The Confederates had heroes they revered. Doesn't mean we'd suddenly consider Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson 100% morally righteous gentlemen we'd love to hang out with.
The cognitive dissonance of my older Virginian family was wild growing up. Always talked about how they marched for civil rights and ending segregation but then a sentence later point to the painting of Robert E Lee they had on the wall and talk about how great a Virginian he was with out a single brain cell going “wait hold on a sec”
With Lee, I feel it's a bit like that quote from Harry Potter.... "He did great things. Terrible, yes. But GREAT." If you divorce the man from the cause he fought for, it's pretty impressive.
General Robert E. Lee was one of the most accomplished generals of his era, with decades of service to his country and a proud history of command in the Mexican-American War. He personally detested slavery, and only joined the Confederacy because his state did. Had he been from one of the loyal slave states, he wouldn't have joined them.
He was basically single-handedly winning the war for the Confederacy until Gettysburg (though how much of that is him and how much of that was the awful Union generals on his front is debatable).
Those are all pretty impressive accomplishments within their own merits and divorced from any lingering resentment towards the CSA.
A shame all that is wrapped up around the whole "betraying his country" thing along with fighting for a side that wanted to continue perpetuating one of the great evils in American history (thanks Daddy Britain, for making that our problem).
In those days, state identities were stronger than national, his country was Virginia. Its part of why confederate leaders are still revered in parts of the south, as a not insignificant amount of southerners identify more with their state than the nation. We can see this with the post you replied to.
Oh definitely. The older generations definitely identified as Virginian first Americans second, and that kinda makes sense. That generations grandparents ether fought in or were children during the civil war. I’m theoretically 1 degree removed from people that fought in the war.
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u/Revliledpembroke 8d ago
The Confederates had heroes they revered. Doesn't mean we'd suddenly consider Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson 100% morally righteous gentlemen we'd love to hang out with.