The Richmond, Virginia, 21-foot statue of Robert E. Lee on horseback was removed in September of 2021. It is scheduled to be placed in the city’s Black History Museum. Charlottesville, Virginia removed its statue of Robert E. Lee in 2021 and plans to melt it down. New Orleans removed its statue of Lee in May of 2017. Lee has long been popular as a hero, particularly in the Southern states. On the national level, however, whatever grace was extended to Lee has, apparently, reached its expiration date. Lee has never been popular with American blacks, but white liberals have joined with blacks to say, “This man is no American hero and he does not does not deserve veneration. Even worse, he serves to inspire those who would pursue the evil of ‘white supremacy’. Let us burn his books.”
Perhaps it is time to cancel Lee. Maybe we spend too much money erecting statues for war heroes, anyway. How about a statue to commemorate the doctors and nurses who worked brutal hours to help America fight the covid plague? But is it really wise to try to blot out the memory of a man who had such an impact on American history? Who was Robert E. Lee, anyway? I think most of us don’t know much about him. The lack of knowledge makes us flaky about many things.
Lee served for many years before the Civil War in the United States military. West Point, in the early 1800s, focused primarily on graduating military engineers. Lee was one of those engineers. He built fortifications on the east coast. He worked for several years in St. Louis, redirecting the Mississippi so it wouldn’t continue to move itself away from the city. Later, he served as the head of West Point.
Lee played an important part in the war against Mexico. There are questions about whether this was a legitimate war on the part of the U.S., but there is no question that Lee was a major contributor and was key in formulating the strategy that captured Mexico City. The end result of that battle was a pact that set a border between Texas and Mexico and ceded California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming to the United States.
Lee has received considerable criticism for his loyalty to the South but, as biographer, Allen Guelzo put it, “Lee was a technician, not a man of ideas. His reading, even as superintendent at West Point, had been made up of professional and military material”. Lee fought for the South, certainly, but he did not do so for the sake of slavery. He expected slavery to slowly die of its own accord, and he was not in favor of a quick end to it. “In this enlightened age, there are few, I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a morel & political evil in any country.”
On April 18, 1860, Francis Blair, with Lincoln’s blessing, held a meeting with Lee to see whether he would take command of the Federal army. Little doubt, if he had, the Civil War would have been a much shorter, less bloody affair. But Lee refused the offer, explaining that his refusal had nothing to do with slavery, but that he could not take up arms against the South, and in particular, against Virginia. He was hoping there would be no war and that he would play a part in mending the differences between the southern and northern states. At a different time Lee suggested what was also a likely motivating factor. To his good friend, Winfield Scott, for whom he had fought in Mexico, he said, “General, the property belonging to my children, all they possess, lies in Virginia. They will be ruined if they do not go with their State.”
Lee resigned from the U.S. Army, fully intending to retire. “I am now a private citizen, and have no other ambition than to remain at home. Save in defense of my native State, I have no desire ever again to draw my sword.” Of course, it didn’t work out that way. Lee joined the Confederacy and it wasn’t long before his skills at battle strategy were well recognized and he was given authority over the South’s largest army.
Much blood was spilt in the Civil War. It was easily the most costly war in U.S. history. It is estimated that there were 1.5 million casualties in the war, with more than 600,000 deaths. In World War II, America’s second most costly war, there were just above 400,000 deaths. The deaths from the Civil War represented 2% of the population of the time. This would represent 6.6 million people in the U.S. today. No one exited the American Civil War unbruised or unscarred.
America wearied of the war, naturally. In 1864 the Democratic Party platform called for an immediate armistice and an end to the war, regardless of the result. The expectation was that such an armistice would mean independence for the Confederacy. In other words, the Democratic Party proposed to sell out American Blacks and permit racial slavery to continue as it had before, even after four long years (or maybe because of ) four long years of war. In the context of a discussion about “cancelling” Robert E. Lee, one has to wonder how the Democratic Party has escaped unscathed for this pragmatic betrayal. While Lee’s thought processes about the war and slavery were profoundly evil, at least he acted consistently with his encrusted conscience. In contrast, the Democratic Party platform was a calculation about power. As it turns out, the Democrats read the American people incorrectly. There were many who deeply opposed slavery, and there were many who felt that, after sacrificing so much, it was important to see the conflict to its rightful conclusion. Lincoln, the Republican, was elected for a second term.
In the South, Lee became a venerated figure. As the war became increasingly bleak from the Southern perspective, Southerners became disenchanted with Jefferson Davis’ leadership. John Jones wrote in his diary, “A large number of the croaking inhabitants censure the President for our many misfortunes, and openly declare in favor of Lee as Dictator.” Some, apparently, were comfortable with this assignment because they saw Lee as “one of the few great men who ever lived, who could be trusted”.
Lee was unable to outmaneuver the overwhelming resources of the North forever. Grant finally caught up to him at a time when Lee’s soldiers were deserting in droves, primarily due to the lack of equipment and food. Still, many of his soldiers would have fought on, and even among his officers were voices lobbying for a continued guerrilla war. Lee would have none of it. “The surrender of this army is the end of the Confederacy. We have now simply to look the fact in the face that the Confederacy has failed.” Lee’s influence in bringing about a peaceful resolution to the Civil War should not be dismissed lightly. If it can be argued that Lee’s leadership of the Southern army prolonged the war and added to casualties, it can also be argued that his strategical awareness and his tempered character were the reason many lives were spared at the conclusion of the war. “I have done for you all that was in my power to do. You have done your duty. Leave the result to God. Go to your homes and resume your occupations. Obey the laws and become as good citizens as you were soldiers.”
One’s enemies can often provide valuable insights. Near the end of World War II, General Patton, admittedly a combative character, proclaimed: “When we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper-hanging sonofabitch, Hitler.” After Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, he walked out onto the porch. At that moment, every Union officer on the porch sprung to his feet and gave Lee a military salute. On the day Lincoln was assassinated, he spoke kindly of Lee in a meeting with his cabinet. Even Henry Ward Beecher, a fiery abolitionist, thought well of Lee, helping him raise funds for Washington College (now Washington & Lee University) where Lee served as president after the war. Beecher, with a broadmindedness rarely found in 21st century U.S., commented, “If he had been born in Virginia, brought up amid her institutions and educated in a Southern college, he might have been prompted to take a course just as bad or erratic as did Lee.”
Of course, not everyone thought kindly of Lee. Frederick Douglass, after reading through a number of Lee obituaries, remarked, “We can scarcely take up a newspaper…that is not filled with nauseating flatteries of the late Robert E. Lee”. He went on to say, “If Lee has gone to heaven we are sincerely glad of it,” but he did so in spite of “the liberation of four million slaves and their elevation to manhood.”
How shall we think of Robert E. Lee? He served the United States as an engineer and as a soldier. He served as both a military and private educator. He lead the South in its insurrection against the Union. And he gave little respect to Black Americans, especially by fighting for the cause that would have prolonged their enslavement. He helped end the war and aided the transition to peace. Beloved and despised. Is it necessary for us to decide whether to love or despise him? Perhaps we should be willing to do both. Perhaps, while Lee’s strengths and weaknesses were more magnified than other people’s, Lee is fairly representative of humans and human scorecards. Whose carefully written biography would not be filled with both wondrous acts and tragic decisions?
How could Lee be so willfully blind, so apathetic towards the Black population held in bondage? How could he fight to maintain that bondage? Such thinking is so barbaric, so unlike the enlightened masses of the 21st century. Perhaps not. Has not the vast majority of Americans determined that the unborn are not fully human? Or that they are not fully human until their second trimester in the womb? Is this thinking any less blind or less destructive than the blindness of Lee and the antebellum South?
Perhaps we should not study history with the aim of deciding for every dead person whether they belong on “the right or wrong side of history”. Maybe we should have enough humility to recognize that our goats-or-sheep decisions may, in time, also be set aside for condemnation. Perhaps we should think long and hard as to who will ultimately have the right to decide such questions. In any case, should we be making heroes and villains out of history, or should we be looking more closely at the impacts of their choices? Is is possible that Lee did act in ways we ought to emulate? Is it possible that this is true, even as it is true that he held on to false ideas and made serous errors?
One last thought occurs to me as I think about Robert E. Lee. Beecher raised the point: how many of us would have chosen differently had we been in his shoes? Let us just say that we believed slavery was evil (as Lee did) but we also believed it should be ended immediately. Let us say that we recognized that the cause of the South was wrong. But now factor in that you are born and raised in the South, that nearly all of your family lives in the South, that your family owns considerable property in the South and that your siding with the North would likely lead to the loss of the family property. Would you turn your back on your own people, would you undermine your most precious relationships in order to do what is right?
The answer to this question is that we ought to have the spine to do what is right, even in the face of suffering and potential loss. But this is not what most people do. Mostly we revise our convictions in order that we may continue to do what is easiest. In this sense Lee was not a great man. In this sense, very few of us are. We all need a little grace from time-to-time. Once in a while our need is desperate. If we long to receive it, we should also have it within us to give it.
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With special thanks to Allen C. Guelzo and is fine book, “Robert E. Lee”. Mr. Guelzo has gifted us with a historical work in which he has worked hard to provide facts, and he has worked equally hard to avoid clouding the facts with commentary. I have borrowed heavily from Mr. Guelzo and I hope he can forgive me for using his information for the sake of an opinion piece.
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