Robert E. Lee: Warrior or Scoundrel?

Robert E. Lee on a U.S. postage stamp. At an August 7 lecture in Cold Spring, Col. Ty Seidule of the United States Military Academy at West Point spoke about how West Point treats the Confederate general, who once served as the academy’s superintendent. On August 7 at the Putnam County Historical Society and Foundry School Museum in Cold Spring Colonel Ty Seidule spoke about how West Point memorializes Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the Confederate army, yet excludes many of the other generals who once took the oath at West Point, to serve and protect their country, only later to fight for the Confederacy.

In his lecture, titled, “Traitorous Scoundrels or Gentlemen Warriors?” Seidule, professor of history at the United States Military Academy, noted that West Point educated many of the Confederacy’s prominent generals. Most notable among the Academy’s Confederate sons is Lee, who was graduated in 1829.

Lee, who excelled in artillery and tactics, was second in his class, receiving no demerits throughout his four years at the Academy. In the 1850s, he served as the academy’s superintendent, only to take command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in 1862.

Leading up to the Civil War, West Point received harsh criticism from politicians fearing that the Academy was full of southern sympathizers who were pro-slavery.

Senator Zachariah Chandler of Michigan once said that the, “West Point Academy produced more traitors within the last 50 years than all of the institutions of learning and education that have existed since Judas Iscariot’s time.”

Furthermore, Congress at the time declared that any of the graduates of West Point, “who took up arms against the Unites States shall be deemed guilty of desertion, and upon conviction of court martial, shall suffer death.”

But when General Lee surrendered to fellow West Pointer General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on

April 9, 1865, the victorious general offered generous terms, including a guarantee that Lee and his men would not be prosecuted for treason. Grant even ordered his men not to cheer and celebrate while the vanquished Lee departed. While the surrender documents were being drafted, Grant and Lee had an amiable conversation, talking about their days fighting on the same side in Mexico.

Considering Grant’s treatment of Lee, it might not be surprising, then, that West Point chooses to memorialize Lee, who turned down President Abraham Lincoln’s offer to lead the Union Army.

Seidule cited three situations that helped to allow the Academy to remember one of its best students, who also served as a Superintendent during the 1850s.

After many of the Union generals and politicians who oversaw West Point in the postwar years died, they took “with them their hatred of Confederate officers.”

Additionally, during the Spanish American War in 1898, former Confederate generals fought as United States Army generals, earning them praise from Congress and the press, and helping to quell some of the lingering hostility between the South and the North.

Another cause of Lee being remembered as a great general and hero, according to Seidule, was that southerners were the leading historians from 1900 to 1950.

“During the Jim Crow era Lee became a gentleman and a respected warrior,” Seidule said.

At West Point there have been six attempts to build memorials for Confederate soldiers and all have been rejected. Even President Richard Nixon, upon visiting the Academy in 1971, demanded a memorial be erected for the Confederates. His demand was later rejected by the then sitting Superintendent of West Point, William A. Knowlton, who saw a Confederate memorial as damaging to his efforts to bring more minorities to the Academy.

There is the Battle Monument, dedicated in 1897, to the fallen soldiers of the Union. The monument excludes the names of Confederate officers, and almost immediately, Seidule said, “did some of the cadets crudely refer to it as the monument to southern marksmanship.”

However, in 1914 a controversial monument to Confederate soldiers was built in Arlington National Cemetery. Every year, Seidule said, there is a debate whether or not the president should lay a wreath at the monument. President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama have both laid wreaths there.

Throughout West Point’s campus though there are many memorials to Robert E. Lee. Since 1950 there have been three libraries on the base, and each one has displayed a large portrait of Lee in full Confederate gray. There is also a gate at West Point, named after Lee. A stained glass depiction of the general’s life is in the National Cathedral in West Point. There is even a Robert E. Lee prize in mathematics given to those students who excel in the department.

“Lee was wicked smart,” Seidule said.

A portrait of Lee in the library was thought to be something that would “symbolize the end of sectional differences,” Seidule said.

In 2001 the West Point class of 1961 dedicated Reconciliation Plaza to the Academy, which has a statue of Grant and Lee to commemorate the role West Point played in bringing the North and the South together after the war.

On memorializing its Confederate sons Seidule said that, “West Point finds the issue confusing and unresolved.”

“As for me,” he said, “ my vantage point on the confederate memorials has changed from a child and undergraduate who idolized Robert E. Lee (as a child who grew up in the South) with firsthand notions of chivalry… but after 26 years in the army, I’m not really southern anymore. I identify with Army culture, not southern culture. My blood runs green.”

“In the end I agree with the moral clarity of West Point’s 19th century officers. West Point, the soul of the United States Army, should memorialize those who fought for America, not against it.”

On August 5, 1975, President Ford signed Senate Joint Resolution 23, which posthumously restored Robert E. Lee’s citizenship.

Before signing the resolution, President Ford spoke of Lee: “As a soldier, General Lee left his mark on military strategy. As a man, he stood as the symbol of valor and of duty. As an educator, he appealed to reason and learning to achieve understanding and to build a stronger nation. The course he chose after the war became a symbol to all those who had marched with him in the bitter years towards Appomattox.”