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<DIV>OK Jeanene, I'll bite. Its good of you to stand up for your family. By the
way, even if true, my statement about Benedict Arnold stands uncontested, since
Robert E. Lee did not fight in the Revolutionary War. His father, Lighthorse
Harry Lee, did.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Lee more or less single-handedly assured the survival of the confederacy in
the eastern theater of the war for a good two or three years, taking advantage
of General McClellan's hesitation to spoil the beautiful army he had built by
actually taking it into battle, General Hooker's lack of confidence in his own
strategy, and General Ambrose Burnside's assinine pursuit of a battle plan made
obsolete by the arrival of Longstreet's corps on Maryes Heights. He could take a
small force, strike like lightning in several directions, and put numerically
superior adversaries to flight. He could anticipate an excellent strategic move
of his opposite numbers, to which his own forces were quite vulnerable, and move
his own troops into position to make that strategic move absolutely fatal. Not
bad at all.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>However, Lee lost the war. He had to surrender his army. He was, in the
end, out-generaled, mostly by General Grant, and to the extent he came to
command all confederate forces in the field, also by General Sherman, not to
mention, he was a bit undermined by General Hood's desire to go out and fight
when that simply opened opportunities for Sherman to take Atlanta a bit sooner.
General Johnson, for all the flak he took from Richmond and from Hood, was doing
the best anyone could do to slow Sherman down. Lee met his match in Grant, so he
was not the best general in the Civil War, much less in the entire history of
the United States.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>On the moral side, Lee favored emancipation and the end of slavery, opposed
secession, said that to save the union he would sacrifice everything but honor
(which he concluded required him to fight for Virginia if fighting had to be
done), and firmly advocated General Alexander Cleburne's proposal to enroll
African Americans in the CSA army, in exchange for not only freedom but full
respect for their marriages and families. (Lee and Cleburne were southern
patriots, not committed to slavery, whereas Alexander Stephens and several other
generals said "the whole point to secession is the inferiority of the Negro, if
we make a soldier of him we concede the whole question.")</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Morally, Lee had his dark side. The horrors depicted in the novel <EM>Cold
Mountain</EM> were not unrelated to his draconian orders to stem desertion from
the CSA army. True, it is standard military procedure, and when those who stay
in the ranks stand a good chance of losing their lives, there is a certain logic
that anyone who deserts should summarily lose theirs. But the horror for
countless individual and more or less innocent lives is still real.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Siarlys</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>P.S. My nominee for greatest general the USA had in any war would be Joseph
Stilwell, because taking on the Japanese in Burma, and getting Chiang Kai-Shek
to do any fighting against Japan at all, was a more difficult job than even the
invasion of Normandy. At least Eisenhower had unimpaired command of all armies
and supply operations he needed to go into battle.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:06:09 -0700 "Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies
List" <<A href="mailto:gcfl-discuss@gcfl.net">gcfl-discuss@gcfl.net</A>>
writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 10px; PADDING-LEFT: 10px">
<DIV><FONT color=#000080 face=Candara size=4>Ummmm, Robert E. Lee was the
greatest general the United States had in ANY war.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080 face=Candara size=4>Jeanene</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080 face=Candara size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000080 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080 face=Candara size=4></FONT><FONT color=#000080
face=Candara size=4></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Hello everyone. I'm bored. Would anyone like to discuss</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080 face=Candara size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>"Benedict Arnold was the greatest general the United States had in the
Revolutionary War"</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080 face=Candara size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV align=center>???</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080 face=Candara size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Siarlys</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080 face=Candara size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>P.S. If you don't like that one, Jeanene can throw out another
question.</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000080 face=Candara size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>P.P.S. If you do like that one, read up on Kenneth Roberts's historical
novels, especially <EM>Rabble In Arms</EM>.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>
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