Professor
Thomas DiLorenzo has a chapter in his new
book on Civil War delusions in honor of historically challenged Paul Krugman:
Krugman is apparently unaware that in 1860, on the
eve of the war, Robert E. Lee was in his thirty-second year as an officer in
the United States Army, performing mostly as a military engineer. He was
hardly a “patrician” or member of a ruling class. Grant, by contrast, was
the overseer of an 850-acre slave plantation owned by his wealthy father-in-
law. The plantation, located near St. Louis, was known as “White Haven”
(which sounds like it could have been named by the KKK) and is today a
national park. (On the “White Haven” Web site the National Park Service
euphemistically calls Grant the “manager” of the slave plantation rather
than the more historically-accurate word “overseer”.)
There's much more:
In 1862 Lee freed the slaves that his wife had inherited, in compliance
with his father-in-law’s will. Grant’s father-in-law’s White Haven slaves
were not freed until an 1865 Missouri emancipation law forced him to do
so. The fact that Lee changed clothes before formally surrendering did not
instantly turn the thirty-six-year army veteran into a “patrician,” contrary
to the “all-knowing” Krugman’s assertion.
You'll want to read the book because it's not just about the Civil War. It's about the lies of government.
