James Latimer:
No, This Man Did Not Murder General Robert E. Lee's Brother!
by Terry Foenander.
A member of the American Civil War Round Table of Queensland, one James Mason Gray, well known for his inaccuracies and assumptions, but not known for his aptitude for proper research, has implied, in an article he wrote for a Missouri web site, CoffeeCamp.Org Online Library, titled “James Latimer: Missouri Yankee: Did This Man Murder Gen. Lee’s Brother?” (at URL http://coffeecamp.org/laitmer.html) that American Civil War veteran James Latimer, buried in the state of Queensland, Australia, had murdered a Dr. Lee and his two sons, Dr. Lee supposedly being a brother of General Robert E. Lee. It is fairly obvious that James Mason Gray had not bothered to verify these statements through a little bit of research. Members of the American Civil War Round Table of Australia, based in Melbourne, and not affiliated with the Queensland group, had known, for some two decades, that General Robert E. Lee never had a brother who was murdered, or died from any other cause, during the Civil War.
James Latimer had applied for a United States government pension, after the war, and in his application he did write that his militia group had captured a Dr. Lee and his two sons, as well as several other persons, and that these captives were shot after their capture. Latimer had indicated that Dr. Lee was a brother of General Lee, however, in Mr. Gray’s article, he makes the statement that “Latimer in applying for a Pension after arriving in Australia openly admitted to murdering without reason 30 Confederate soldiers, General Robert E. Lee’s brother and his two young sons; after his unit captured them.”
In a later paragraph, Gray again states that “The Regiment was then ordered to the southern part of Missouri where they were involved in pursuing Confederate Partisan Rangers operating in Missouri; capturing on one occasion the brother of General Robert E. Lee, who was well known simply as Dr. Lee, his two sons and some thirty other Confederate Rangers, whom they referred to as ‘raiders’” and continues to ramble on about the brutal shooting that followed, without even attempting to verify such statements about the named person. At no time, in the pension application sent by James Latimer, does he specify that the General Lee he was referring to was Robert Edward Lee, in particular. This conclusion was arrived at by none other than the haughty Mr. Gray himself, and no one else.
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A simple check, with several authorities on the Lee family, or through Internet sources, would have confirmed what everyone else who has a bit of knowledge on the Civil War knows – that General Robert E. Lee did indeed have siblings, but no brother of his was killed during the Civil War. One would have thought that, with the availability of so much data on the Internet, these days, any responsible researcher would have attempted to verify such statements before writing up an article on such a subject. Mr. Gray himself has a web page, titled “Responsibilities of a Researcher” in which he tries to give the impression that he knows what a researcher should and should not involve himself in, yet fails to follow some of the simple facts he states therein. One sentence in Mr. Gray’s rambling treatise stands out, namely, “An ‘Historical Researcher’ is one who inquires, a person whose work is investigating or obtaining hidden evidence or information.”
Obviously Mr. Gray failed to follow his very own advice. A case of the preacher preaching but not following by example.
Everyone is aware that the pursuit of the truth should be the ultimate goal of each and every researcher, and no stone should be left unturned in the pursuit of such important data. To ignore verification of data, through a simple check of the facts is to indulge in irresponsible behaviour as a researcher. Maybe Mr. Gray should confine himself to what he does best, and that is to create works of fiction, and not try to claim his so called “research” as factual.
A final word from well known author, Dr. Thomas Lowry, when he saw the article written by Gray, and particularly about the statement of the murder of General Robert E. Lee’s brother: “Utter nonsense, a fabrication of the worst sort, every word is a falsehood, including "and" and "the."”
Page Created, May 2008.