History Commons^™

Robert E. Lee And Slavery, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Robert E. Lee was the most successful Confederate military leader during the American Civil War (1861–1865). This also made him, by virtue of the Confederacy's defense of chattel slavery, the most successful defender of the enslavement of African Americans. Yet his own personal record on both slavery and race is mottled with contradictions and ambivalence, all which were in plain view during his long career. Born into two of Virginia's most prominent families, Lee spent his early years surrounded by enslaved African Americans, although that changed once he joined the Army. His wife, Mary Randolph Custis Lee, freed her own …

Honor And Compromise, And Getting History Right, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly does not have a Ph.D. in history, although he does have two master’s degrees, in Strategic Studies (from the National Defense University) and in National Security Affairs from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. So perhaps it was simply that he believed what he said about the Civil War this past Monday on Laura Ingraham’s new Fox News ‘Ingraham Angle’ was so innocuous that he could also believe that it wouldn’t even become a blip on anyone’s radar screen. (excerpt)

Should We Banish Robert E. Lee & His Confederate Friends? Let's Talk., Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

After 152 years, Robert E. Lee is back in the headlines. But not in any way he could have imagined.

The “Unite the Right” forces descended on Charlottesville, Va., to protest calls for the removal of an equestrian statue of Lee that has been sitting in a city park since 1924. The larger question, however, was about whether the famous Confederate general was also a symbol of white supremacy.

The same issues were in play in May when a statue of Lee was removed from Lee Circle in New Orleans. There are also more than two dozen streets and schools …

Ten Miles From Richmond, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

At the tiny crossroads town of Cold Harbor, Ulysses S. Grant hoped to crush Robert E. Lee's army and hasten the war's end. What happened instead would become one of his greatest regrets.

The Political War, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Pity Abraham Lincoln. Everything that should have gone right for the Union cause in the spring of 1864 had, in just a few weeks, gone defiantly and disastrously wrong.

For two years, the 16th president had toiled uphill against the secession of the Confederate states, against the incompetence of his luckless generals and against his howling critics from both sides of the congressional aisle. Finally, in the summer and fall of 1863, the course of the war had begun to turn his way. Two great victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg staggered the Confederates, and those were followed by a knockdown …

George Meade’S Mixed Legacy, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

George Gordon Meade was 47 years old the morning of June 28, 1863, when command of the Army of the Potomac was unceremoniously dumped into his lap by General in Chief Henry Hallcck, and there is no reason to doubt Meade's protest that the move rendered him the most surprised man in the entire Union Army. Meade had never wanted to be a soldier in the first place, much less take direction of an army that at that moment was facing perhaps its most daunting challenge. But compared to his immediate predecessors, Maj. Gens. Ambrose Burnside and Joseph Hooker, what …