kinda thought this was the point of the thread. Let the haters hate.

 

[WJC]

Thank you for this. I, apparently, do not understand the point of this thread, but appreciate that someone has made the effort to show what Elizabeth Pryor had to say about General Lee.

Yes, he was conflicted. Who wouldn't be after this ordeal?

She made it pretty clear he did his best, after the war, to support and encourage the New Order. Kinda thought this was the point of the thread. Let the haters hate.

It was a very interesting and informative presentation, very much on-topic. Thanks for the link. I have added her book to my Amazon Wish List.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

I can't possibly find the citation but I read from a writing of Mrs Lee (and there isn't much out there for the public) that General Lee would have terrible nightmares about the war - during the war (on his rare visits home) and after the war. She hinted that he dreamed of the carnage of the battlefield (something about "those terrible bloody battlefields), so I'm guessing that to some degree or another he also suffered from PTSD and depression/anger arising from that, which could have influenced his actions too. However, there is no way to go back in time and do a dx on this. Only a theory based on a few sentences she wrote, and maybe not even a good theory.

Edited to add: Not justifying any Reconstruction actions or inactions that weren't helpful or were injurious to Blacks and their emerging civil rights. Just that there may have been a cause, from the war, that Lee couldn't rise above combined with age and his pre-war societal upbringing.

 

[wausaubob]

In a May 12, 1866 interview published in the Lewiston Journal, Ulysses S. Grant said, " 'Some of the rebel generals are behaving nobly and doing all they can to induce the people to throw aside their old prejudices and to conform their course to the changed condition of things. Johnston and Dick Taylor particularly are exercising a good influence; but, he added, 'Lee is behaving badly. He is conducting himself very differently from what I had reason, from what he said at the time of the surrender, to suppose he would. No man at the South is capable of exercising a tenth part of the influence for good that he is, but instead of using it, he is setting an example of forced acquiescence so grudging and pernicious in its effects as to be hardly realized.' " [PUSG Volume 16, page 258]

The post contrasts Lee to Joseph Johnston and Richard Taylor. Both Taylor and Johnston became Democrats and opposed reconstruction, so their early conduct must have been the basis for General Grant's comment.

 

[WJC]

Lee couldn't rise above combined with age and his pre-war societal upbringing.

We often forget just who Lee was. He was truly a member of the establishment- the well-to-do planter class. In spite of how some try to redefine him, he was not some egalitarian.

 

[cash]

For those who are interested, Ms. Pryor said:

What was very revealing, that I found -- there is a lot of revealing stuff in these new letters about Lee's feelings after the war. He's always been portrayed as extremely dignified, and almost transcending any unhappiness, bitterness, from the war. And he did conduct himself with tremendous dignity. But it is very clear that he was very, very unhappy. It must have been an awfully painful period for him, because these -- he writes a lot of unfinished essays and unfinished notes on war and on government, and these little unfinished descriptions of battlefield scenes that are not quite exactly accurate, that are very skewed, and with tremendous hostility toward the North. His language is tremendously hostile in these notes.
He doesn't publish them, and he doesn't send some of the letters. The only letters I know that he sends that have those qualities to them are some letters that he sends to a nephew who lives in Paris. Maybe he thought sending it out of the country, you know, would be okay. But they are very revealing of how hard this must have been for him, how much he must have had trouble letting go of this terrible experience of the war, and also that although he was a very good role model in trying to get the South to rise, to move beyond the war, not harbor hostility and so on, that he himself, you know, was feeling many of the same, many of these more negative feelings.​

Exactly what I've been saying. He wasn't doing everything in his power for Reconstruction as was claimed.

 

[wausaubob]

Exactly what I've been saying. He wasn't doing everything in his power for Reconstruction as was claimed.

Maybe his physical health and psychological health had been more impaired then biographers have acknowledged.
We have to consider that Thomas Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart and A.P. Hill were deceased. Ewell and Hood had lost limbs. General Longstreet had been severely wounded. Look around General Lee and think what he would have seen. Virginia had suffered a territorial loss. The business district of Richmond was destroyed. Then General Lee's personal circumstances were not that good. So after a lifetime of devotion to his military career, his personal losses in the Civil War were devastating.
Compare that to the outcome for Generals Scott and George Thomas and Rear Admiral S. Phillips Lee, and there is a lot to account for.
The psychological burden on those who fought for the United States was heavy enough. Its not surprising that those who fought for the Confederacy demonstrated some denial.
Excellent thread.

 

[WJC]

Exactly what I've been saying. He wasn't doing everything in his power for Reconstruction as was claimed.

Thanks for your response.
No, he wasn't. Particularly when one considers what he might have done. Longstreet, for example, was a better advocate for accepting the war's outcome and moving on.

 

[Rebforever]

Thanks for your response.
No, he wasn't. Particularly when one considers what he might have done. Longstreet, for example, was a better advocate for accepting the war's outcome and moving on.

Until he bad mouth General Lee.

 

[cash]

Until he bad mouth General Lee.

This thread is about Lee during Reconstruction, not lost cause mythology. Please refrain from trying to derail the thread with lost cause nonsense.

Thank you.