Dear Editor:

Monday is a state holiday in honor of Robert E. Lee, America’s greatest general.

By April 1863, General Lee had brilliantly defeated four of Lincoln’s invading Generals. In Lincoln’s obsession to collect his 40 percent Federal sales tax for his Wall Street owners, he next selected General Hooker, pitting 134,000 Federals against 57,000 Confederates.

Lee sent General Jackson undetected around Hooker’s right flank, while Lee faced the center.

Jackson’s surprise attack sent Lincoln’s tax collectors reeling, whereupon Lee charged Hooker’s center, thereby trouncing Lincoln’s fifth General.

Confederate Colonel Charles Marshall recalls:

‘On the morning of May 3, 1863 the final assault was made upon the Federal lines at Chancellorsville. General Lee accompanied the troops in person, and as they emerged from the fierce combat waged in the depths of that tangled wilderness, driving the superior forces of the enemy before them, Lee rode to the front of his advancing battalions.

“The scene is one that can never be effaced from the minds of those who witnessed it. The white smoke of musketry fringed the front of the line of battle, while the artillery on the hills in the rear of the infantry shook the earth with its thunder, and filled the air with the wild shrieks of the shells.

“The fierce soldiers with their faces blackened with the smoke of battle, the wounded crawling with feeble limbs from the fury of the devouring flames, all seemed possessed with a common impulse.

“One long, unbroken cheer, in which the feeble cry of those who lay helpless on the earth blended with the strong voices of those who still fought, rose high above the roar of battle, and hailed the presence of their victorious chief.”

Roger K. Broxton,

President, Confederate Heritage Fund

Andalusia,