For most of our pop culture who take American freedom for granted Memorial Day Weekend is merely a time to take the boat out on the lake, have a few beers, enjoy the barbecue, or watch a ballgame. Sure everyone needs to relax and enjoy the occasional holiday. However, let us not forget the selfless sacrifice that our war veterans were willing to put themselves on the line for so that we could enjoy those precious freedoms we take so much for granted.

Historical disinformation

In the annals of history we have seen how the actual events and reasons for what happened can often be distorted by arm chair quarterbacks who attempt to apply today’s standards to the events of yesteryear. If so, we would be wonder how we ever digressed to rap and hip hop when such brilliant composers as Beethoven and Mozart spoke a colorful and melodic form of musical tapestry hundreds of years ago that uneducated audiences today appreciate little.

Irrelevant arguments

Still, for the sake of political delusion we have fools removing statues of our past military leaders because we are trying to impose present day values upon people and traditions that dwelled more than 150 years in our past, and still the true reasons for such events are not being honestly represented. This article is about 2 great generals that fought on different sides of the War Between the States yet both were brave and noble leaders. History is not always kind to those who were forced to take up the reigns of command when duty called. Their job was simply to do or die.

The better leaders

At the outbreak of the Civil War generals from the south and the Union who had trained together and graduated from West Point also knew each other quite well. It is well accepted that the South had the better generals as evidenced by the defeats that occurred early in the war with General McClelland, President Lincoln’s chief leader becoming more and more reluctant to pursue the Confederates.

Lee’s appointment

General Robert E. Lee, who had distinguished himself in combat on behalf of his country took up arms against the Union and became the choice of Jefferson Davis to carry the war effort to the Union. The major issues that provoked the war between the Confederacy and the Union were not based upon slavery. This was a false representation of the cause of the Civil War! From the very beginning Abraham Lincoln had stated that his goal was to preserve the Union whether or not slavery would be abolished! General Robert E. Lee was an abolitionist! Yet, thanks to modern day politics we once again have a distortion of historical fact. The truth on slavery is that if African leaders had not already been selling our their own kind to the Muslims prior to slave business being brought to America slavery never would have succeeded! 

False flag provocateurs

When the terrorist incident at Harper’s Ferry occurred the leaders of the southern states were already worried that the Union would be seeking any form of provocation to invade the southern states! The self-styled experts of today have conveniently forgotten that 60% of the slave plantations in Louisiana were owned by Blacks!  That northern states regularly returned slaves who had escaped via the Underground Railroad only to be returned to their southern slave owners. That the KKK was formed by the Democrats who for decades denied civil rights to Black Americans is another conveniently overlooked fact when we consider the past.

Hold the line or die

Not long after a string of losses to the Confederates did a major crisis befall the North. The Confederate Army was poised to cross the Potomac and take Washington DC! There was only one thing holding them back. A thin line of Union soldiers under the command of one George Armstrong Custer! The hard charging US Cavalry commander rode up and down the defensive perimeter imploring his men not to give ground or desert their positions in the bloody fighting that ensued! With a sabre in his right hand Custer urged his men into a terrible victory suffering 70% casualties but more importantly defeating the Rebels and turning back the tide of victory that could have ended the war very shortly in favor of the Confederacy.

Blazing a path to glory

George Armstrong Custer, only a Captain at that point, would become a flamboyant leader that was both envied and hated for his heroism as he shamed many of his contemporaries who never would have ridden at the leading edge of a charge during battle! Yet, Custer would be later demonized for his pursuit of the Indian Nation and finally meeting his demise at the Little Big Horn on “Last Stand Hill” having been cut off from his divided regiments and encircled by overwhelming odds of Native American warriors led by Crazy Horse. To those of his time much as JFK was considered a hero and the nation’s son, so was George Armstrong Custer, who was being groomed for the presidency had he not met his untimely fate in the great plains on a June afternoon.

Genius tactician

Robert E. Lee often with considerably less resources than his Union counterparts consistently out maneuvered the Union Army and was narrowly denied the deciding hand in many battles after his early successes. Had France entered the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy the aid from the French could well have been the deciding factor of the war. The Union possessed the greater manufacturing capacity but lacked the raw material that was being produced by the southern states and prior to the Civil War this had been a point of contention as tariffs and fees had been unfairly assessed upon the goods sold to the northern states.

Indisputable character

General Lee was a moral man, he did not tolerate the abuse of prisoners, and he was well respected by his Union opponents who saluted him when he surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia in 1865. He could not bear to see his beloved state of Virginia ravaged by the Union as had happened when General Tecumseh Sherman led a path of destruction all the way to the sea burning and pillaging as his men plowed through what was left of the South and the unguarded farmland that was to be burned to the ground.

“It is a good thing that war is so terrible,” Robert E. Lee observed, “lest we grow so fond of it.”

Legacy of irony

Both Robert E. Lee and George Custer would become demonized for following their orders and fighting on behalf of their nation thanks to the politically correct interjections that led to the 7^th Cavalry being retired out of disgrace until the Vietnam War under a new incarnation of helicopter Air Cavalry tactics.

Victim of propaganda

Today statues of Robert E. Lee in many states in the US are being hauled off, vandalized, or considered for removal as are many other war heroes of the south by a leftist movement that uses the same tactics as the Soviet Union did in erasing the history and heritage of a society that it targeted to demoralize and destabilize in its quest to render a nation into internal turmoil prior to overthrow.