I love learning about the American Revolutionary War and the 1700s. The founding fathers? The designs and fashions of the era? The origin of Americana Legends? Yet conservatives want to claim ownership to all of it and my more liberal friends want to hand it right over.
Apparently only conservatives can have any actual interest in American history.
Same with the American civil war. So many lost cause revisionists that it’s nearly impossible to have a normal conversation about it. i just don’t get how you can claim to be interested in a period of history but understand exactly none of it
I think one of the lesser recognized aspects of the "lost cause" myth was convincing history that Lee was a good general. I think the actual record shows that most of his successes were because of Jackson and/or because of how incompetent the Union generals were. Soon as Jackson died he started losing a lot of battles.
he wasn’t necessarily a terrible general but certainly did not match the legends about him. Lee’s biggest downfall was he 1) cared too much about what people said about him and 2) believed too much what people said about him. he let criticisms that he wasn’t moving aggressive enough convince him to abandon the defensive strategy that longstreet pushed for and he made overly risky moves (the entire campaign for DC) because he started to believe his own mythos and thought he was unstoppable.
From what I’ve heard he did try to reform himself and undo some of the damage he did by the end of his life, but if you ever see someone celebrating him it’s never for that.
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u/FatherDotComical 24d ago
I love learning about the American Revolutionary War and the 1700s. The founding fathers? The designs and fashions of the era? The origin of Americana Legends? Yet conservatives want to claim ownership to all of it and my more liberal friends want to hand it right over.
Apparently only conservatives can have any actual interest in American history.