THIS year marks the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War's beginning. Even in the 21st Century, the shadow of the Confederacy looms ominously on the fringes of Southern culture. Growing up in Virginia, I was confronted regularly with this reality. In the minds of a minority of Southerners, the wounds of the Civil War have yet to heal.
While I am proud of my Southern heritage, I caution Americans against romanticizing the war between the states. There was little glory in the war's causes, and its outcome destroyed families, crippled the Southern economy and set into practice a system of race-based cultural and legal hypocrisies that oppressed a large portion of Americans for the next century.
The South's role in the Civil War is difficult to address because of the complex nature of Southern leaders' motivations and goals. There were many true villains, but also there were good men who were unfortunate enough to be caught up in the conflict. Probably one of the most well known reluctant Southern "heroes" is General Robert E. Lee.
Lee made his moral qualms regarding slavery known in a letter to his wife in 1856. "In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country," he wrote. Yet Lee decided to lead Confederate troops in defense of states' rights that permitted slavery. He justified his decision by saying, "I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relative, my children, my home."
In recent years, historians have raised doubts about Lee's character. Elizabeth Brown Pryor, author of Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters, based her research on a sample of personal letters from Lee that were discovered in 2002. Pryor highlights aspects of Lee's character that call into question his stance on slavery. She argues that Lee "saw slaves as property, that he owned them and their labor. Now you can say he wasn't worse than anyone
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