Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 22
Book Description
United States of America V. Lee
Author: United States of America V. Lee, Jr
Author: United States of America V. Lee
Author: United States of America Ex Rel. Lee, Jr. V. People of the State of Illinois
Author: United States of America V. Lee Stoller Enterprises, Inc
Author: United States of America V. Lee
Author: United States V. Lee
Author: United States. Supreme CourtPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Lee Sing V. United States of America
Author: The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee
Author: John ReevesPublisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538110407
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
History has been kind to Robert E. Lee. Woodrow Wilson believed General Lee was a “model to men who would be morally great.” Douglas Southall Freeman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his four-volume biography of Lee, described his subject as “one of a small company of great men in whom there is no inconsistency to be explained, no enigma to be solved.” Winston Churchill called him “one of the noblest Americans who ever lived.” Until recently, there was even a stained glass window devoted to Lee's life at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Immediately after the Civil War, however, many northerners believed Lee should be hanged for treason and war crimes. Americans will be surprised to learn that in June of 1865 Robert E. Lee was indicted for treason by a Norfolk, Virginia grand jury. In his instructions to the grand jury, Judge John C. Underwood described treason as “wholesale murder,” and declared that the instigators of the rebellion had “hands dripping with the blood of slaughtered innocents.” In early 1866, Lee decided against visiting friends while in Washington, D.C. for a congressional hearing, because he was conscious of being perceived as a “monster” by citizens of the nation’s capital. Yet somehow, roughly fifty years after his trip to Washington, Lee had been transformed into a venerable American hero, who was highly regarded by southerners and northerners alike. Almost a century after Appomattox, Dwight D. Eisenhower had Lee’s portrait on the wall of his White House office. The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee tells the story of the forgotten legal and moral case that was made against the Confederate general after the Civil War. The actual indictment went missing for 72 years. Over the past 150 years, the indictment against Lee after the war has both literally and figuratively disappeared from our national consciousness. In this book, Civil War historian John Reeves illuminates the incredible turnaround in attitudes towards the defeated general by examining the evolving case against him from 1865 to 1870 and beyond.
The Last Battle of the Civil War
Author: Anthony J. GaughanPublisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807139297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Book Description
Seventeen years after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, one final, dramatic confrontation occurred between the Lee family and the United States government. In The Last Battle of the Civil War, Anthony J. Gaughan recounts the fascinating saga of United States v. Lee, known to history as the "Arlington Case." Prior to the Civil War, Mary Lee, Robert E. Lee's wife, owned the estate that Arlington National Cemetery rests on today. After the attack on Fort Sumter, however, the Union army seized the Lees' Arlington home and converted it into a national cemetery as well as a refugee camp for runaway slaves. In 1877 George Washington Custis Lee, Robert and Mary's eldest son, filed suit demanding that the federal government pay the Lees just compensation for Arlington. In response, the Justice Department asserted that sovereign immunity barred Lee and all other private plaintiffs from bringing Fifth Amendment takings cases. The courts, the government claimed, had no jurisdiction to hear such lawsuits. In a historic ruling, the Supreme Court rejected the government's argument. As the majority opinion explained, "All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it." The ruling made clear that the government was legally obligated by the Fifth Amendment to pay just compensation to the Lees. The Court's ruling in United States v. Lee affirmed the principle that the rule of law applies equally to ordinary citizens and high government officials. As the justices emphasized, the Constitution is not suspended in wartime and government officials who violate the law are not beyond the reach of justice. Ironically, the case also represented a watershed on the path of sectional reconciliation. By ruling in favor of the Lee family, the justices demonstrated that former Confederates would receive a fair hearing in the federal courts. Gaughan provides a riveting account of the Civil War's final battle, a struggle whose outcome became a significant step on the path to national reunion.