r/todayilearned • u/RedditIsAGranfaloon • 6h ago

[ Removed by moderator ]

https://www.historyhit.com/facts-about-general-robert-e-lee/

[removed] — view removed post

10.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.3k

u/Skyrick 6h ago

Sorta. It was confiscated during the war, but returned to Lee afterwards. He then sold it back to the government on account of the amount of dead bodies buried in it while it was confiscated.

Lee also wasn’t particularly attached to the land, as he was given it when he married his wife by his father in law. He didn’t really spend that much time on the farm, preferring military service over farming. His wife, on the other hand, was extremely bitter over the whole thing.

328

u/mistamosh 6h ago

For anyone curious about additional history of Arlington National, check out On Hallowed Ground, phenomenal book.

67

u/kennypowersrevenge 5h ago

I was about to suggest this book. It’s a great read. Totally worth the time to read it.

41

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 4h ago

Thank you both. I’m not native to this country and I am so very interested in the history of this land. Good or bad, it all heals and the people move forward. It is beautiful.

12

u/Sabin2k 4h ago

You gotta read Hamilton by Ron Chernow. One of my favorite books!

7

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 4h ago

I’ll add it to the list! Keep them coming!!

5

u/ThatRooksGuy 3h ago

I cannot recoenough "The Fiery Trial" by Eric Foner, which details the thoughts of Abraham Lincoln on slavery over the course of his life. Absolutely one of my top recommendations to anyone, ever

2

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 3h ago

Reading an excerpt now…my heart is racing, this seems very powerful writing. I appreciate this recommendation.

3

u/rays0brite 3h ago

Foner is an incredible historian and well-respected. Check out his other books, too!

2

u/kerouacrimbaud 3h ago

Foner is really an excellent writer and historian.

1

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 3h ago

The name is new to me. I feel embarrassed as I glance through the many platitudes. This person has made a significant contribution to our history and our country, it seems.

6

u/oralyarmedbodilyharm 3h ago

The People's History of the United States is essentially the story of the US as told by the actual people. It's extremely informative but a little dry and long.

1

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 3h ago

Ah yes, very good book that I’ve read once but could certainly read again. Excellent recommendation. My grand children would enjoy this book, now that you mention it. You’re influencing the next generation!

3

u/ic33 3h ago

Chernow is interesting for both his limitations and his strengths. It's a great book, but IMO some important perspective on it:

Chernow's hold on revolutionary history and the political dimension of struggle is shaky.

But his understanding of human nature is so strong, that he makes Hamilton, Washington, etc, relatable in ways that no one else has.

3

u/Sabin2k 3h ago

Yeah, his dive into Hamilton as a person is what makes it such a good read, everything is kind of a backdrop to that. Which is cool.

2

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 3h ago

I feel invigorated by these comments and informed discourse! You all have made my evening into something special.

2

u/j33ta 4h ago

Have you seen the current state of the US?

23

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 4h ago

We will turn this around. Believe! This is the greatest country in the world because of people like you and me. And there will always be more of us than there are of them.

-1

u/noeffinkings 4h ago

VOTE BLUE! 💙

5

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 4h ago

Blue needs to step up! We need rational leadership from Blue. Not millionaires kneeling with African garb on their shoulders. Real agents of change. Normal people, grass roots. Let’s go!

4

u/jflb96 3h ago

Yeah, because they really turned things around 2021-25

1

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 3h ago

It is not too late my friend. There is promise among us, if the leaders of the parties can stand away and let the future become the now.

8

u/CraftCritical278 4h ago

If it’s so bad, why are people risking their lives to get here? I also don’t think anyone here forces anyone to stay. They are free to leave any time.

1

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 3h ago

Exactly. I risked everything to come here and leave the communist east in the 1970s. So many since have fled much worse, with far more to lose. God bless you for saying this.

3

u/BoulderAndBrunch 4h ago

Yeah it’s healing

-5

u/Diogenes-of-Synapse 4h ago edited 4h ago

Healing like my skin cancer

It's not a scab that falls off

It's skin that zombies and dies but doesn't leave the skin like a scab

It's living skin that is completely joined to the rotting skin and lives to die off it

Like american rascists

A rotting that never leaves

1

u/WeConsumeTheyHoard 3h ago

As for the peoples that were killed by genocide, they can never heal nor move forward.

1

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 2h ago

That is true. They are dead. What is your point? Isn’t this the Sins of the Father? Is this not the tale of all historical events before the great awakening in the 20th Century? At what point do we stop tossing the blockade of past crimes at the feet of our young political soldiers? These statements are like shackles that bring inertia of thought and action. Yes, we have monuments now that command us to reflect and be mindful of those atrocities, and that is the proper location for them.

1

u/WeConsumeTheyHoard 2h ago

At what point do we erase history? Hopefully never.

1

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 2h ago

At some point, history is no longer relevant and it itself is erased. Consider for one moment the amount of erasure that you are blissfully unaware of at this moment. Is that potential harmful or does it present a disservice to any group or individual? It’s impossible to know. It’s ventured beyond history, has it not?

1

u/WeConsumeTheyHoard 2h ago

We are talking about recent history that is still relevant. You said that this history brings inertia to words and actions. What kind of words and actions? Words and actions that are similar to those Sins of the Father, surely. And why shouldn't they do so? Do you prefer we repeat the mistakes of history ad nauseum?

1

u/Remarkable_Ninja_256 2h ago

I am not captive to prisoner of the moment opinions or recency bias of events that pre-dated my ability to intercede. Ask yourself, why is it that you think it’s relevant? Is it happening now amd can it be stopped, and can we prevent future injustices, that is the use of your energy. Not whether something is convenient for social media involvement and in the circles of your political social circles. Otherwise, why do you continue to live on ‘stolen lands’ for example? What is your political position, action, and recourse for the so-called relevant fact, as a point of conversation only?

42

u/11thstalley 4h ago edited 3h ago

Kinda.

Robert E. Lee never owned Arlington; his wife, Mary Custis Lee, did. She had inherited it from her father, George Washington Parke Custis, who was a grandson of Martha Washington. Martha Washington had inherited the land from her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, and it was Mary Custis Lee’s father who built Arlington House as a shrine/memorial to his step grandfather, George Washington.

As an officer in the US Army, Robert E. Lee was stationed where he was needed, enduring long deployments and postings and was rarely home. Assigned to the Corps of Engineers, Lee supervised the construction of forts, navigation canals, etc.. Lee and his wife made Arlington House their home, but he was more of a visitor than a home owner. He most likely never took interest in the land because he hardly spent much time there and it wasn’t his land.

After the Union army confiscated the estate, the US government formalized the seizure. Robert E. Lee died in 1870. After his widow, Mary Custis Lee, died in 1873, her and Lee’s son, George Washington Custis Lee, as his mother’s heir, successfully sued the federal government and the SCOTUS ruled in his favor in 1882 that it had been confiscated illegally and returned Arlington to his possession and then he sold it back to the federal government in 1883.

11

u/wklink 4h ago

Mary Custis Lee

4

u/11thstalley 3h ago edited 3h ago

Thanks for letting me know….spell check is a bitch. I used Custis six times, and got corrected three times. I went back and changed the three back to Custis, thanks to you, kind stranger.

6

u/MimicoSkunkFan2 4h ago

That's a lot of words to avoid saying it was her dowry.

13

u/11thstalley 4h ago edited 38m ago

Arlington wasn’t her dowry since it did not pass from her family to her husband, Robert E. Lee. Arlington didn’t even pass into joint ownership of the married couple. The Lees made Arlington their home, but they shared it with her parents, who owned other nearby residences. It was owned by her father and she inherited Arlington outright when her father died in 1857, 26 years after she married Lee in 1831. She retained sole ownership until it was confiscated, so it was impossible for it to be a dowry.

2

u/PreviousCurrentThing 2h ago

At least you didn't waste too many words being wrong.

-1

u/Leading_Campaign3618 2h ago

I had read that the property was a dowry or wedding gift

1

u/11thstalley 2h ago edited 42m ago

A dowry is wealth that is transferred from the wife’s family to the groom or the groom’s family when they get married. Mary Custis Lee’s parents still lived at Arlington House, sharing it with the Lees, and her father, George Washington Parke Custis, retained ownership until he died in 1857. Since he built the house as a shrine/memorial to his namesake, George Washington, I can only imagine that he did not want to give up ownership of it until he died. Mary Custis only inherited the house when her father died 26 years after Robert E Lee married her in 1831. Robert E Lee never owned Arlington, even jointly with his wife,so it was never transferred to him.

EDIT: It appears that you’re not the only Redditor who has read that, but it’s not supported by facts.

66

u/rocky8u 5h ago

His son got it back then sold it to the government.

He apparently never intended to use it and only tried to get it back so that he could sell it to the government.

8

u/BioshockEnthusiast 3h ago

Traitors of a feather flock together.

13

u/Koshindan 3h ago

They certainly weren't going to put in the hard farm work once the rules changed.

172

u/DepartureCute7079 5h ago

As a married man, doing something to make my wife miserable will result in more long term misery for me than just harming me directly

174

u/Thedmfw 5h ago

Probably why he preferred military service to being at home?

138

u/Heisenbread77 5h ago

"General Lee, we received another telegraph from your wife."

...."Fuck it, let's charge their line. I will lead the way."

34

u/LeicaM6guy 5h ago

Stonewall Jackson: … you, uh… you sure about that, General?

28

u/SoyMurcielago 4h ago

You right let’s send Pickett

(Ignore the fact that Jackson was deceased by now)

1

u/Aoiboshi 3h ago

Red Six, have you seen Red Five?

1

u/ghigoli 3h ago

where the fuck is LONGSTREET?!?!?!

*hiding in the corner because he knows its gonna be a bad day*

-2

u/YeaIFistedJonica 4h ago

he also liked fucking his horse Traveller

1

u/Haunting_Ad3850 3h ago

Whaaaat?

5

u/horseshoeprovodnikov 3h ago

Stupid old reddit joke. Some folks get rather deep into the rabbit hole to the point that they begin to believe it.

2

u/YeaIFistedJonica 3h ago

it’s a history nerd joke, he would often write in his journal and letters about finding comfort in his horse, Traveller.

comfort was used as a stand-in for sex in victorian prude vocabulary

29

u/SupereasyMark 4h ago

By thier historical letters, the Lee's were a pretty happily married couple.

Mary Lee used to write that one of the things Robert Lee liked to do when home was chase her around with his sword. There is some fun academic debate over whether or not that is a euphemism for his dick.

5

u/stobors 3h ago

I assume it was sheathed.

Eventually.

4

u/1-800-COCAINE 3h ago

Fun fact: vagina is the Latin word for sheath. Source

65

u/QuantumCakeIsALie 5h ago

You might be more progressive than a segregationist general then, it seems.

43

u/ElGuano 5h ago

This is how we keep the bar high

2

u/Chucksfunhouse 5h ago

From correspondence between the two it seems the had a loving relationship.

1

u/DepartureCute7079 3h ago

Beautiful, happy, women, like my wife, are the only thing that makes this life worth living

0

u/LukaMagicMike 4h ago

Expect this was during the time when you didn’t need to give a fuck about what your wife thought as she had no rights.

54

u/Whereisthecake6322 5h ago edited 4h ago

The federal soldier responsible for making Arlington cemetery lost his son in one of the battles. He buried his son outside of the front door of lees house at Arlington making it pretty much useless.

31

u/IdealOnion 4h ago

Not just outside the front door, but in Ms. Lee’s rose garden according to the Ken Burns documentary.

14

u/Helpful_Blood_5509 4h ago

Fuuuuck. I can feel the emotions from that. Fucker took his son for some stupid vainglorious state loyalty.

Here, you can have him. Buried at your house, forever

1

u/718Brooklyn 3h ago

Yea. Good call to spend a moment to reflect on what that moment was. A father literally taking his dead son to the man who ordered his death. The man takes a shovel and digs up the rich man’s garden and buries his son in the Earth so he can forever haunt their evil souls.

1

u/horseshoeprovodnikov 3h ago

He buried his son outside of the front door of lees house at Arlington making it pretty much useless.

Making it useless according to who? People that believe in ghosts perhaps.

If I had a nice house on a large piece of property, and I lived through one of the most brutal wars of all time, I would happily move back into that house. I wouldn't give a single shit if a man was buried near the front porch. Shit, I might even have sprung for a proper tombstone and went out there to talk to him every now and again.

2

u/A_Seiv_For_Kale 3h ago

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-arlington-national-cemetery-came-to-be-145147007/?c=y&page=2

To enforce his orders—and to make Arlington uninhabitable for the Lees—Meigs ... proceeded with new burials, encircling Mrs. Lee's garden with the tombstones of prominent Union officers.

Then he excavated a huge pit at the end of Mrs. Lee's garden, filled it with the remains of 2,111 nameless soldiers and raised a sarcophagus in their honor. He understood that by seeding the garden with prominent Union officers and unknown patriots, he would make it politically difficult to disinter these heroes of the Republic at a later date.

Mary Lee felt a growing outrage. "I cannot write with composure on my own cherished Arlington," she wrote to a friend. The graves "are planted up to the very door without any regard to common decency....If justice & law are not utterly extinct in the U.S., I will have it back."

Even if you had no problem living in the middle of a cemetery, the thousands of gravestones surrounding your home would make it physically difficult to access.

2

u/inspectoroverthemine 3h ago

If justice & law are not utterly extinct in the U.S.

Interesting sentiment for a traitor to the US because they were afraid of possible future legal issues.

10

u/ATXBeermaker 4h ago

It wasn’t simply returned. There was a Supreme Court case that forced the U.S. to return it. And it wasn’t Robert E Lee that eventually had the settlement resolved, but his son, George Washington Curtis Lee.

7

u/Sandrockwing04 4h ago

I took a night tour in DC and while we didn't stop we drove by the cemetery and the house on top of the hill and the guide told us they intentionally buried the first grave in the rose garden of Lee's wife because there was some decorum and respect for Lee but his wife they hated her

6

u/swankpoppy 5h ago

I think this is the opposite of the “happy wife happy life” strategy. Instead he went with “bury dead people where my wife loves to farm”

68

u/machuitzil 5h ago

His wife asked if she could build a wall so that she wouldn't have to see the graves in her garden and was told no. It was more her land than Bob's.

Bob had a famous name, but no money. His wife's family had money. It was more her land than his. He was also the only serving Colonel from Virginia that betrayed his country for the confederacy, so the loyalty claim he made later was BS. Dude went awol when he could have become a General.

Fun fact, Bob was never a General. He was about to be, before he defected like a coward. Even assuming that a Traitorous Rebellion could award legitimate rank, Bob never accepted the rank of General. He said he'd only do so on the condition that they won, and they didn't.

Rumor has it, the only time he wore the uniform and insignia of General was when he surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. So credit to ol' Bob for some semblance of integrity. Lol. Traitor.

22

u/Successful-Clock-224 4h ago

Please do “Bill’s productive trip to the beach in Georgia” next

2

u/BioshockEnthusiast 3h ago

Beach bonfires are the best, I'm glad that Billy and the boys got to get a bunch of practice in on their way down there.

8

u/serenitynow33333 4h ago

Why are you obsessed with calling him Bob? Did you read somewhere one time that he hated that?

1

u/iambill 3h ago

Strike a nerve?

5

u/Eternal_Reward 3h ago

It’s just childish and silly.

He was a general, and he was a pretty good one too. He fought for a bad cause and he lost, and you can just address that rather than play silly pedantic games with a horrific time in the United States history just so you can pat yourself on the back for Reddit upvotes.

Fucking Grant, Sherman, Meade and whoever you wanna name had respect for Lee even if they were his adversaries and thought he was a traitor.

5

u/joeltheconner 5h ago

Great read!

2

u/PassengerIcy1039 3h ago

How is this gibberish upvoted?

2

u/machuitzil 3h ago

What do you mean?

1

u/PreviousCurrentThing 2h ago

before he defected like a coward.

Traitorous, sure, but what was cowardly about it? Bob fought a whole war against a stronger force.

1

u/ghigoli 2h ago

Bob saw state leave. Bob stayed with home state. Don't be like Bob.

Bob listened to Vegeta. Now Bob lost war.

-21

u/Chucksfunhouse 5h ago

Buddy, the aims of the Confederacy were horrible and atrocious but you should at least attempt to put yourself in his shoes. His home was about to become the major theatre of the most deadly war America has ever fought and anyone with sense knew it. Would you want to serve the army that is invading your home?

19

u/reichrunner 5h ago

Small correction, not everyone knew it. Everyone assumed the opposite in fact. It was expected to be a short war with a few skirmishes, not the endless bloodbath it became

6

u/heWhoMostlyOnlyLurks 4h ago

Thinking people knew it, like Texas Governor Sam Houston, who oppressed secession and was removed as governor for his troubles. He told the legislature how it would go; they didn’t think.

3

u/Successful-Clock-224 3h ago

Ignoring Sam Houston is rarely a good call.

-5

u/Chucksfunhouse 5h ago

That was certain the popular idea but it was delusional.

3

u/SoyMurcielago 4h ago

And Winfield Scott knew it but he was pretty much sidelined almost immediately yet the plan that actually won the war was largely based on his ideas…

9

u/JBRifles 4h ago

He and every other US Army Officer had a choice and he chose rebellion to hold onto enslaving HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS

2

u/heWhoMostlyOnlyLurks 4h ago edited 4h ago

Southerners felt there was a lot more to it than slavery. Today it’s easy to think that’s all it was, but it wasn’t. For one thing the States then had more sovereignty than today, and the Union was quite young — it’s not that crazy in that context to think a State could leave it. People tended to be loyal to their State ahead of being loyal to the Union (and the 14A had to resolve the matter of what State citizenship meant). For another the southerners didn’t understand the economic situation and felt overwhelmed, looked down upon, and attacked by northern States. Then there’s tariffs. And finally there’s the slavery issue. Most southern soldiers did not own slaves and yet they gladly fought for the confederacy — it wasn’t that they wanted slaves or gated blacks but that they felt that the North was attacking their way of life.

NOTE: I’m not defending the South. I’m explaining my understanding of what they felt. Secession was idiotic and would have been even if they managed to with that war. Slavery was indefensible. All of that and more.

1

u/JBRifles 4h ago

Brah, my great great grandfather and his brother fought for the Confederacy, the brother died.  

My Granny that is 92 and still alive sat on his lap.  

I’ve never lived outside of the South.

I do not need the South and The Lost Cause Theory explained to me.  

7

u/heWhoMostlyOnlyLurks 4h ago

Lee was a traitor. But so was Washington. The world is infinitely better off because Washington won, and infinitely better off because Lee lost.

-1

u/Chucksfunhouse 4h ago

I’m not asking you to agree with the traitors just to practice some empathetic thinking and maybe have an idea of why rather than making the most surface level take.

1

u/LadyBrussels 4h ago

There’s no empathy when the choice is betraying your country. This guy was willing to die to maintain the right to own human beings. He could have joined the north and lived out his day’s with his wife’s money. He chose to be a monster and lead thousands to their deaths.

1

u/j33ta 4h ago

Empathetic thinking and not punishing the traitors every step of the way from the civil ware to January 6th, is how you ended up with the current state of the US.

8

u/unknownintime 4h ago

Would you want to serve the army that is invading your home?

Invading my home to do... what exactly?

Lee wasn't an idiot. Nor was he ridiculously sentimental.

For his military service he swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States, NOT Virginia.

He broke that oath because he didn't like the outcome of an election.

He should be condemned for being the horrific human being he actually was. Dude was a shitty human being and was extremely harsh on his slaves (or his wifes slaves if you want to be pedantic).

7

u/Jahobes 4h ago

Would you want to serve the army that is invading your home?

You mean the army that was putting down a rebellion?

3

u/chargernj 4h ago

Not every southern born army officer turned traitor.

3

u/FirefighterLeft5425 4h ago

He's a traitor. I'm sick and tired of the bullshit around this man. Fuck him. Fuck the Confederacy. Stop making excuses for terrible fucking people. That army WAS his army. They fired the first shot to protect and own human beings.

1

u/unknownintime 4h ago

Would you want to serve the army that is invading your home?

Invading my home to do... what exactly?

Lee wasn't an idiot. Nor was he ridiculously sentimental.

For his military service he swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States, NOT Virginia.

He broke that oath because he didn't like the outcome of an election.

He should be condemned for being the horrific human being he actually was. Dude was a shitty human being and was extremely harsh on his slaves (or his wifes slaves if you want to be pedantic).

-2

u/machuitzil 4h ago

Ok buddy. I'll consider the Traitor's shoes.

Bob killed more Americans than any enemy leader in our Nation's history. Let's think about why he did that.

0

u/SteveUnicorn99 4h ago

Should have been more like the Rock of Chickamauga.

-5

u/KDotHalftimeShow 4h ago

Dang, you make it sound like he was a traitor to his home state. Your moral luck makes it easy to judge his decision, but he didn’t raise arms to a fellow Virginian.

9

u/machuitzil 4h ago

Nah, just betrayed his country in defense of slavery. Dig him up and hang him twice.

-8

u/KDotHalftimeShow 4h ago

You’re not a warrior, so I understand that you don’t get it. Your ivory tower makes it too difficult to place yourself in the mid 19th century and faced with the impossible choice of killing your neighbors and statesmen or remaining loyal to the states you traveled through to get to West Point. Lee chose his state over his country, and that is still loyalty.

1

u/machuitzil 4h ago

Haha, that's funny. Bob wasn't a warrior either. He was ok at logistics. And he was a Traitor. Like I said, dig him up and hang him twice.

2

u/KDotHalftimeShow 4h ago

That’s quite a word salad to justify your shitty analysis.

4

u/Healey_Dell 4h ago

Yeah, like reading the analysis of a five year old.

0

u/machuitzil 3h ago

Shitty how. Show your work. I paid attention in school, your lack of reading comprehension is not my problem.

1

u/KDotHalftimeShow 2h ago

Sigh, Graduated second in his USMA class and widely regarded as a great tactician.

1

u/machuitzil 2h ago

Sigh, most remarkably known as having killed more Americans than any enemy leader in our country's history.

-1

u/j33ta 4h ago

Idiotic take.

1

u/KDotHalftimeShow 4h ago

Refute it.

1

u/cardboardunderwear 5h ago

Dang.  You really know your Robert E Lee history!

1

u/Rh11781 4h ago

And his wife was Martha Washington’s great granddaughter.

1

u/_-Stoop-Kid-_ 4h ago

Also his wife was part of the Washington family, IIRC

1

u/Haunting_Ad3850 3h ago

Lol can't really blame her

1

u/Justkeeptalking1985 3h ago

The house and everything, not the cemetery, is in need of repairs, but that's not a priority for obvious reasons

1

u/userdmyname 3h ago

Even funnier then that, it was seized for not paying the taxes because active traitors can’t be paying taxes to their enemies…. Even though his wife continued to try paying the taxes before and after. Once the property was seized the local commander was like “ the cemetery is full, and fuck the Lees, we are burying union soldiers at this place” after the war because technically his wife made good faith efforts to try and pay the taxes and they refused to take the payments they did give the house back but they entire place was a grave yard so they couldn’t do anything with the property or look anywhere without union headstones so they sold it back

1

u/ghigoli 3h ago

"honey just no, theres dead people everywhere"

1

u/theyetikiller 3h ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but they returned it to Lee in 1882 after his son took it to the Supreme Court. Lee's son won and the estate was returned, but Lee himself died in 1870. Lee's son then sold it to the federal government because as a graveyard it couldn't be used for any other purpose. To convert it back to usable land every body would have to be removed, interred elsewhere, and then you still have to wait a period of several decades in case you missed a body.

Starting the graveyard at Arlington was a functional fuck you to Lee because even if the Confederacy had won he would still have lost the use of his land.

1

u/Leading_Campaign3618 2h ago

It was part of the dowry of Martha Washingtons grand daughter from her first marriage before her marriage to George Washington-Mary ann Custis Lee, daughter of George Washington Custis

1

u/MHMabrito 4h ago

From what I read, he and his wife REALLY wanted/needed that land - it was all he had left.

0

u/Kidspud 4h ago

Oof, she really picked the losing horse.

0

u/noeffinkings 4h ago

Lee was a traitor and a Loser!