Thread by @AdamHDomby

Seems like today is one of those days we need a reminder that Robert E Lee was not a nice guy. In fact he was kind of a jerk. He supported slavery. He fought for slavery. He was cool with enslaving people. He was cool with war crimes too. Let's take it apart (with receipts) 1/

Lee was not known as a good slave owner. In fact he was known as a cruel one who separated families. Here is in account of him having people whipped and separated from families. 2/ fair-use.org/national-anti-…

Those enslaved people beaten & separated from family in the previous tweet had been told they'd be free when Lee's father in law George Washington Parke Custis died. So when they ran away, they were just claiming the freedom they were promised. And they weren't wrong! 3/

Custis wanted them freed. His will said they were "to be emancipated by my executors in such manner as to my executors may seem most expedient and proper"&"the said emancipation to be accomplished in not exceeding five years from the time of my decease."4/ encyclopediavirginia.org/Lee_Robert_E_a…

Lee set to work making them work even harder cause he was going to lose them after 5 years. He broke up families to lease them. His harshness came to light in 1859, before he was a Confederate general so this isn't just bashing a loser after the fact. 5/ encyclopediavirginia.org/_Some_Facts_Th…

And Lee tried to keep that stipulation of emancipation from being upheld. He wanted to hold them longer but the courts were like nope, you have sell land to settle the estate if need be. Still he kept them as long as he could (ironically Jan 2, 1863) 6/
books.google.com/books?id=gdq_D…

And till then Lee worked the people he enslaved harder to get money of them even during the Civil War. He leased enslaved folks (via his son who oversaw it) to the Confederate military to dig trenches. 7/

https://twitter.com/AdamHDomby/status/1207687592424222721

But that is just the personal ownership side of the story! Don't go yet. Let's talk about Lee and slavery beyond those people he personally enslaved. During his invasion of Gettysburg his troops kidnapped Free people of color and sold them into slavery8/ cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2013/06/30/ens…

While Lee didn't publicly order this to occur himself his defenders will claim, that doesn't mean he didn't approve of it. Longstreet actually gave written orders approving it and it was public knowledge that this was occurring and not a secret. 9/ medium.com/history-of-yes…

Literally, David Smith has concluded that “The evidence indicates the involvement in the slave raids of units from every single infantry and cavalry corps of Robert E. Lee’s army.” So yeah, he knew. 10/ medium.com/history-of-yes…

And lets talk about racial massacres. Lee knew about the mistreatment of black troops and never put a stop to it. Indeed, the Confederate war department called for them to occur. Here is Jefferson Davis's orders regarding black Union troops 11/ freedmen.umd.edu/pow.htm

Jefferson Davis literally wanted black troops (and their white officers) treated as as a slave insurrection. This led to a break down of the POW exchange. The Civil War wasn't just fought because of slavery, the way it was fought was entirely shaped by slavery. 12/

I could do a whole thread on how Lee's strategy was dictated by slavery but for now, know that if you didn't have racist Confederate policies regarding POWs you might not have had Andersonville prison & starving US soldiers. 13 nps.gov/ande/learn/his…

Back to Lee. So Lee knew about black POWs being mistreated (it was CSA policy) and tacitly condoned it (at least he never objected to it), Lee was cool with enslaving people who had been born free, and he fought a war to save slavery. And mistreated enslaved people. But wait 14

...there is more: People claim Lee didn't like slavery & quote one letter. But he said he didn't like it because it was bad for white people. Even when condemning slavery he was actually defending its continued existence. @AdamSerwer wrote all about it 15 theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

Why do people misremember Lee as anti-slavery? Basically the Lost Cause rewrote the past. I wrote a whole book on this, but before we get to books, there is one last Lee myth for us to debunk. Though often misremembered Lee was devoted to white supremacy after the war too. 16

Lee is often cited as an advocate for racial reconciliation. They tell this story about him praying alongside a black man. Not only is the story likely entirely fabricated, it was first used to "prove" Lee's devotion to white supremacy & evolved later. 17 civilwarmonitor.com/blog/fantasizi…

I may add some more tweets later but if you want more here about how Lee and the Confederacy are misremembered here are some books you should read:
My own False Cause takes apart a lot of the myths about the Confederacy. 18 upress.virginia.edu/title/5354

Want to know more about Confederate troops and their views on racism? Check out @colinewoodward's book Marching Masters: Slavery, Race, and the Confederate Army during the Civil War 19
upress.virginia.edu/title/4508

Want to know more about Lee specifically here are my favorite biographies. The best is Reading the Man. It presents a lot of the key primary sources alongside the analysis so you can judge for yourself. 20 amazon.com/Reading-Man-Po…

But say you want a shorter biography (that one is over 600 pages long) Try the Making of Robert E Lee by Michael Fellman. 21 amazon.com/Making-Robert-…

It isn't out yet but you can already pre-order what is going to be an amazing book on Lee and his ties to racism and why we misremember him so badly. @Ty_Seidule's Robert E Lee and Me is going to shock some folks who are fans of Lee. 22 us.macmillan.com/books/97812502…

Want to know more about the realities of slavery? Check out @sejr_historian's They Were Her Property which is my absolute favorite book on slavery. 23
amazon.com/They-Were-Her-…

Or since Lee separated families, learn about how families sought to be reunited after the war ended. Check out Help Me Find My People by Heather Williams. One of the most beautiful reads you will ever read 24 amazon.com/Help-Me-Find-M…

Want to learn more about why people misremember the Confederacy? Check out @SassyProf Dixie's Daughters. It helps explain why you got all these monuments in the first place. 25 upf.com/book.asp?id=97…

Want to know about why people have this crazy idea that the Confederacy wasn't racist? Check out @KevinLevin's Searching for Black Confederates 26 uncpress.org/book/978146965…

If you are going to order one of these books, maybe order from a black owned book store. It seems fitting to given the book topics and all that is going on in the world. 27 lithub.com/you-can-order-…

Just a few more resources and accounts about Lee and slavery. Check out @GlennBrasher article on Lee and the condition of slave cabins and enslaved people on his family’s plantations... thedailybeast.com/the-myth-of-ro…

To be clear as some folks have asked; Lee was not a “good slave owner” both because he was horrible to enslaved people AND because the concept of “good slave owner” is inherently flawed. Slavery is a system of oppression premises on terror, violence, & the threat of violence. 29

If there were an edit button on twitter I’d have put “good slave owner” in quotations as that was an oversight. My intent was to pull down a myth that there were “good slave owners” with the example of Lee not imply other slave owners were good ones. 30

Still it’s worth noting that Lee was especially awful in the opinions of those that he enslaved. In responding to Lost Cause advocates who assert Lee was distinct from others in his superior personal values these details can be helpful in undermining the larger LC mythology. 31