General Lee

As we were going through the town of Gettysburg on the tour, we were nearing one of the intersections. The tour guide was talking and I suddenly saw dozens of dead blue coated men lying on the ground. As I was seeing this, I saw a grand figure of a man riding a grey coated horse through the dead. Upon squinting my eyes to see who exactly it was, I swear I saw Robert E. Lee on Traveller, travaling once again through the streets of Gettysburg.

That's a bit.............................

That would be amazing. Did he look alot like his pictures?

Yes. He was a fine figure of a man. I have never seen such a grand man in life.

The Marble Model. Wow. You seem to have had the same impression of him as his own men, and those who saw him. Amazing.

Yes. I wish he had been real enough to talk to though. He seemed very sad.

Why shouldent he. He forced himself to fight against the union which he loved in order to protect his family, and in the end lost anyways.

He knew he was going to lose.

Maybe he did, either way I belive he was a very sad man.

I don't think he knew he was going to lose; a soldier can't live long under that strain. A man in Lee's position would have to be somewhat optomistic. But I can understand if he looked sad at Gettysburg....

Well, not only that, but, the whole South looked on Lee to solve all thier problems. And, what intrested me the most was the fact that he was alone except for the soldiers. I guess I was seeing what his reaction was to the war.

You probably know this IBG, but I just can't believe that Davis would wait to put Lee in overall command of Confederate armies until a matter of months before the end of the war. This hesitation is mind-boggling, that Davis wouldn't put his most brilliant and successful general in such a position is incredible. This has always been a huge question mark in my mind. If Lee had been put in chief command, he stated himself that he approved of the idea of using blacks as soldiers in the South's armies. This definitely could have changed the outcome of the war.

I know. I can't get it. Maybe he thought somebody would take over his presidency then he could take field command. That's all he wanted anyways. It just amazes me.

That's right. And he did have an excellent battlefield record from the Mexican War...the South probably could have used his services in that regard.

I think Davis thought Lee taking over all forces as a last resort. I mean, up until 1865, they had some good generals on the field. Come 1865, only Johnston and Lee were the very good generals.

You mean that Davis felt it unnecessary to put Lee in overall command because he had several able commanders in most theatres? I'm not so sure about that... If that was true, you could still argue that Lee would have been able to organize nation-wide objectives for the Confederate armies to allow their limited man-power to be put to the best use, had he been put in such a position. If we follow this line of reasoning however, we'd be forced to assume that Davis was of a power-hungry and selfish nature, which he wasn't. There probably were reasons for it at the time, but in hindsight we can see that the right call wasn't made.

Well, up to 1864, they had Lee, Stuart, Longstreet, Johnston, the other Johnston, Jackson, and others like them. By 1865, Lee, Johnston, and Longstreet. That really limits who you have. It was only then that Davis felt it was neccessary that he have Lee in over-all command.