The Myth of the Kindly General Lee

[The Mikado]

Of course Lee wasn't an abolitionist. Abolitionists were a rarity nationally in 1860 and basically unheard of outside of New England.

Lee's myth is based on the idea that he's a brilliant military commander who took an outnumbered and undersupplied army and kept it in the field for four years, pulling off several battlefield victories against superior enemy forces, and managed to protect Richmond, a capital city a few dozen miles south of the Potomac, for that whole four year period. Lee's reputation is based on his tenacity and tactical cunning, not on his humanitarianism or morality.

EDIT:

I'm reminded of Albert Speer being called a "good nazi".

I think Lee's historical treatment is more akin to Rommel than Speer.

[The Mikado]

Serious question: I really did think that the celebration of General Lee to this day had to do with his military prowess, not his alleged kindliness. How is Lee different on this front than his direct contemporary Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the legendarily effective Prussian/German general widely celebrated as one of if not the greatest general of his generation?

von Moltke the Elder was no winner on political principals, but the man knew how to win battles. I always thought the celebration of Lee was about his military competency in winning engagements like the Battle of Chancellorsville which Lee had no business winning against a Union army more than twice the size of his, and not due to Lee's actual character as a human being.

[The Mikado]

Let us judge all men relative to their time, region, and culture, for otherwise we live in a world of absolutes, and in a world of absolutes there is no room for error.

Judging Lee by his contemporaries' standards on the moral front is fine. Many of his contemporaries weren't slaveowners and shed their blood and lives to set other men free, or at least didn't actively lead a treasonous rebellion to try to preserve that institution.