Opinion | There was no dignity in fighting for slavery

The letter concluded by stating that Lee was a “man of great dignity.” Whether Lee’s refusal to command Union forces because he could not bring himself to “draw [his] sword” against his native state made him worthy of esteem or honor might be debatable. But his subsequent resignation from the U.S. Army and acceptance of command of Virginia’s forces to fight for the preservation of the institution of slavery certainly do not. How ironic to use the word “dignity” to describe a man who fought against the “dignity” of the millions of enslaved people he claimed he would gladly have given up to the Union had he been in a position to do so. There is no dignity in Lee’s anti-slavery pretension, given that it was immediately followed by his proslavery shedding of blood.

Thankful Vanderstar, Silver Spring

The April 30 letter “Judging by today’s standards” confused “rewriting history” for correcting historical memories. The writer extolled the virtues of Gen. Robert E. Lee but left out the most vital point: his leadership of an insurrection against the U.S. government. That he was a “man of great dignity” in no way makes up for this fundamental flaw. Being nice and being a good leader are great qualities, but they do not make an American hero of a man who fought to break apart the Union and to keep slavery for the South.

If he had just refused to lead the Northern troops, then he might not have been “dishonored” by a cemetery in his front yard. But he actively led the Confederate military against the United States. And that is history, not curated images of a dignified old man.

Shirley M. Marshall, Alexandria

The highest rank Robert E. Lee achieved in the U.S. Army was colonel; “Gen. Lee” should be used only in the context of his service in the Confederate army.

Arlington House became the home of Lee when he married Mary Custis in 1831, and it became hers upon the death of her father in 1857. Describing the house as “Lee’s” is misleading. Custis owned it.

In April 1861, President Abraham Lincoln’s emissary, Francis P. Blair, met with Lee. Blair offered Lee a commission as a major general in command of the defenses of Washington; this was an important assignment, as the nation’s capital was surrounded by Virginia, which had voted to secede, and South-leaning Maryland, where rioting in Baltimore over Union troops passing through the city would soon peak. Forced to choose between the country he loved and the state he loved, Lee chose Virginia.

Union (and some Confederate) dead began to be buried at Arlington in 1864, and though turning the estate into a cemetery might have been done in part to dissuade Lee from returning to live there, it is certainly not “the ultimate dishonor” to Lee that what was once his home is today our nation’s most hallowed ground.

Jan Joseph Wessling, Olney