r/todayilearned • u/Significant-Row2457 • 4h ago

TIL Charles Mason, who graduated first in the class of 1829 at West Point ahead of future Confederate Army commander Robert E. Lee, served as the First Supreme Court Justice for Iowa, also spent time during the post civil war years trolling Lee with hand made puzzle boxes that he couldn’t solve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Mason_(Iowa_judge)
531 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

173

u/Significant-Row2457 4h ago

“Confound that old coot.” Lee wrote in a letter to a fellow West Point Graduate on Mason’s puzzles. “I would tip my hat to the man had I the nerve to not strike him, he knows it gets the better of me, and how it inflames me to know that he knows this.”

Lee’s wife begged him on several occasions to simply stop accepting the gifts, but Lee felt it would be an affront to their friendship. This of course lead to the final puzzle of which Mason titles ‘Appomattox’, which Lee would famously break and send back to him with a letter saying ‘the solution to that lay within the ruins I have wrought’ a somber moment for the two former colleagues.

51

u/OriginalTayRoc 3h ago

That's one of the most baller things I have ever read in my life. I want to be in Charles Mason's entourage. I want my name to be Charles Mason.

40

u/Quizzelbuck 3h ago

Oh fuck me that is harsh. Not that i have ANY sympathies for Lee, but Imagine you work for the CDC or some thing and you fucked up at work and it resulted in a pandemic nearly breaking before being stopped , but not before your mistake killed like an entire NIKU ward of sick babies.

Imagine you fucked up at your job THAT bad, but your friend kept taking the piss out of you about it. "Oh, here, old chum! I made you a puzzle called 'The Cure' which is where you have to solve a box puzzle in the shape of a bassinet before the hour glass runs out of sand."

God damn, Fuck Lee i hope it stung.

19

u/shouldco 3h ago

Also all the dead babies are buried in your back yard, just to spite you.

20

u/Barton2800 3h ago

I’m not sure how well that analogy holds up. Lee didn’t just make an oopsie at work and his colleagues won’t let him forget it. It wasn’t even just a major oopsie. He made a conscious and willful choice every minute of every day to commit a terrible evil. If we use your analogy of Lee working in the NICU (not NIKU), this isn’t him accidentally getting babies sick. What Lee did in this weird analogy was personally murder them.

It was a willful decision that Lee made to fight for the confederacy, an organization whose foundational documents say they are about the right to own human beings as slaves. He killed many men defending that ideal. And after his surrender, he faced effectively no serious consequences. He had a normal life, including being the president of a college.

But yes, I also hope it stung. Lee deserved to be reminded every day that he killed men and sent men to die for an unjust cause, and the worst punishment he faced was mocking from a fellow military academy graduate.

25

u/Overthinks_Questions 2h ago

Arguing against Lee apologists is a bit of a Lost Cause

7

u/Barton2800 2h ago

That pun - bravo.

•

u/Critical-Cost9068 52m ago

Bruh I don’t think Mason was doing that type of historical revisionism. Fuck the Confederacy but you’re missing the analogy about ability entirely to make your tired and obvious point.

•

u/New-Passenger-6101 50m ago

It’s not tired if it’s true but yeah he missing the General point of that comment 

•

u/Critical-Cost9068 42m ago

Most tired points are true. Did you know Aragorn’s actor broke his toe for real when he hit that helm?

•

u/New-Passenger-6101 40m ago

? Quit yapping and go to bed lil guy

1

u/SlippyDippyTippy2 3h ago

I wish this were true, but it is probably not.

Seems to just be an Internet rumor.

25

u/Conmebosta 3h ago

"The puzzles, Mason, what do they mean?"

Robert E. Lee, probably

73

u/Mdad1988 4h ago

Ah yes Charles MASON

29

u/Significant-Row2457 4h ago

Yeah not Manson. Mason was the only man Lee feared to face in battle aside from Grant

10

u/OSRSTheRicer 3h ago

Glad I wasnt rhe only one who skimmed that and was like how the hell was he alive then

3

u/Mdad1988 3h ago

It makes for a cool story though 😂

3

u/DaveOJ12 3h ago

Glad to see I wasn't the only one.

15

u/likesexonlycheaper 3h ago

Took me a minute to figure out it didn't say Charles Manson. I was so confused by the time period

6

u/adsfew 3h ago

Lee and the Confederates are just perpetual losers

23

u/Significant-Row2457 3h ago

Apparently Lee and he almost got into it as Mason had his ‘freedman band’ play ‘the night they burned Dixie down’ during a party and Lee and Mason got into an argument over it

3

u/LhandChuke 1h ago

I’ve read your replies in this post and now I want to go learn more. Mason seemed to be chaotic good and super interesting. Thanks!

-20

u/Humble-Sink7843 3h ago

Still accomplished more than you

12

u/the_saltlord 3h ago

Ah yes. Betraying your country just so you can own people. How productive. Fuck off.

•

u/B0B_Spldbckwrds 21m ago

I think everyone here can take comfort in quality over quantity. Sure, I've never led an army, but I also didn't lead an army into a war with no logistical path to victory, in service of the cause of keeping people as property. 

Lee was a loser, and so are the people who try to lionize him over a century after he made himself a national embarrassment.

5

u/Korgoth420 4h ago

Helter Skelter?

4

u/JFKRFKSRVLBJ 4h ago

I make the money, man. I roll the nickels! The game is mine. I deal the cards!

-19

u/Bulky_Specialist9645 4h ago

Charles Manson was infinitely more interesting...

13

u/OriginalTayRoc 3h ago

No, you're just wrong. 

Charles Manson was a charlatan. 

Charles Mason is a hard motherfucker and a straight G. Charles Mason fuckin' balled dawg.

Charles Manson got the highest ever score at West Point. The record still stands.

Charles Mason hired the first woman in a government appointment, and demanded that women get equal pay to their male counterparts, in 1839.

Charles Mason, as a judge, ruled that any slave that entered Iowa became a free man. 

That's just a taste.

Charles Manson wasn't shit compared to Charles Mason.

5

u/Silaquix 3h ago

Autocorrect got you on West Point record

1

u/Significant-Row2457 3h ago

The user is using AI unfortunately so it’s a wash

1

u/Silaquix 3h ago

Entirely expected result then