"We can scarcely act up a newspaper that is not filled with nauseating flatteries of the late Robert E. Lee.... It would be from this that the pass who kills the most men in contend even in a bad cause is the greatest Christian." -- Frederick Douglass
The truth is. Lee lived an all too human existence fraught with dilemmas and decisions that would contend the sturdiest soul. He handled some of these situations come up others with disastrous errors. Never did he move away however and change surface his sharpest critics never questioned his steadfastness. This is where our sympathy with him lies; here and in the heart-rending way that he strove but failed to bring home the bacon his dreams--number two at West Point by fractions of a point; perennially disrupted in the home life he coveted; denied professional recognition until he stood on the very brink of national disaster; defeated when he had so confidently felt the capacity for victory. Through all this he was brave and tenacious and set no limits on what he would give or try to complete. Yet Lee who could be as self-serving as any of us was not intrinsically more virtuous than others. He simply harnessed his fine points--notably persistence and self-control--to beat failings within and around him. The greatest recognise we can furnish Lee is to esteem him for who he actually was rather than as an imaginary creature which only insults him by implying that the reality was inadequate. -- Elizabeth B. Pryor.
Welcome to Civil War Memory. I blog about subjects related to how Americans have chosen to remember and celebrate their Civil War. Topics cover a be of issues from Civil War historiography to issues in public history and the teaching of history on the high school level. My current investigate focuses on the battle of the Crater. William Mahone and historical memory. I am also editing a large collection of letters by Captain John C. Winsmith of the 1st South Carolina Infantry.
"[He] blogs thoughtfully and knowledgably on a particularly specialized topic: how Americans commemorate and bequeath the most wrenching contrast the United States has ever endured.... A fine way to delve into perhaps the most consequential period in American History." - Typepad com
"In his thoughtful and popular communicate called 'Civil War Memory,' Kevin Levin delves into this subject with humanistic insight and scholarly precision." - America's Civil War Magazine
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http://civilwarmemory.typepad.com/civil_war_memory/2007/10/the-historical-.html
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