DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE MAN OF MARBLE

Richard Cohen had a useful article in The Washington Post the other day, in which he takes on the myth around Robert E. Lee. “It’s about time Robert E. Lee lost the Civil War,” writes Cohen. “The South, of course, was defeated on the battlefield in 1865, yet the Lee legend — swaddled in myth, kitsch and racism — has endured even past the civil rights era when it became both urgent and right to finally tell the “Lost Cause” to get lost. Now it should be Lee’s turn. He was loyal to slavery and disloyal to his country — not worthy, even he might now admit, of the honors accorded him.”

Cohen says that when he first moved to the DC area, “I used to marvel at these homages to the man. What was being honored? Slavery? Treason? Or maybe, for this is how I perceive him, no sense of humor? (Often, that is mistaken for wisdom.) I also wondered what a black person was supposed to think or, maybe more to the point, feel. Chagrin or rage would be perfectly appropriate.”

Cohen points to the new book Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters, by Elizabeth Brown Pryor. The prevailing view is that Lee was deeply conflicted over whether to choose the United States or Virginia, and then finally chose the South after feeling overwhelming social and political pressure. “When Lee consulted his brothers, sister and local clergymen, he found that most leaned toward the Union,” writes Pryor. “At a grim dinner with two close cousins, Lee was told that they also intended to uphold their military oaths. .?.?. Sister Anne Lee Marshall unhesitatingly chose the Northern side, and her son outfitted himself in blue uniform.” Lee would not have been alone in choosing to remain loyal to the Union. General George Thomas and Admiral David Farragut were among the approximately 40 percent of Virginia officers who remained loyal.”

Cohen acknowledges that Lee was a brilliant general, likening him to Confederate Rommel. (Ken Burns notes that Lee is responsible for more death of US Army solders than Hitler and Tojo combined.) “He deserves no honor — no college, no highway, no high school. In the awful war (620,000 dead) that began 150 years ago this month, he fought on the wrong side for the wrong cause. It’s time for Virginia and the South to honor the ones who were right.”

Cohen is more right than wrong; it is long past time that Lee’s name disappear from public buildings. But just because Lee would have had more familial support from his family than we realized doesn’t mean that he wasn’t genuinely torn (but yes, all the more reason to applaud Farragut, Thomas, et al.) But as we try to bury the Lost Cause mythology once and for all, it would be wrong to go too far in denying a man’s honor. There is no reason to believe that Lee did anything than other than the right as he saw it. It’s enough just to make it clear that this man of virtue, honor, and duty was wrong.