Was Robert E. Lee a hero or a villain? | Jeremi Suri and Lex Fridman

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Jeremi Suri is a historian at UT Austin.

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[LexClips]

Guest bio: Jeremi Suri is a historian at UT Austin.

[StuBoIsEpic]

This is a deeply historically inaccurate take on Lee and other Southerners. Suri's argument here is Lee didn't do enough to help Reconstruction. Maybe that has to do with the fact that Lee is dead by 1870? According to Suri, Lee is expected to change all of Southern Society in 5 years. What about Longstreet and Mosby? Lee supported Johnson's Reconstruction plan. Lee chastised fellow ex-Confederates such as Davis and Jubal Early for their frequent, angry responses to perceived Northern insults.

"It should be the object of all to avoid controversy, to allay passion, give full scope to reason and to every kindly feeling. By doing this and encouraging our citizens to engage in the duties of life with all their heart and mind, with a determination not to be turned aside by thoughts of the past and fears of the future, our country will not only be restored in material prosperity, but will be advanced in science, in virtue and in religion."

The shaming of Civil War Leaders on both sides only leads to the shaming of the Founding Fathers. Now George Wythe is canceled when he was arguably the most Progressive Founding Father. He freed all of his Slaves at the end of the Revolutionary War, a radical act at the time. Yet, we find the taint of slavery enough to erase a man chased throughout the entire war for signing the Declaration of Independence.

I'm open to hearing the good and the bad, but people like Suri and arguably even Lex here shouldn't frame it as "Heroes vs Villains." So is Grant the "Hero" cause he defeats Lee? Cause I'm more than happy to tell you about all the bad things done by Union Generals and Leaders to Indigenous People.

Ulysses Grant - "We are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress of the railroads." (Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 17:262)
William Tecumseh Sherman - ""We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children." (Sherman to Grant, December 28, 1866, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant 16:422)
Sherman - "During an assault, the soldiers can not pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age. As long as resistance is made. Death must be meted out, but the moment all resistance ceases, the firing will stop and all survivors turned over to the proper Indian agents."

Ulysses S. Grant Launched an Illegal War Against the Plains Indians then lied about It. Sherman called for the complete extermination of the Sioux People. Grant also deeply loved his wife and wrote his memoirs with probably stage 4 cancer to make sure she had an nest egg after he was gone. I want to live in a world where we can have people to look up to. They don't have to be perfect. I certainly don't expect people nearly 200 years removed from me to be perfect, but can we at least be a tad more honest and not ask loaded questions?

Thank you for coming to my autistic ramblings <3

[thecurlyafro]

Brah, Lee fought and lost against the Union. Didn’t complain about it. he literally supported remaining apart of the union telling others they had to after that lost. He literally prevented not one but two, attempts to start a second civil war prior to his death. That’s the only credit Lee deserves in my book. Accepted defeat, told others to support re-union of north &south and prevented another civil war from starting.

[jyu]

Comparing Hitler to Lee is a terrible example. Rommel is a better comparison.

[CrispyChristieMAC]

The thing that ends the argument is the comparison. Someone already commented Rommel is a far better example, and far less hyperbolic.

[frankjennings]

It’s not really fair to blame Lee for not pushing the South to move forward and accept defeat (although he actually did do that). He was just a general, who did his job well, but not well enough considering the difficulty of his position. The Hitler comparison is crazy. Lee wasn’t the leader who decided to start the war, and he didn’t start an extermination campaign.

[unconfinedliberty]

Comparing Robert E Lee to Hitler is something I can't get on board with. Being a lifelong Mississippian and someone who is forever grateful that the Union won, that is an absurd claim. I don't care about the credentials this guy comes with. That is a flat out wrong and ignorant comparison.

[donniedewitt]

Lee was nowhere near the character of A.H even Lincoln said both men of north and men of south should bury and mourn their dead. Lee himself said that we should move on

[andrewofaiur]

any academic that seriously looks at history with a good vs. evil framework loses credibility imo. It's not only a flawed approach to learning history but a dangerous precedent moving forward.

[monkeytronk]

I think in my opinion that Suri took Lee's quote out of context. Lee understood the war was completely over. "Lee urged Southerners to accept defeat and reunite as Americans, even though some Southerners wanted to keep fighting." It seems like Suri wants us to beleive that Lee was still defiant, when I beleive he was using metaphor to explain the southern zeitgeist.

[coleyoutubechannel]

He was one of the biggest advocates for unifying the country after the war. This guy is playing revisionist history

[ltmund]

Personally I think like this: Every Hero is flawed. Every Villan thinks they are a hero. Heroes and villains are just propaganda. Be inspired by the good acts of character, no matter who.

[punkboyxx]

You really only need to read W.E.B. DuBois on Lee: “Either he knew what slavery meant when he helped maim and murder thousands in its defense, or he did not. If he did not he was a fool. If he did, Robert Lee was a traitor and a rebel – not indeed to his country, but to humanity and humanity’s God.”

[michaeloc]

Lee was an incredible tactician. He constantly outmaneuvered Union generals in the East. He was, however, a poor strategist and that’s mostly because he would never abandon his dear home state of Virginia. An admirable man who fought for an awful cause

[willbrink]

He was both. Simply depends on which side you were on, and like all humans, complicated. Not one major figure in history made into a hero also did some ugly things, and Lee was left in the position because they felt it was the best way to move forward as a nation. Civil wars always end in similar ways where people who did some terrible things simply go home when it's over, vs what happens when one nation wins a war against another. No foreign wars can be compared to civil wars.

[stephenpodeschi]

Lee was a life long professional soldier and served in the Mexico campaign and was asked to take command of the Union army
to oppose the confederate states.Lee refused politely because his home state succeeded and he chose to offer his services to
them & did not command the army of Northern Virginia until its commander Gen Johnson was wounded 1862 & Lee replaced him.
The Hitler analogy is stupid as virtually the whole south thought as Lee did and he spent the remaining 5 years of his life as
president of Washington collage. Lee would not consider himself a hero or villain just a patriot doing his duty to his homeland.
Re writing history is all the rage in the United states of 'wokedom', and some revisions are always happening but this is just
ridiculous.There is strong debate that Hitler did survive the bunker and a double was killed but thats another story...

After WW11 many Nazis escaped to South America & elsewhere, top officers & rocket scientists & technicians were shipped to
the US under project paper clip and served in the space programs. Others were employed in several countries. Gen Gehlen was
head of intel in the eastern theater and after the war helped set up the new West German intel service as did many ex soldiers.
Every war and conflict has winners and losers and the current Ukraine conflict will be no different. Biden's actions in Afghanistan
has yet to be justified one way or the etc....

[seanmorehouse]

This is just absolutely factually wrong. Lee was never politically involved in the first place, so the comparison to Hitler (ignoring any ridiculousness on a moral level) makes no sense because the Nazi cause was based on Hitler’s own ideas. Lee didn’t even personally believe in the Confederate cause let alone invent and advance it. He was opposed to secession and slavery and a great deal else that made up the southern political mindset. He fought for the Confederacy because he was a soldier and it was his job. If Virginia had stayed in the Union he would have been commander of the Northern army and a great American hero. If you feel you must draw parallels to Nazis Rommel is a much more fair comparison.

After the war he encouraged his soldiers to take a renewed loyalty oath and lay down their arms, as opposed to other Southern leaders who tried to move on to guerrilla warfare or terrorism to continue resistance. He continued to be apolitical as he always had been. He even stated later in life that he ultimately regretted having chosen a military career in the first place because of all that ended up happening as a result. The comment about how it’s going to take more violence and more troops to ever really pacify the south was just common sense and in hindsight true, as people generally don’t just admit they are conquered and go back to being buddies with their conquerers. It is dishonest and not contextually accurate to imply that he was stating he believed this was a good thing or he was encouraging it. Lee himself was only alive a short time after the war, when exactly was he supposed to fix the entire culture of the former Confederate states and how exactly would you expect him to have done so?

This is just so strange to me especially when there absolutely are major Confederate figures (Davis, Forrest) who you can argue continued to make things worse after the war. Putting Lee in that category is so unnecessary and wrong, it makes me sad that somebody who has a formal title and job relating to the stewardship of this history is doing so poorly at it.

[sammcpeak]

Comparing Lee to Hitler is a reach to say the least…

[eyeswydeshut]

I can't believe how much he got wrong about Lee. Just goes to show it doesn't matter how much research you do if you have a bias.

"Real leadership is convincing people who follow you to change when they don't want to change. Lee refused to do that." That's 100% wrong and it makes it hard to believe anything this guy says now.

[tankerd]

I don't really get on board with the Hitler and Lee comparison. I do agree that Lee could have potentially done more in his position to affect change after the war, but Lee also wasn't one of the driving ideological factors behind the war in the first place. He was a soldier, and while he became a cultural icon during and after the war, I don't think he was exactly a primary driver of the secession and the decision to initiate hostilities with US forces. Hitler was every bit as responsible for his role in the culture, politics and leadup to WWII as he was the German prosecution of the war. Seeing as Lee wasn't even ideologically convinced himself at the end of the war, I think it could be argued that the BEST thing he could have done was going quietly into the reconstruction period for the remainder of his life. He could have easily kept stoking the coals the way former Confederate leaders like Nathan Bedford Forrest did.
I also feel like Jeremi's thought that Lee should have done more is kind of tied into the post-war romanticization of Lee. Ask anyone today who the leader of the south was and how many do you think are going to remember who Jefferson Davis was over Robert E. Lee? Yeah Lee was definitely loved by the soldiers and popular at home but the CSA had its own entire unlawful government running things behind the scenes. Again, I think we need to remember that Lee could have EASILY caused insane problems after the war if he so chose. I'm not a lover of the "southern cause" but I think Lee made a conscious choice to fight for his home state, led his troops with a significant degree of honor and dignity and then took a monumental defeat with some grace after the fact. There are plenty of leaders of the CSA to rag on but I think Lee honestly was exceptional in what choices he made throughout his post-secession career and life.
If we are going to compare Lee to the Nazi regime I think you need to make an apples to apples comparison and at least constrain it to military leaders. I'd compare Lee more to Rommel in that they were soldiers that were bad primarily for their carrying out the will of an evil government over them having been some primary driver or keeper of the cultural or political events going on in the background.