is the blog of an Orthodox Christian and is published under the spiritual patronage of St. John of San Francisco. Topics likely to be discussed include matters relating to Orthodoxy as well as other religious confessions, politics, economics, social issues, current events or anything else which interests me. © 2006-2024
Friday, January 20, 2012
A belated birthday nod to Robert E. Lee
Yesterday was his birthday, a date still observed as a holiday in some places. No, I don't support secession or the Confederacy. And no I am not one of those revisionists who in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary insist that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War. But I do recognize that he was a great and honorable man who did his duty, according to the lights that God gave him to discern right from wrong.
That at least commands respect.
He was a good general and the movies do make one's heart swoon over the romance of a bygone era. Otherwise, in terms of his lights, I have to remember candlepower gives off far fewer lumens than bright incandescent bulbs. I repsect that he did penance at W&L trying to make up in some way for the perpetuation of slaughter in a lost cause. Pretense to nobility is so often ignoble in result, no matter where...even in my beloved South.
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