Southern Fried Pride

[Gil Dobie]

it says either Lee or the overseer

Gil said that - the testimony does not.

It is a small point - Lee owned slaves and in at least two instances he had two of them whipped. But this is how history gets twisted... the small details are given short shrift in favor of “larger truths” and then the actual history winds up distorted. It matters.


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I didn't say that, the newspaper stories from 1859 said that.

From the previous link:

June 2nd, 1859 saying that four fugitive slaves had been arrested in Westminster, Maryland. On June 24th of the same year, two anonymous letters appeared in the New York Tribune. One of these reports that since becoming owner of his wife's family's estate, conditions on Lee's Arlington plantation had deteriorated sharply. The author alleges that an 80 year old man is made to work as a field hand, that elderly women were made to work through the night making clothes for field hands, that food rations had been slashed, and that arbitrary punishment had become common. She or he also recounts a very similar story to the one in the Testimony of Wesley Norris, though in this letter, the whipping is thirty nine lashes for both of the Norris siblings (the legally permitted maximum) rather than fifty and twenty. A second letter reportedly from a neighbour of Robert Lee also reports that the incident occurred, with alarm. Both letters protest that upon the death of his wife's father, the Arlington slaves were supposed to have been freed, and they strongly imply that Lee prevented the publication of the notice of manumission. Curiously, these letters portray Lee in a worse light again - both claim that he flogged the slaves himself:

[GannonFan]

Heck, one of the few good things that Andrew Jackson did and that he should be celebrated for was staring down South Carolina and the high priest of the Confederacy, John C Calhoun, during the nullification crisis almost two decades before that. For all of Jackson's faults (of which there were quite a few, and very serious ones at that), he was a staunch Unionist who loved the US and there's no doubt he would've marched an army into South Carolina to hang Calhoun and anyone else willing to stand with him.

Jackson was a complicated character to be sure. His story is instructive on how historical figures are to be taken as a whole, rather than nit picking those parts we like or dislike and focusing on those.


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Remember, though, some of those things that Jackson is vilified today for, like the forced removal of Native American tribes, he was also being pilloried for by contemporaries. Not all of these things are different just because we are looking back through the lens of history.

[CID1990]

Gil said that - the testimony does not.

It is a small point - Lee owned slaves and in at least two instances he had two of them whipped. But this is how history gets twisted... the small details are given short shrift in favor of “larger truths” and then the actual history winds up distorted. It matters.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I didn't say that, the newspaper stories from 1859 said that.

From the previous link:

June 2nd, 1859 saying that four fugitive slaves had been arrested in Westminster, Maryland. On June 24th of the same year, two anonymous letters appeared in the New York Tribune. One of these reports that since becoming owner of his wife's family's estate, conditions on Lee's Arlington plantation had deteriorated sharply. The author alleges that an 80 year old man is made to work as a field hand, that elderly women were made to work through the night making clothes for field hands, that food rations had been slashed, and that arbitrary punishment had become common. She or he also recounts a very similar story to the one in the Testimony of Wesley Norris, though in this letter, the whipping is thirty nine lashes for both of the Norris siblings (the legally permitted maximum) rather than fifty and twenty. A second letter reportedly from a neighbour of Robert Lee also reports that the incident occurred, with alarm. Both letters protest that upon the death of his wife's father, the Arlington slaves were supposed to have been freed, and they strongly imply that Lee prevented the publication of the notice of manumission. Curiously, these letters portray Lee in a worse light again - both claim that he flogged the slaves himself:

Apparently we are talking around each other here -

The only testimonial claims that Lee had a foreman do the flogging. Two unattributed letters say that Lee did it himself. Historians from multiple angles have settled on the testimony being the most reliable source.

It is certainly possible that the incident referred to in the letters occurred, but given all the evidence I have read and what I know about the man, I am unconvinced. I am not trying to rehabilitate the man - and I am by far not the only person who is well read on Lee who questions the veracity of the claim in the letters that he personally whipped his slaves. Lee literally delegated everything in his life - even battlefield decision making. He was not physically overbearing, either. Personally whipping his slaves was so out of character for him that the actual testimony on the matter is the most reliable.

I would be equally skeptical if an unattributed source wrote a letter claiming 93 once was gay, or Reek once criticized semantic debates.


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[Gil Dobie]

I didn't say that, the newspaper stories from 1859 said that.

From the previous link:

June 2nd, 1859 saying that four fugitive slaves had been arrested in Westminster, Maryland. On June 24th of the same year, two anonymous letters appeared in the New York Tribune. One of these reports that since becoming owner of his wife's family's estate, conditions on Lee's Arlington plantation had deteriorated sharply. The author alleges that an 80 year old man is made to work as a field hand, that elderly women were made to work through the night making clothes for field hands, that food rations had been slashed, and that arbitrary punishment had become common. She or he also recounts a very similar story to the one in the Testimony of Wesley Norris, though in this letter, the whipping is thirty nine lashes for both of the Norris siblings (the legally permitted maximum) rather than fifty and twenty. A second letter reportedly from a neighbour of Robert Lee also reports that the incident occurred, with alarm. Both letters protest that upon the death of his wife's father, the Arlington slaves were supposed to have been freed, and they strongly imply that Lee prevented the publication of the notice of manumission. Curiously, these letters portray Lee in a worse light again - both claim that he flogged the slaves himself:

Apparently we are talking around each other here -

The only testimonial claims that Lee had a foreman do the flogging. Two unattributed letters say that Lee did it himself. Historians from multiple angles have settled on the testimony being the most reliable source.

It is certainly possible that the incident referred to in the letters occurred, but given all the evidence I have read and what I know about the man, I am unconvinced. I am not trying to rehabilitate the man - and I am by far not the only person who is well read on Lee who questions the veracity of the claim in the letters that he personally whipped his slaves. Lee literally delegated everything in his life - even battlefield decision making. He was not physically overbearing, either. Personally whipping his slaves was so out of character for him that the actual testimony on the matter is the most reliable.

I would be equally skeptical if an unattributed source wrote a letter claiming 93 once was gay, or Reek once criticized semantic debates.


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I get what you are saying, we don't know that he did it himself. You don't believe he did and I don't know if he did. Could be a neighborly dispute that is exaggerated to make Lee look worse than he was.

[houndawg]

Shortest guy there. Real shocker.

Bunch of yapping chihuahuas

[Winterborn]

Shortest guy there. Real shocker.

Bunch of yapping chihuahuas

[Gil Dobie]

[Ibanez]

[Ibanez]

[Ibanez]

[Gil Dobie]

[Gil Dobie]

General Sherman facebook page is awesome

[Gil Dobie]

[Gil Dobie]

[Gil Dobie]

[Gil Dobie]

[Gil Dobie]