Question of the Week: What advice would you give Lee?
If you could go back in time and give Robert E. Lee one piece of advice of factual information, what would it be and when would you want to tell him?
If you could go back in time and give Robert E. Lee one piece of advice of factual information, what would it be and when would you want to tell him?
Don’t let JEB Stuart go rogue and disappear right before Gettysburg, it will rob you of necessary intelligence of Union troop movements!!
Keep your oath and stay with the Union.
Absolutely agree
That your skill set was all for nothing, that hundreds of thousands would die, and your beloved Virginia would end in ruins.
1. Sell your slaves
2. Don’t resign your commission in the American Army.
Sir, it’s Sept 13, 1862, you probably want to centralize your army immediately. I have it on good authority that a copy of your Special Order 191 has been compromised.
Don’t make the charge at Gettysburg…
Stop the war. The North has overwhelming resources and the South is impoverished.
When you dictate your orders for Jeb Stuart before leaving for Pennsylvania in June of 1863, make it explicit that he must stay with the army and cover the flanks with all of his cavalry at all times.
While I admire your dedication, you know the war is without a doubt lost now that Grant has you bottled up at Petersburg. Tell Jef Davis and the Congress to surrender and end the killing. If he doesn’t – resign.
Move around Meade’s left flank on July 2
At Chancellorsville: Your key subordinate is about to ride out beyond the lines at night with no warning to his own troops. Perhaps alert Jackson that this is not the best idea, or warn the relevant troops to expect him to return at their point in the lines.
After General Jackson’s death, I would advise General Lee to give his corps commanders more specific orders. Whereas, General Jackson could be given less specific orders, Generals Ewell and Hill, would require much more specific orders. The phrase “if practicable” placed a large amount responsibility on each that neither were capable of operating under.
Stay home! Don’t go trekking into points north of your state. Let Virginia be the “rock” the Army Of the Potomac breaks itself on. Try to improve your lines of communications and supply and hound Jeff Davis and Virginia’s governor Letcher to improve aspects of the state’s infrastructure to address the military realities there.
Don’t resign your commission … but if conscience requires you not take up arms against Virginia, then resign … but remain true to your oath and stay home — “I, Robert E. Lee do solemnly swear to bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America …”
Keep your oath, like every other US Army colonel from VA who were also West Point grads did. From a pure military aspect; ditch over-rated JEB Stuart; who was far more interested in wearing little capes and dressing like an English cavalier from the 1650s and having balls/dances than he was in providing decent intelligence at Antietam and particularly Gettysburg.
Open recruitment to the slaves in return for their and their families’ freedom ASAP.
Maybe take a breath, calm down and listen to your Old War Horse when he tells you no charge over that field was ever going to be successful. Lee’s blood must have been boiling to order Pickett to make that charge. Failure on at least two fronts – not thinking with common sense and not in the slightest considering what a trusted officer is recommending not to do
May 1863: Tell President Davis that the decision point of the war was coming and the South would have to take dramatic action in order to win.
1. Appoint Jeb Stuart commander of Second Corps, instead of Richard Ewell.
2. Split Stuart’s cavalry command in two, naming Wade Hampton and William Henry Fitzhugh Lee commanders of the two halves.
3. Transfer a Corps’ worth of the best men – 25,000 – from Bragg’s army to Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia so that he could take close to 100,000 infantry into Pennsylvania and with it capture major cities and the wealth contained there, then destroy or at least severely damage the Army of the Potomac so severely, and threaten Washington so convincingly, as to bring an end to the war.