The South and Robert E. Lee

Paul Greenberg:

"What is the South?" they always ask. It's a question never answered, not completely, but invariably asked. Usually by some Northerner with a taste for literature. Or by sociology students in search of a thesis. Or by a college roommate at Harvard. (See Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom.") I was first asked the question by a fellow graduate student at Columbia. ("What's it like, growing up in the South?") He asked it in the same tone one might inquire, "What was it like, living on Mars?" Southerners remain a fascination to others - almost as great a fascination as we are to ourselves.

These days, as we lose our distinctiveness, the question of Southern identity seems to be raised most by Southerners, who return to it like the tongue to an uneven tooth. As if we wanted assurance that we still exist. We know there's no sure answer to the question; we just delight in asking it - for the comfort and fellowship and pure pleasure of thinking about the South.

On this Lee's Birthday, the South seems only a lingering shadow of the great civilization-and-barbarism she once was, but that ended when? April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Courthouse? With the last great Southern novel, and which was it? When cotton was dethroned? When industry overtook agriculture, when the city took over from the country? Did the South end with the coming of air conditioning or of the two-party system? Or when the race issue ceased to be The Issue, and became just another Northern-style ethnic competition and/or collaboration?

The answer to that question always seems to come down to this: The South ended with the previous generation - which fits in well with the common perception that each generation becomes a little less Southern, a little more Americanized. It's like Zeno's Paradox about the hare who always halves the distance between himself and the tortoise, yet never catches up: Southernness is always fading yet never disappears. Our children will doubtless say it ended with us even as it continues in them.

...

It's not clear just when the general left history and entered myth, but it is clear that he represents something more than the sum total of his battles or even his life. In the end, it is not what Lee did or did not do that explains his appeal. It is what he was, and still is. At least to some of us, the few of us left. You know who you are. And even if we were Legion, it would still feel as if we were few. Every January 19th, a stillness comes, and vainglory departs. A certain perspective sets in.

...

The culture of the South changed with the fall of segregation and with the Voting Rights Act. Though many may still be loathed to admit it, it was a change for the better that has made the South more prosperous and made it one of the growth areas of the US. Perhaps because of its heritage of having lost a war, it has made it more determined to not let that happen again, which has made national security a prominent political concern.

Robert E. Lee was not as great a general as some think, but he was better than most of his opponents. The South's best general was probably Stonewall Jackson, and it should be noted that the decline in the fortunes of Lee's army came after Jackson was killed. Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virgina under desperate circumstances and took great risks to overcome those circumstances. He was aided by incompetency in the leadership of the Union's Army of the Potomac. He was greatly outnumbered and split his army, a big no-no, in order to extract it from potential annihilation along with the capture of the Confederate capitol in Richmond.

He had a terrible problem with operation security. Twice his plans were thwarted with the capture of his written plans for battle--what became the second battle of Bull Run and later at the battle at Antietam. Yet even with that intelligence the Union forces had difficulty containing his moves, and that may be another reason why he is so highly regarded.