Why did he choose the wrong side?

Why did he choose the wrong side?

Because his primary loyalty was to the state of his birth, not of the union of states.

He was anti-slavery, but he was still loyal to the south.

Who cares, Grant was a better general

Because he was a good Virginian

In the words of his relative

>MY NAME IS RICHARD HENRY LEE, VIR GIN E UH IS MY HOMMMME

>Grant was a better general
kek

He had the upper ground though

Lee is literally given god-man status in almost three quarters of the country, far exceeding the 11 states of the old Confederacy. Grant won a war and went on to be President, but is barely remembered, even by Northerners.

I'd say Lee chose the right side.

Back during that era, the state was often considered more important than the nation. At least, this was the way of thinking in the South, where the state's had strong identities. It doesn't help that Southern culture and Northern culture were two sides of the same coin, which caused people that'd normally side morally with the Northern cause, to side with the Southern cause because that's the people they identified with.

People forget the US is basically a federation of states. National identity is MUCH stronger today than it was back then. State identity, and even specific county identities, often outweighed that of the National identity.

t.tactician

>He was anti-slavery

Literally captured free men and sold them intonslavery.

America would be better if state pride was stronger than it is today.

It'd be a weaker country. Any country with strong regionalism is doomed to infighting e.g. Italy, South Korea until the 70's

Yeah, we're such a strong, unified country now with monoculture and a massive federal government that everyone either hates, suspicious of, or feels as if it doesn't represent them.

Voluntarism is a virtue.

And yet America is still the most powerful country on Earth. Something unimaginable without a strong federal government.

>America is still the most powerful country on Earth.

Who won the war again?

Well it sure isn't China, so who else is there?

poor argument for individual commanders
the north's far superior industrial capacity and larger population surely had more to do with them winning.

...

Certainly not the Russians

The South had the advantage of fighting defensively on their own territory. To understand how immensely significant this is, see Vietnam

Right, their economy has gone to shit

That's what happens when you rely entirely on some meme resource like oil.

this. Lee's offensive into the north was a disaster.

>Comparing territorial advantage in a civil war to an overseas conflict

The North Vietnamese got fucking shrekt in every single head to head engagement with the Americans though. The Americans also could not actually attack the North Vietnamese where it mattered.
Poor comparison.

Grant was the closest thing America has ever gotten to Georgy Zhukov. All he did was throw lines of Union infantry at the Confederates until he bled their army dry. Totally overrated general imo.

This is the single dumbest post that I can recall having ever read in my time on Veeky Forums.

Oh come on, there are WAY dumber posts. There's the one about how the Polynesian expansion happened because the ice age made land bridges between the islands, since they obviously couldn't have sailed out of sight of land.

Except we survived a hell of a lot before we had anything resembling a strong federal government. Stop being a faggot.

Any time you hear about a side losing to "human waves", rest assured that source is absolutely full of shit.

Sherman

he realized which was the greater evil

Can't squirm the Sherm