Monday, October 24, 2011

OUT OF OUR PAST: Gen. Robert E. Lee: Proud, brave enigma

Via SHNV

After the first day of the battle of Gettysburg, a handful of Company B skirmishers from Wayne County that belonged to the Iron Brigade's 19th Indiana were captured.

Richmond's 19-year-old Benjamin Duke and 18-year-old George M. Bunch; Dalton's 18-year-old William M. Locke and 27-year-old John Markel; and Hagerstown's 20-year-old William Castator, were all taken prisoner and later would suffer privation at Andersonville, dubbed a "corpse factory" because it was the worst (* Southern) prison of the war.

A Second Wisconsin member of the Iron Brigade was also caught. His name was Robert Beecham and he wrote about what happened to him after the last day of battle, when he and his Wayne County comrades were herded down a road with the retreating rebel army. As they were moved along under guard, a Rebel pointed out Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who had just suffered the worst military disaster of his career.

Beecham wrote, "His [Lee's] long, grizzled beard was neatly arranged; his clothing was clean and faultless; his horse had been groomed and saddled with care; there was nothing about his personal appearance to indicate haste, uneasiness or even weariness; he bestrode his steed apparently cool and confident, not as one who had suffered great defeat, but as a conqueror. ... I looked from him to his shattered battalions and read the evidence of his terrible conflict and humiliating loss, and it was plain to see that Lee himself must have fully recognized the fact that the glorious dream of his ambition for victory could never be realized. ... Lee was the only man of the defeated army, so far as I saw it on the retreat from Gettysburg, who did not reveal the marks of failure, but it is fair to presume that beneath this outward show of pride and unyielding courage there was an ambitious heart that was very sore." Beecham then realized, "I think the backbone of the rebellion is broken, or soon will be, for they have played their hand long enough."

True words.

Robert E. Lee was a legend in his lifetime and ultimately the symbol of The Lost Cause for the South. He became a mythic hero, yet beneath the quiet, grand air of the Southern gentleman was a warm human being who was affectionate, hot-tempered and fallible. No one seems to have understood him completely. One of his biographers wrote, "I can account for every hour of Lee's life from the day he went to West Point until his death ... but I never presumed to know what General Lee was thinking."


*See one of many below.

Elmira, The Death Camp Of The North (My Great Uncle)

Elmira POW Prison, NY
Elmira: Death Camp of the North by Michael Horigan

========
OUT OF OUR PAST: Gen. Robert E. Lee: Proud, brave enigma

No comments:

Post a Comment