Lee wasn't the only Southerner—or the only Virginian—forced to choose between "his state" and "his country." Facing war, George Henry Thomas, one of Lee's subordinates, had to make the same choice. He chose Union. As did David Farragut, a native of Tennessee. As did Winfield Scott, another Virginian. The United States of 1860 was a different place, and Americans understood their relationship to the country in different ways. But in showing us other men in similar straits who took the opposite path, history doesn't exonerate Lee; it condemns him.
Jamele Bouie
