President Lincoln Originally Offered the Union Army Command to General Lee
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General Lee was offered the position of the head of the Union army by Abraham Lincoln, but decided to lead the Confederate army instead as he couldn’t bring himself to lead troops against his native Virginia. Despite the Confederates being vastly outnumbered and not as well equipped as the North, Lee and his right hand man, Stonewall Jackson, managed to post victory after victory against the North, primarily due to Lee’s brilliance, Jackson’s audacity, and the North’s moronic Generals.
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Then they lost…
The Union generals weren’t morons, they were conflicted. Many were States Right’s advocates, some were ex-slaveowners or related to slaveowners, many wanted to let the Confederacy leave the Union. The Confederate generals were not as conflicted, fighting for their states, and what they viewed as their right to own humans. So the Union generals for fighting for a principal that not all of them had sympathy for, whereas the Confederate generals were fighting for themselves. In the end Lincoln found Grant, a brilliant general who also opposed treason and slavery.
Yes, the Union Generals were truthfully moronic in every sense of the word. General George McClellan was relieved as commander of Union troops twice for his unique inability to advance his army into favorable, yet difficult positions to attain an obvious advantage. The Confederate Generals did not fight to own humans. This observation of the best tactical generals any army has ever encountered is moronic, pathetic, and is easily proven not true. General Lee and all under his command were indelibly loyal and dedicated to their states and their rights therein. General Lee, when requested by Lincoln to take command over the Union Army politely declined telling Lincoln, ” I cannot raise my sword against Virginia.” You must understand the historical context of those times past to fully understand the “real reason” why the South waged war with the North. The war began when the Union Army invaded northwestern Virginia in a little town called Phillippi. Twenty miles from there is the town of Manassas, thus the Battle of First Manassas had begun. Both Armies were ill prepared for the blood to be shed this awful day, except for the courage and tenacity of General Thomas J. Jackson. The army of Northern Virginia utterly repelled the invasion by the Yankees, they pulled all the way back to Washington D.C. utterly whooped, wet, disorganized and demoralized. Had the Confederates kept up the romp into D.C., the Union Capitol would have been seized, thus ending the Northern Aggression and the Civil War in one day. This was the first, last, and only opportunity the Confederate Army would ever have to win the war. This level of opportunity was to never be encountered again.
Had the Cival War began over slavery, then why didn’t Lincoln emancipate the slaves in 1860? Lincoln explicitly stated that he had no intention of freeing the slaves. Had he began his campaign of northern aggression by freeing the slaves, he would not have had an army to invade the south with, and he knew this. He would have experienced overwhelming desertion, much more so than the thousands of Union deserters the north did indeed have after the emancipation. The Union Sordiers were also fighting for their Union, or the preservation there of not to free the slaves. At the start of the war the Union Army was under orders to return escaped then captured slaves back to the plantation.
The Northern Army, rest assured, was not fighting the Southern Army to free the slaves. They as well, could give a rats ass about slave labor. It just wasn’t why the war began, period.
This thought process is falsely contrived in the public school system and entrenched in social media as well as all major media outlets. Lincoln was more concerned about the tariffs the Northern States were being charged for their badly needed shipments of cotton from the South, than he was about the slaves whom were picking his supply of cotton.
There is also confusion about the Unions allowance of slave labor to exist or not, in the newly forming midwest. Missouri for example. Most think Lincoln explicitly forbade slave labor in Missouri. Not what he said. Lincoln said there would be no negros allowed in that state, not slave labor. Although his decree did essentially prevent slave labor from moving westward into the northern territory.
As far as the Southern reasoning, first we must understand that the state of Virginia WAS the Country for the men whom resided there and joined the Army of Northern Virginia. Though many men all over the south joined up with that army, it was mainly comprised of Virginia farm boys and their families, not slave owners, or owners if humans, as you so eloquently stated. These boys, under command of their beloved General Lee, fought for their state and their homes against what they percieved as the northern aggressors. Lincoln only changed the theme of why we were fighting the Civil War near the end of the war. For all practical reasoning the war ended after the Battle of Gettysburgh. As it turned out, this is when the lost caused continued unnecessarily, resulting in tens of thousands of unneeded casualties on both sides. The War Between The States did indeed end after that three day battle with a dejected and depleted Confederate Army. More so than the Union Army after the Battle of First Manassas three years earlier.
My only wish has always been that after a half million men died, and all hellacious conditions were endured on both sides, soldier and civilian, for whatever reason, one desires to indeed decide their reasoning suffices their reasoning, that the sins of our past ways, were more than entirely paid for in full, by the literal flesh blood of the men from that era, whom fought gallantly for THEIR CAUSE, which indeed sufficed their reasoning for the Civil War.
Eric Butler
I am a southerner and a states rights advocate, and I agree Lee, Jackson, Stuart, etc. were absolutely brilliant. The South was certainly out gunned, but to call the northern generals morons is unfair. Grant was an excellent general.
But Lee’s excuse for refusing the offer from his Commander in Chief Pres. Lincoln does not ring true. It is one thing to resign so as not to have to fight against your fellow Virginians, it is quite another then to accept the commission to lead the charge to destroy the nation you had sworn to protect. Lee should have refused a commission from the Confederacy more vehemently than he did from the Union if he had any scruples. He was a great military leader, no doubt, and he served as a great leader of the University that now bears his name, but he should no more be honored as a military hero anywhere in the United States any more than we honor Benedict Arnold. Had Lee simply retired from the military, then all the bloodshed could have been averted–the “idiot generals” did ultimately defeat the South, but if Lee had not been at the helm it would have all happened in short order. The Northern generals were not so much idiots as Lee was brilliant. And that brilliance belonged first and foremost to the Union–If not for the Union, his military prowess should not have been used at all.
He didn’t think he was destroying the nation, he thought he was fighting for it..against an overreaching central government….that sound familiar?
Whatever,,and I suppose u also don’t realize that Lincoln’s first reaction was to re unite the union, he could have cared less about the slaves. Because after all they were considered inferior human beings . In fact he was known to have said I wish I round them all up and ship them back to Africa. There enough said, u people never want to look at all of history in its true context.remember this country was built on atrocities . At least the blacks were put through genocide like the Indians, at the order of the us army after the civil war. U people always want to fixate on one issue and make it the worst thing ever. History is not a pretty picture, that’s why it’s history for us to learn from and be reminded. Of. Thus the Confederate monuments should stay as a reminder.
Larry, you are obviously conflicted in regard to Lee. Read more.
The Civil War didnt start out about slavery. It started because Northern textile mills were being outpriced by British and Irish textile mills buying the cheap US cotton by the ship load and competing against American exports.
Robert E Lee, 1st in his gradiuating class at Westpoint, was Lincoln’s first choice to lead the Federal troops but Lee was too righteous to lead Federal troops against civilians in Virginoa running the cotton embargo shipping blockades. They werent a warring Nation he told Limcoln.
It was about States Rights over Federal mandates. Lincoln never even mentioned slavery in his Gettysburg Address. The sole purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation was to free slaves that would have to move North to stay alive and finally break the economic backbone of the cotton industry in the South. It was a noble gesture for sure but hourly laborers still to thos day do not make a living wage so slavery never really ended, it just took on a new face.