Chuck Roots
27 November 2017
www.chuckroots.com
The Ripon Bulletin
The King of
Spades
It has been said that “if we do not learn from history then we are
doomed to repeat it.”
It is my contention that this truism
is uncomfortably accurate. In recent months we have seen the rise of those
seeking to ruin monuments of persons or ideologies they find objectionable and
offensive.
One such person is General Robert E.
Lee, commander of all Confederate Forces during the Civil War of 1861-65. His
statues have been damaged or torn down because he was the military leader of
southern forces during the “War of Northern Aggression”, which is just one of
the many names attributed to the Civil War. But what do we know of this man who
nearly lead the Confederacy to victory over Union forces, often many times
larger than Lee’s?
Robert Edward Lee was the son of
Revolutionary War officer and hero, Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee III. Robert
graduated in 1829, second of his class at the Military Academy (West Point) behind
Charles Mason, who resigned from the Army a year later. Graduates of the
academy were selected for assignments in the Army based upon their academic
standing. Those who scored lowest were sent to the infantry. The brightest were
chosen to be military engineers. Lee served in the U.S. Army for 29 years,
mostly reengineering military installations around the country. He even served
a time as the commandant of West Point (1852-59). One of the nicknames
attributed to Lee by his academy classmates was, “The Marble Model” because he
so typified the soldier they all aspired to be.
During the Mexican-American War
(1846-48), the commander of American forces, General Winfield Scott, described Lee
in this manner, “He is the best officer
in the Army.”
There are often numerous ironies
during war that can only truly be appreciated after time and temper has passed.
The First Irony: In 1859 Lee was
visiting Washington, DC when the radical abolitionist, John Brown and his ragtag
band of followers seized control of the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry,
Virginia. The War Department asked Lee, a colonel at this point in his career,
to take a detachment of U.S. Marines and recapture the armory. The recapture
was successful. The trial and execution by hanging of John Brown, occurred December
2, 1859. Brown wrote the night before his execution these sobering words, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that
the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had,
as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it
might be done.”
The Second Irony: In April 1861 Lee
turned down the offer to command the Union Army. The person who had the
authority to offer such a command was none other than General Winfield Scott! Lee
told his old mentor, “I am a Virginian
first.” Allegiance to one’s state often superseded national loyalty. Lee
did not support secession and firmly believed that his home state of Virginia
would choose to stay with the Union. When this did not happen, he felt his
loyalty was to Virginia, though it grieved him greatly. It also brought about
the split in Virginia, creating the new state of West Virginia because the sentiments
of the majority of the folks living in that part of Virginia were for the
Union.
The Third Irony: Colonel Lee
resigned his commission from the U.S. Army two days after he was offered
command of the Union Army and three days after Virginia seceded from the Union.
He spoke with General Scott on April 18, 1861, explaining his decision. He said
he would have resigned his commission already “but for the struggle it has cost me to separate myself from a service
to which I have devoted the best years of my life and all the ability I
possess.” His final comment to Scott was, “Save in the defense of my native State (Virginia), I never desire
again to draw my sword.”
The Fourth Irony: After the war was
over Robert E. Lee opposed the construction of public memorials to Confederate
rebellion on the grounds that they would prevent the healing of wounds
inflicted during the war.
The Final Irony: Following the close
of the Civil War in 1865, Lee accepted the offer to be president of Washington
College (now Washington and Lee University) serving in that capacity until his
death in 1870. Lee did not suffer the indignities of arrest and imprisonment so
often suffered by enemy combatants. However, his family home, the Custis-Lee
Mansion, had been seized by Union forces during the war and was eventually turned
into Arlington National Cemetery.
And the reason for the article’s
title, “The King of Spades”? Well, when Lee assumed command of the Confederate
Army, he put his military engineering into practice, requiring his men to take
their shovels (spades) for digging earthworks, fortifications, and
entrenchments in preparation for battle. The Daily Herald, Feb 16, 2014 states
that, “General Ulysses S. Grant learned
the hard way that if he gave Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia just six
uninterrupted hours head start that they would have field fortifications built
that were suicide for Union troops to attack. Grant attacked them anyway, and
the butcher’s bill was catastrophic for the Yankees.”
I wonder how many of these recent “monument
destroyers” know any of this about Robert Edward Lee?