Having visited Gettysburg again recently after viewing the Turner production “Gettysburg” (1994), starring Martin Sheen as the "venerable" Lee, I was struck by the portrayal of Lee as a pious, tired general who was to be pitied because of his long sacrifice for what he believed to be a noble cause (states rights versus federalism). This states rights issue was the smokescreen put up by southerners to obscure the real issue of racism and preservation of slavery and its accompanying lifestyle of comfort and affluence for the slaveholder. At long last a historical biography is available that did not intentionally seek to destroy the image of Lee as a reluctant warrior and despiser of slavery, but by publishing his own letters and correspondence from his friends and family, the book reportedly allows his own words to demonstrate that Lee was not as noble or saintly as southern apologists insist.
NY Sun reviewer Eric Ormsby reported in today’s issue that Elizabeth Brown Pryor’s Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters
sheds light on certain aspects of Lee’s personality and belief structure that Lee worshippers, if they are even aware of them, would prefer to keep in the dark. Two paragraph’s from Ormsby’s review capture effectively where history and reality diverged when it came to casting Lee as one who believed slavery was evil or who valued the lives of his troops:The most disturbing chapters deal with Lee's views on slavery. He thought slavery an evil system not because it stripped slaves of freedom and dignity but because it was such an awful burden on slave owners. For Lee, slavery formed part of some inscrutable providential design through which slaves might someday rise to a higher condition (though never to the level of whites). He was a brutal slave owner, destroying families to make a quick profit. "By 1860 he had broken up every family but one on the estate," Ms. Pryor writes. Once he had a runaway slave given 50 lashes, urging his constable to "lay it on well," and then had brine poured onto the victim's flayed back — this was a slave who had been manumitted at Lee's father-in-law's death but whom Lee refused to free. Despite Ms. Pryor's best efforts to put all this in context, Lee stands revealed as both cruel and hypocritical.
Lee had wit and grace in abundance, as his letters prove. And they display other unsuspected aspects of his personality. He was a lifelong flirt, indulging in startling sexual innuendo with female friends and relatives. He was a domestic tyrant who adored his children, lavishing them alternately with caresses and commands. But despite his considerable charm, something cold, some abstractly calculating tendency, characterized Lee. His troops regarded him as a father, but he let them be butchered by the thousands without so much as a backward glance; most conspicuously at Gettysburg, when even his own generals stood appalled. As Ms. Pryor shows throughout, Lee was simply unable to imagine the lives of others, whether slaves torn from their families or young soldiers squandered in suicidal charges. In crucial ways, Lee the man was more hollow — and more heartless — than the icon he became.
Ordinarily I am an outspoken critic of “revisionist history," as that genre has produced many volumes tearing down the reputations of the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, and other historical icons for which it is healthy for Americans to hold high opinions. There is something inherently wrong about debunking men who, though hampered by human weakness or error, wore out their lives in service to righteous ideals such as life, liberty, and constitutional government. I am much more forgiving when historians debunk iconic figures who wore out their lives defending evil practices such as slavery, as Lee did. It is never noble to fight for an evil cause. While many of the Founding Fathers were slaveholders, most of them abandoned the practice within years of constitutional ratification. Further, they laid the foundation for a system of government that could later be amended to eliminate slavery, discrimination, and a host of other inequalities over time. The northern colonial representatives in particular recognized that an accommodation for slavery would be necessary if the United States was to be established, and the mechanisms for future change were incorporated.
Lee, however, was firmly entrenched as a slave owner and was willing to kill other Americans and wage war to preserve his right to white supremacy and a life of luxury at the expense of other humans. The Founders fought a war with Britain to establish a free nation. Lee fought a war to keep other humans permanently enslaved. To revere him on a par with the Founders is to denigrate their ideals and accomplishments. Perhaps Pryor’s new book will help Americ
ans better understand why statues of Lee and other Confederate “heroes” stir sentiments of anger and resentment within local African-American communities. They should stir those same sentiments within each of us regardless of race. Lee should not be considered a historical figure worthy of enshrinement in statue and laudatory biography. If more Americans were aware of Lee’s actual attitudes toward and personal treatment of his slaves, historical justice would be served. The next time you hear someone invoke “southern honor” or “states rights” to describe what the South fought for in the Civil War, you can point to Lee, the ultimate “southern gentleman,” and dispel the historical myths.
