His image divides another society, despite the fact that a century and a half separates us from his actions.
The controversial historical figure even comes back to the fore every time racial unrest erupts in USA. After all, he is nothing more than the symbol of the American South, the very face of the Confederation who did not say to let blacks take their bonds.
For the Confederate of Southern States' top general, Robert Lee, the reason is a personality intertwined with the deep American South that has been polarizing since time immemorial.
But who was the controversial Lee? This obviously has to do with who you are asking. However, he died five years after the end of the civil war in his beloved Virginia and thus passed into the pantheon of heroes, for some, or in the black stores of history, for others.
He is described as "one of the greatest military leaders in history" by his biographer Roy Blount, who, however, hastens to tell us that the general "was not good at telling his men what to do." As then, in that three-day battle, which was supposed to be another step on Lee's war chessboard, it turned out to be the great tombstone of his war.
It is often said that the South died in Gettysburg, in the bloodiest and most decisive moment of the American Civil War. In which Lee rushed with fora and morale revived after the triumph against the Union forces in Chancellorsville that May of 1863.
By the end of June, Lee had crossed the north with his troops Virginia, along the Potomac River, and was finally stepping on enemy territory in Pennsylvania, having launched a counterattack. On July 1, the advancing Southerners would fall on George Mead's army in Gettysburg. A Confederate victory here, at the pinnacle of its power, would leave Lee with Philadelphia, Baltimore, and even Washington.
They would both play for everything, as it was the three days (July 1-3, 1863) that would ultimately determine the fate of the civil war, slavery, the African Americans, and the United States itself. Three damn days that watered the soil with blood.
Gettysburg was to be the last large-scale operation of the South against the North. The Confederation had lost its momentum and would never reach so deep into enemy territory again.
Gettysburg, however, proved something else: that the seemingly invincible Lee could indeed be paid. He was hit only in Antietam last autumn, with the two armies counting an equally overwhelming fracture and the losses skyrocketing for the first time to tens of thousands.
The North had not yet achieved a decisive victory against Lee, as the general of the rebels was a cat in tactics and they could not crush him. And despite the fact that his forces were always less and worse equipped, he had achieved significant victories, forcing him Abraham Lincoln to play his own chess with his generals.
He had beheaded three generals so far for Lee's sake! George Mead was the president's fourth, last and most desperate choice for someone capable of dealing with him. And he was placed in charge, just 4 days before the battle…
General Robert Lee firmly believed that the quickest way to persuade the North to cede the coveted independence to the southern states was through the destruction of a large army. So he took his men from the afflicted Virginia to strike the enemy where he would suffer most: in his own territory.
Lee walked to Maryland and Pennsylvania then and was more optimistic than ever. If he passed the Potomac Army victoriously, then the road to Washington would be wide open. The same army that had just defeated in Chancellorsville (April 30 - May 6)! That's what he wins, he disappears better, as Lee's North Virginia Army had half the men from the North. And yet, he succeeded in what historians call a "perfect battle", crushing them at the base of his bottomless military audacity.
With such morale, Lee arrived in Gettysburg, having gone on the counterattack for the second time (the first was stopped with great difficulty in Antietam) in the history of the civil war.
Learning that Potomac's Army was on its way, Lee decided to line up at the Gettysburg crossroads. However, a detachment sent by Lee to the bustling town revealed in a difficult way in the early morning hours of July 1 that two cavalry brigades of the North were already there from the previous one. The battle started from scratch!
As the two armies approached Gettysburg, Confederate forces managed to drive its federal defenders out of town on a hill a mile south of Gettysburg.
Lee wanted to take advantage of the fact that the Yankees' main body had not yet arrived, giving his two commanding generals freedom of movement. However, they refused to attack, overestimating the forces of the North.
By dusk, a good part of the Union Army had lined up on the battlefield, strengthening their defensive lines.
Lee lost the advantage. By midnight, three more Northern brigades had arrived. The Confederate general's 75.000 men would eventually face all 95.000 of the North. And as if that were not enough, the Northerners managed to occupy the advantageous hills, at the end of their battles with the redheads.
Historians have been claiming for decades that Southerners could take the battle on this first day. If General Richard Ewell had attacked suddenly, at Lee's command, panic in the Northern ranks would have endorsed their defeat. But Lee told his generals "if it is possible" and they believed it was not.
"Large sections of the Union forces dropped their weapons and surrendered.… In less than half an hour, my men would have swept and cleared these hills. "I should have refused to obey that order," said John B. Gordon, a senior Southern officer, when Richard Ewell told him to step down.
The bad news for Lee was that his most trusted general, the experienced and capable Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, had been mortally wounded in Chancellorsville and had to replace him with Ewell. The Northerners saved her from a bad estimate, but suffered heavy losses on that first day, with more than 10.000 dead and entire units decimated.
Later in the night, Potomac's new commander, General Mead, arrived at the scene and inspected his defenses. Only Lee would have his chance again the next day…
The dawn of the second day found the army of the North on the heights it had secured. Lee assessed the situation and decided to attack the enemy exactly where he was strongest. He still had the fury of Chancellorsville and believed that he could easily repeat his strategic triumph. Opposite the same army. Just two months later.
Always cool and second in line to the Confederate army, James Longstreet advised him not to do so. Undaunted, the general orders him to attack the left wing of the North, putting Ewell to strike them on the right. Lee told them to attack immediately. Or, rather, "as soon as possible."
Something that in the mind of the reluctant Longstreet attack translated into an extremely late attack that would not have happened before 4:00 pm! Then the first bullets fell. Despite the fierce battle, the Northerners kept their lines from the reserves waiting in the fields and orchards behind the hills.
Lee's tactics, however, seemed to work. The North lost several of their positions on the hills, but kept the front until twilight. Both armies suffered heavy casualties, with more than 9.000 men on each side. The total two-day death toll has risen to 35.000, the largest bloodshed the American has ever seen. civil.
Lee missed his second chance, and again his generals disobeyed him. If they had attacked "as early as possible in the morning", then the general of the North, Daniel Sickles, would not have taken advantage of the strategic advantage given to him by the delay and the reluctance of Longstreet to fight.
In the "small" here, Sickles had disobeyed the orders of his own boss, Mead, and occupied the heights, eventually saving the game for the Union. In even more detail, when Sickles saw his foot disappear from the cannon projectile that struck him, he greeted the news unhurriedly by lighting a cigarette.
Longstreet later stated that he disobeyed the orders of his general as he wanted to direct his army into a defensive line, forcing the Yankees to attack him! He refused even when his scouts told him he could even flank the enemy, as his line-up had left his ears exposed.
Twice he lost his chance for victory by his generals reluctant to listen to him. And so on the third day he would not leave the battle in their hands. He would do what he knew well: a bold strategy…
In the early morning hours of July 3, they found a brigade of Yankees to repel another attack from the South. Despite the losses, the North retained most of their advantageous positions. Lee saw this and was outraged. He believed that victory was in his hands and he would not let it escape him once again.
He orders his forces to attack the center of the enemy and makes sure they do. Some 15.000 men are marching unprotected for more than a kilometer in the open to confront the Union forces. Longstreet tells him again about his crazy plan, but he hears nothing.
His men are marching at full speed towards death. The Yankees hit them with what they have and do not have, and they have a lot is the truth, and their cavalry pounded them from the sides. Only half the men of the Confederation survive the ill-conceived and hasty attack.
What Lee did not know was that last night, at the Mind War Council with his officials, the general decided to defend himself and wait for the Confederacy to move. He attacked us from both sides, explained Mead, tomorrow we must expect an attack in the center. He was indeed the first general in the North to read Robert Lee's intentions correctly. And she read him because she knew him, having served with him in the army before the civil war.
But it was the other way around: that Longstreet was late again and thus lost its artillery cover, what another Southern general called "the thickest fire ever attempted by the Confederate Army". By the time the doomed march of 15.000 began, the artillery, which had literally trapped the enemy, ran out of ammunition. "As if it were a parade," likened the march of the South into enemy fire to another general…
Hoping for a triumphant advance against the North in Gettysburg, Lee waited for the enemy to retaliate the next day, July 4th. An attack that never took place. That night, in heavy rain, the laurel-crowned rebel general retired with what was left of his troop in Virginia.
Although the Yankee political leadership would be outraged that the always cautious Mead did not chase Lee after Gettysburg, the fact remained that the battle was a decisive defeat for the South. The Union lost 23.000 men, 28.000 Lee, more than 1/3 of his strength. The Northerners could replace his men, but he could not.
The North was discouraged as the South mourned. He mourned for his lads, he also mourned for this coveted international recognition of his struggle for independence that everyone now knew would never come. The victory in Gettysburg was necessary to gain consensus English and French.
The deposed Lee submitted his resignation to the rebel president Jefferson Davis, head of the insurgent Confederate States of America, but he did not accept it. And he did well, as his marshal would give him another set of victories.
But it was Gettysburg, always Gettysburg, which in combination with the great victory of Odysseus Grant in Vicksburg on July 4, irreversibly upset the balance of the civil war. The Northerners gained the upper hand in those days and would not lose it again.
About 4,5 months after the Union victory in Gettysburg, US President Abraham Lincoln delivered his most famous speech on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, at the city's military cemetery, where he remarked that "the government of the people, from the people, for the people, will not disappear from the Earth ".
As for Lee, on the day of the surrender of the South, the Northerners embraced him and recognized him as their leader. In fact, when his political leaders told him to pick up what was left of his army and take the mountains for guerrilla warfare, Lee not only refused, saying the war was over, but was quick to comment:
"Instead of engaging in another war to perpetuate slavery, I rejoice that slavery has been abolished. I believe that it will work beneficially for the interests of the South "…
