Speaking of Wanting Rebel Fighters to Be Perfect . . .

Just a few days ago, I wrote about Churchill’s complaints that earlier historians had tried to paint Oliver Cromwell as a paragon, and I said that I at least sympathized with those who want the people who fight for their cause to be perfect, even though we should all know that they can’t be. But, wow! Then I got to the crucial parts of a Robert E. Lee biography. I had no idea how far this desire for holiness could go.

I started the year with the plan to read Douglas Freeman’s biography of the Confederate general, based on the fact that it won a Pulitzer Prize and was published (I thought) in 2008. As I started reading the forward by James McPherson, though, I discovered that what came out in 2008 was a new abridgment, that the book had originally been published in 1935, and that it was the work that established the mythical sainthood of the rebel for twentieth-century readers. I quickly shifted to a more recent treatment, one by Elizabeth Pryor, after reading recommendations that she gives the man a well-documented and fair examination.

And I have to say that Pryor tries her very best at various times through the book and especially at the end to make the reader admire what was admirable in the oathbreaker. But do I really have to admire the virtues he had? Al Capone reportedly loved his wife and mother with utmost devotion. Am I really under an obligation to look to Al Capone as a model of family love? The problem is that, as Pryor worked to be fair in reporting the good in Robert E. Lee, she labored just as hard to expose the bad. Here’s a quick list of some highlights:

• He broke the oath he took in 1829 to “bear true allegiance to the United States of America” and to serve “against all their enemies.”
• He broke his word given in 1861 that he would fight only to defend Virginia and would “never bear arms against the United States.” (The promise was contradictory in the context of the time since he would be bearing arms against the United States Army in “defending” Virginia. But the promise, made to many, would fall apart entirely when he invaded Maryland.)
• He put out bounties on runaway slaves and punished them by contracting them out to harsh masters.
• He kept a whipping post at Arlington and ordered that it be used.
• He broke families apart by trading and selling slaves,
• He condoned the capturing and enslaving of free blacks by “virtually every unit” of his army when he invaded Pennsylvania.
• He gave only slight punishments to students at Washington College, where he was president after the Civil War, when they terrorized local black citizens. (He was more harsh to students who didn’t continue studying over Christmas break.)

As Pryor says, the only reason we are interested in him is that he is one of history’s greatest generals. So only in this regard can I begin to join anyone in looking to Lee as an example. And yet even here Pryor assesses both supporters and detractors. Did Lee, for instance, formulate the winning tactics at Chancellorsville, one of the most daring in all history, or was it Jackson? Should he be blamed for thinking that invading the northern states (twice!) would break the resolve of their citizens rather than understanding what should have been perfectly obvious given his recent experience – that people attacked in their homeland find even greater determination to fight? Was his plan at Gettysburg foolhardy as Longstreet said, or is the fault for his loss there to be laid on a hesitant Longstreet? Either way, I’m glad for America that Lee did lose at Gettysburg, so I have little desire to admire his tactical thinking even where I find it interesting.

Still, the myth exists and many Americans do look up to him. Even as I applaud the recent removal of monuments to the man who fought for the rights of white Virginians to own human beings (it risks erasing history only for those who don’t read!), I can understand that many admirers see Lee as a symbol of something other than racism, something other than a desire to return to a fairy-tale world in which all slaves were content and all owners kindhearted, gentle masters who only gave their servants good jobs, civilization, and Christianity. They may see in Lee the gallant champion against government overreach. They may see in him the defender of a relaxed, agrarian, southern way of life. And these positions I can begin to appreciate even if I can’t go shoulder to shoulder with those who hold them. But when “artists” from recent years paint halos around Lee and Elvis, standing as pillars of the saints on either side of a glorified Jesus Christ, I can only respond with a line from Dr. Johnson that I read just this morning: “There is no trusting to that crazy piety.”