Talk:Robert E. Lee

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Robert E. Lee was a History good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

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Date	Process	Result
September 13, 2006	WikiProject A-class review	Not approved
November 21, 2007	Good article nominee	Not listed

Current status: Former good article nominee

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GA status

I'm planning to submit this for GA review soon. Nearly all the references have been cleaned up, and all the bulleted lists have been converted to prose. If anyone would care to read over the entire article and see if anything else needs to be fixed up, that would be great. Small things, big things, doesn't matter. Omnedon (talk) 14:04, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, before we can go for GA, there are some things that need references. Generally each paragraph needs to end with a reference, and there are some "fact" tags in a few places that need to be resolved. I will work on finding citations, but if anyone else has them that would be good too. Omnedon (talk) 14:14, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Amnesty story

ex Rjensen talk page
Greetings. With this edit you not only removed information about the lost paperwork, but also about the second amnesty, which is significant. Please take more care when trimming information from articles. Omnedon (talk) 14:56, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

the LBJ story does not belong here--but who says it is important? the cite is to an informal discussion group not an RS. The reason Lee could not be prosecuted was Grant's very strong opposition. Rjensen (talk) 15:20, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

LBJ? Who are you referring to? Andrew Johnson issued a second amnesty in 1868, as the article stated before you removed that information. See [1]. Omnedon (talk) 15:23, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I meant Andy Johnson :) My point is that it was Grant who made the decision not to allow Lee to be tried--he actually was indicted by a state court. The amnesty petition by Lee was not lost to history--all the newspapers reported it at the time; just the paperwork got lost. There is excellent coverage of the issue in a brand new scholarly book --we should cite it instead of an informal amateur blog page: William A. Blair (2014). With Malice toward Some: Treason and Loyalty in the Civil War Era. University of North Carolina Press. p. 240. Rjensen (talk) 15:27, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But you removed the information about the second pardon, which has nothing to do with the lost paperwork issue to which you seemed to refer in the edit summary. Surely the second pardon is worthy of mention here and is entirely relevant. Omnedon (talk) 15:28, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

the AJ pardon issue: is it important or had the decision been made in 1865 not to indict Lee. Blair (2014) indicates the later. To say the amnesty was important regarding Lee will require a RS, which is not there. Rjensen (talk) 15:36, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But the amnesty is about more than just avoiding indictment. Lee did not receive the first amnesty. The second would apply to him. Omnedon (talk) 16:41, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And the second amnesty which applies to Lee is important because that is the context which makes the publicity stunt by Harry F. Byrd, Jr. in the mid-twentieth century unnecessary, "restoring Robert E. Lee's citizenship"--- except as a Senatorial courtesy to the Independent senior Senator from Virginia caucusing with the Democrats, to help him with his home-state vote in an upcoming election with a serious Democratic challenge. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:38, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox

I've found what I think i a better photo of Lee, but it's from very late in his life, so it might be better to put the old one back, and use this to illustrate the contemporaneous section of the article. Thoughts? Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 05:54, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Repeated Quote

I noticed that the quote by Lee, "My own opinion is that, at this time, they [black Southerners] cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the [vote] would lead to a great deal of demagogism, and lead to embarrassments in various ways," is repeated in the article. It's in the "After the war" section, but it's also in the "Postwar politics" section. Since I'm not a "confirmed user" (I haven't edited ten articles), I can't make the changes myself. Could someone check it out? Arieava97 (talk) 03:02, 30 January 2015 (UTC)Arieava97[reply]

Using the CSA flag adopted by the army

Removed the Stainless Banner with battle flag union, white field, official 650 only days. After adoption, only sourced atop the Confederate Capitol, Richmond, Virginia (Samsing). The 2:1 ratio flag literally did not function, it did not fly on a flagpole, and it was seen as truce or surrender (Samsing). For the Confederacy at the time, it was “not satisfactory” ( Coulter, p. 119). The army did not use it, Lee did not fight under it. In contrast, Ellis Merton Coulter in his The Confederate States of America, 1861-1865 p. 118 viewed June 13, 2012, published in LSU’s History of the South series, notes that beginning in March 1861, the First National Flag was used “all over the Confederacy”. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:12, 20 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"No-brainer"

This article states Lee used that phrase in a letter. This seemed odd to me since it's a fairly modern phrase.

The Merrium-Websters dictionary says It was first used in 1973. Is this vandalism? DavidRavenMoon (talk) 20:38, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't find that claim in the article. Could you recheck and supply more specifics? 2600:1006:B11A:ED71:14E8:C473:9B00:7111 (talk) 00:25, 2 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]