Idiot: If it weren't for Gettysburg, Robert E Lee would have won (the Civil War).

[Norbert]

I give it a year before the revisionist 'historians' have the South as the Winners.

This entire thing is ridiculous, but Lee also demonstrated extremely poor generalship at Gettysburg that resulted in a third of his Army becoming casualties. He also didn’t take over command of the Army of N. VA until 14 months after the war started.

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) 2026-05-02T10:35:57.422Z

[Haggard Celine]

1. He knows nothing about history except for a few names.

He talks about these people and makes up whole stories about them on the fly. It's fucking ridiculous for a President to be acting like that. And I can't help but wonder who is running things. Trump's not doing it, obviously, so who is making the decisions?

[SheltieLover]

4. Pootin

[Haggard Celine]

7. Yep, he's the only one with any brains, and he

seems to be losing his touch.

[SheltieLover]

8. Yup!

[PatSeg]

25. And his looney versions of history

don't even resemble any theatrical movie. He's clearly writing history from his own weird imagination.

[PatSeg]

26. Dupe oops

[wnylib]

39. There's a long list of who is running things.

It depends on the category.

Economy -- corporate CEOs and oligarchs

Energy -- oil companies and their investors

Immigration -- Stephen Miller

DOJ -- Trump's vendetta whims and whoever agrees to carry them out

Etc.

[Whip-poor-will]

2. Loser

Losers love other losers .

[Mysterian]

3. Lee got his ass kicked in his first combat command

when he ventured into Western Virginia. But his star kept rising because he was budies with Jeff Davis.

[haele]

44. Lee's only concern was protecting his plantation and his Virginia buddies .

He could care less about the rest of the Confederacy, and it pretty much showed.
Thing is, when you look at it without all the Lost Cause / Gone With the Wind romanticism, most of the other Confederate Generals pretty much had the same attitude. Their Plantation Home, their Clan, their State.
There were few plantation outsiders in the Confederate military leadership - and they were the few that kept the Confederate military on its feet as long as it was able to...with the help of way too many Union Officers who had pretty much bought their position (through money or politics) rather than actually ever fought or studied strategy before.
So long as he had money behind him, Pete Kegsbreath would have fit in well with most of the "Gentlemen Officer Corps" of the Civil War.

[Mysterian]

48. Kegbreath disgusts actual fighting men

He was a National Guard infantry officer who chose not attend Ranger School (as infantry officers are expected) and he acts like he's Audie Fucking Murphy. He is a repulsive braggart and obvious phony whom soldiers with courage and integrity can see right through.

[edhopper]

5. So he is asking

why the South couldn't secede and become a separate slave owning country? He would prefer that?

I don't think it was bad generalship on Lee's part (they almost out flanked the Union on Little Round Top and Culp's Hill), I think it was an act of desperation. Winning Gettysburg meant they could move towards Washington and sue for peace. Lee knew that the South could not continue the war much longer.

[Haggard Celine]

9. I think it was a combination of the Union win at Gettysburg and

the fall of Vicksburg, which happened at the same time. After that, the South had few options. If Lee had been such a wonderful general, he would've surrendered soon after. People just kept dying and suffering for no damn reason at all. Lee became a symbol of the romanticised, glorious Lost Cause. White people in the South, and some in the North, invented this mythology of an antebellum South with virtuous planters who treated their slaves with dignity and they were hardly slaves, they had so much freedom and were so happy. Lee's biggest mistake was leaving the U.S. Army and taking command of Southern forces. How long would the war have lasted if Lee hadn't switched sides?

[edhopper]

23. Right you are

Gone With The Wind a big culprit. Hollywood did many more movies about the noble South than the Union side.

And Lee, being an US Army General was a traitor. His loyalties should have been to the country, but he said he would take the side of Virginia. Shows he did not believe in the South, just a man who thought his State was more important.

[ITAL]

27. Disagree

If he'd been a wonderful general he wouldn't have fought as he did.

Unlike many here, I do think Lee was a very good general -- but he was a good tactical general. Give him some ground and he could generally find the best way to position his troops and figure out way to be successful. Grant knew this, so he used Lee's strategy against him and just bled him to death. Grant was a great strategic general (and a great tactical general).

Lee needed to be more like Washington to win the war. Washington was a great strategic general but an average tactical one (he lost more battles than he won). He realized the most important thing in an insurgency is not to be defeated - not to win. Lee didn't come to that conclusion until much too late (he sort of realized it by the time the war got to Petersburg, but by then he was bottled up in a siege)..

[edhopper]

24. The funny thing is Iran is doing to Trump what the South should have done

not try to win, but wear your opponent down until they lose the will and the consent of the population to fight anymore.

[Mister Ed]

6. If it weren't for losing, he would have won. n/t

[Girard442]

10. "The amateurs discuss tactics: the professionals discuss logistics. " - Napoleon Bonaparte

It would have been nigh unto impossible for the South to overcome their logistical obstacles. Lee couldn't fix that by being a brilliant strategist -- if he even was.

[hatrack]

11. Yes, but then he tried to ram the ramparts, and storm the airports . . .

It was all downhill from there.

[magicarpet]

32. Yes,... and General Lee drove around the Gettysburg War Battlefield,...

.... in his brand new bright red Chevy Corvette convertible burning donuts. Instead of getting down to the business of winning the war he was instead out for a joy ride just showing off. This is why he lost the war at Gettysburg.

(So DJ said from the stage the other day.)

[Dan]

12. If it hasn't been for the Indians

Custer would have won at Little Big Horn.

[Kid Berwyn]

13. Look around. The Confederacy seems to have won.

Supreme Kort has returned the country to 1866 and it looks like they're aiming for a return to 1860.

[dalton99a]

14. Traitor rooting for a traitor

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

15. "Nice ballroom you're planning there TACO, be a real shame if somethin' happened to it!"--General Sherman

[Sneederbunk]

16. Lee never won outside of Virginia.

The war was lost by the Confederacy in the West.

[Martin Eden]

19. The Western theater is where Grant showed his stuff

Last edited Sat May 2, 2026, 03:01 PM - Edit history (1)

For the most part, Lee was a better general than the Union had in the Eastern theater, but he also had great subordinates like Jackson and Longstreet.

Lee made a terrible mistake at Gettysburg on the 3rd day with his assault on the Union center under General Meade, who had just taken over from Hooker. Subordinate general Warren helped save the Union army on the 2nd day with his actions to reinforce the left flank at Little Roundtop.

[Mysterian]

20. And the 20th Maine, who did the fighting

under the command of Col. Joshua Chamberlain.

[Martin Eden]

22. Yes, Jeff Daniels was great in that role in the movie

My favorite character was the Irish sargeant, especially when he talked about the "true aristocracy" of the mind.

While we remember the heroics of the 20th Maine, we also should not forget the sacrifice of the 1st Minnesota. General Warren, desperate to buy time while reinforcements were being moved to Little Roundtop, grabbed the commander of the Minnesota regiment as a thousand or more rebel troops approached. Warren said "See those Colors? Take them!"

The 262 Minnesotans plunged in and fought valiantly, buying precious time. In five minutes, 215 of them fell. The 82% casualty rate still stands as the U.S. Army’s largest loss of life of any unit.

[Oneironaut]

17. Pander pander pander

So sick of the biggest idiots in this country being pandered to in a way that’s completely obvious to anyone with a brain.

[Kaleva]

18. The Civil War was a numbers game Lee couldn't win

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

21. General Bonespurs has spoken

About as bad as his claim, Pickett's charge would have been successful if he weren't attacking uphill.

[B.See]

28. TRANSLATION: Bigot in Chief Mourns South's Loss of Civil War

... and no doubt, all of "the Blacks" who couldn't vote and might still be working fields for nothing to this day.

Cryin my fkn soup.

[Girard442]

29. Lee's leadership averted a much worse tragedy at the Bowling Green Massacre.

[Prairie Gates]

30. Robert E. Lee: I will send an army uphill over 2 miles of open ground against an entrenched position

with massed artillery on the hottest day of the year. Oh, they will also have to cross a couple of fence lines that will slow them down and that have been sighted to the half centimeter by the enemy cannon.

Smart guy, this Lee.

The entire traitor army was high on their own supply.

[doc03]

31. Sounds like Putin's plan for Ukraine and his for Iran.

[legallyblondeNYC]

33. This is a very, very sick man.

And he just makes sh*t up.

[struggle4progress]

34. "If it weren't for the fact they lost, the South could have won! Big strong men with tears in their eyes

are coming up to me and saying so!"

[ProfessorGAC]

35. And, If McLellan Hadn't Been Such A Tool....

....the war might have lasted 2 months.
But, he was a tool & that didn't happen.
Lee screwed up at Gettysburg, so the loss was his fault.
He would have won except HE lost at Gettysburg.

[Cirsium]

38. Doubtful

It does a great disservice to the memory of the brave patriotic heroes who defeated the despicable traitors to credit the victory to Lee's supposed mistakes.

[ProfessorGAC]

43. Silly

[Cirsium]

45. Why do that?

Why the one word dismissal? This is an important topic. What exactly is it that you think is silly about my post? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

[Cirsium]

36. the lost cause

Enough already with the "lost cause" bs and the hero worship of Lee.

The defeat of the slave power was the country's finest moment. Lee was a traitor. His military prowess is vastly over-rated.

[anamnua]

41. US Grant nailed it:

I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.

[anamnua]

42. Speaking of the lost cause mythos

it has a relatively recent expression in that appalling piece of schmaltz 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down'. I can't understand how a fine liberal like Joan Baez could have touched this with a forty foot bargepole.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

46. Written by Robbie Robertson of The Band

A Canadian

[Cirsium]

47. agreed

The romanticization of the "Old South" is disgusting. The plantation tourism business is another example.

[spanone]

37. History from the dumbest president ever elected.

[NickB79]

40. Lee got his ass handed to him by the Minnesota 1st regiment

Named because Minnesota was the first state to send troops to fight for the United States in the Civil War. They took a staggering 80% casualty rate in Gettysburg because they were given a suicide mission when the Union line almost broke, but still held it, counterattacked, and took the Confederate battle flag. We still have it here, and refused to return it to Virginia every time they asked.

Someone tell Trump how Minnesota saved the Union, since he hates our state so much.

https://www.civilwarmed.org/1st-minnesota-at-gettysburg/

[Abolishinist]

49. "I give it a year before the revisionist 'historians' have the South as the Winners"

Reminded me of 'The Man in the High Castle', streaming I believe on Prime. Based on the novel by Philip K. Dick.

I started watching several months ago, it was a 'treadmill' thing, but I switched to something else after the first several episodes of Season 2. I really need to get back to this, it was really different and I need to know how it ends.

"The Man in the High Castle is an American dystopian alternate history television series created for the streaming service Amazon Prime Video, depicting a parallel universe where the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan rule the world after their victory in World War II.

Set in 1962, the series' main setting is a parallel universe where the Axis powers have won World War II in 1946 after Giuseppe Zangara assassinates the president-elect of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1933. A series of developments follow that include the Germans dropping a nuclear weapon on Washington, D.C. (now renamed 'District of Contamination') in late 1945.

After this, the Japanese launch a ground invasion of the U.S. West Coast. The American federal government subsequently surrenders, though it takes another year for the Axis and their American collaborators to pacify the country. The Germans build concentration camps for the enslavement and eventual extermination of Jewish Americans and African Americans and commit massacres in cities such as Cincinnati."

[SocialDemocrat61]

50. No the won't cast the South as winners

but as victims which is what so many do when they don't have moral, ethical or factual grounds to stand on.