Donald Trump vs. American History

The claim that Lee was a brilliant strategist is a bit of Lost Cause mythology that historians have largely debunked. Still, it’s worth pausing to consider why Trump has made a point, on several occasions, of commending a man who led an army that fought a war predicated on maintaining and expanding the institution of chattel slavery. Lee himself was a slave owner who tortured those he enslaved; one man said Lee was “not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, [he] then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine.” Lee also argued that slavery benefited African Americans, deeming it “necessary for their instruction as a race.”