Lee - Hero or Traitor?

"Arlington . . . where my affections & attachments are more strongly placed than any other place in the world." ~ R.E. Lee

I will be travelling to Arlington this coming Saturday for the Sons of Confederate Veterans' symposium, Lee - Hero or Traitor? The Symposium will be held at the Key Bridge Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. The SCV has recruited an impressive list of speakers and scholars (including Robert Krick) and claims to be the "largest event of its kind" this year honoring Lee. Not suprisingly, honoring an American hero is foreign to many modern "historians" these days. Many of these moderns are more interested in trendy pyscho-babble that they claim is history. I've already heard Robert Krick, at an earlier seminar, masterfully dissect--and then destroy--that politically correct, but rather ridiculous notion. In that same seminar, Krick also thoroughly skewered the idea that Lee's reputation as a soldier and Christian hero was a result of "lost cause sympathies" and nostalgia created by Southerners after the war. I think most see that opinion for what it is: an inability for so many moderns to identify with someone whose moral character is superior to their own.

I won't be speaking, just one of the over 200 who have registered to attend. I noticed that the National Park Service's official name for Arlington House still includes "The Robert E. Lee Memorial." I wonder how long it will be before someone complains about that and demands a name change. I'm looking forward to this historic occasion and will post some comments and photos next week.

As an aside, some readers may not know that Arlington House was illegally siezed from the Lee family during the Civil War. But, in 1873, son Custis Lee sued the Federal Government for just compensation for Arlington. The United States Supreme Court ruled that Arlington had, in fact, been illegally seized and Custis regained title to the property. He sold the title back to the U.S. Government for $150,000.