Read On Hallowed Ground Online
Authors: Robert M Poole
On Hallowed Ground (3 page)
“If Virginia stands by the old Union,” he told a friend as he prepared to leave Texas, “so will I. But if she secedes . .
. then I will still follow my native state with my sword, and if need be with my life.”
24
He expressed similar sentiments in a letter to his son Rooney: “Things look very alarming from this point of view,” he wrote
from Texas. “I prize the Union very highly & know of no personal sacrifice that I would not make to preserve it,” he wrote—but
then added a portentous caveat: “save that of honour.”
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At other times, he expressed the unrealistic notion that, in the event of war, he might quit the Army and sit out the storm
at Arlington. “I shall resign and go to planting corn,” he said.
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These conflicting impulses were still stirring in Lee when he arrived home from Texas on March 1, 1861, in time for dinner.
“Found all well,” he noted in his diary.
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Within days he went to see his old commander and mentor, Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott, by then general in chief of the U.S. Army.
The two soldiers, friends since serving together in the Mexican War, met privately in Scott’s office for three hours. They
must have frankly discussed secession fever, the prospects of war, and the possibility that Lee would take command of U.S.
forces in the field. Scott had nothing but admiration for this fellow Virginian, whom he considered “the very best soldier
I ever saw in the field.”
28
Yet the details of their crucial meeting were never revealed: neither man spoke about what transpired between them that day.
By April 18, as Union troops prepared Washington’s defenses and Virginia moved toward secession, Lee was summoned to meet with Scott again. That same day he was invited to
see Francis P. Blair Sr., a close friend and advisor to President Lincoln. Lee met Lincoln’s friend first, calling at the
pale yellow townhouse since known as Blair House, just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the president’s mansion. Lincoln had
apparently authorized Blair to offer Lee command of the Union forces that day. If he accepted, Lee would be head of a powerful
army staffed with colleagues he knew from West Point and the Mexican War. He would be promoted to major general. He would
be at the pinnacle of his career, with the ample resources of the federal government at his command. If Lee was tempted by
this momentous proposal, he did not show it, taking no more than a few seconds to absorb Blair’s offer. Then he declined it.
“Mr. Blair,” Lee said, “I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice
them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?”
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Years later Lee recalled that he had turned down the command “as candidly and as courteously as I could” before leaving Blair
House, crossing Pennsylvania Avenue, and climbing the worn stairs to the War Department to keep his appointment with General
Scott.
30
Seen together, the elderly, rotund general and the elegant, middle-aged colonel made for an odd couple indeed. Sitting
behind a desk in Washington had swollen the commanding officer’s six-foot-five-inch frame to operatic proportions, aggravating the gout that occasionally
confined him to a wheelchair. Scabrous and cloudy-eyed, he was nearing the end of his career just as his understudy, at age
fifty-four, was reaching his peak. Not yet the familiar graybeard of the war years, the Robert E. Lee of 1861 might have been
an advertising poster for military recruiters. He was, said one eager young lieutenant, “the handsomest man in the army.”
31
Powerfully built, Lee carried himself with the easy dignity and soldierly bearing that had earned him perfect marks for deportment
as a West Point cadet. Even three decades later, Lee stood with his back as straight as a door, his hair and moustache thick
and dark, his chin clean-shaven. The picture of ruddy good health, Lee seemed taller than his five-foot-eleven-inch height.
His eyes, a depthless brown that appeared black in some lights, shone with calm intelligence, and a touch of sadness.
Lee briefed his old friend on Blair’s offer, and on his response to it, which prompted an explosion from General Scott. “Lee,
you have made the greatest mistake of your life,” he growled, then softened his outburst with a postscript: “But I feared
it would be so.”
32
Accounts of their subsequent conversation vary, but it seems likely that Scott offered Lee some fatherly advice that day:
if the younger man was ambivalent about remaining in the Army, he should resign right away. Otherwise, he might find himself
compromised by fast-breaking developments. If he was ordered into action against Virginia, Lee would have to resign under
orders—anathema for any professional soldier. Without resolving the issue, Lee and Scott said goodbye for the last time.
Still undecided and troubled, Lee made his final call in Washington that day, stopping to see his brother Sydney Smith Lee, who found himself in a similar quandary. Like his brother, Smith
Lee was a federal officer, and he was resolved to resign his Navy commission rather than attack Virginia. Talking things over,
the brothers decided that neither would act until they knew the outcome of the Virginia secession debate in Richmond. Even
if the convention opted for disunion, voters still had to ratify the decision in a statewide referendum. That bought some
time. With that glimmer of hope before them, thin though it was, the brothers agreed to stay in federal service until they
discussed the matter again. At that, Robert E. Lee crossed the river to Arlington, where he would await news from Richmond.
33
It came swiftly. Running errands in Alexandria the next day, April 19, Lee learned that the Virginia convention had voted
overwhelmingly to secede, which prompted a flood of excitement in the old port city. One enthusiast had already hoisted the
Confederate Stars and Bars over the Marshall House Tavern, and when Lee visited a pharmacy to settle a bill that day, he encountered
a citizen celebrating the prospect of secession. This prompted a gentle rebuke from Lee. “I must say that I am one of those
dull creatures that cannot see the good of secession,” he said. As soon as Lee left the store, the pharmacist recorded his
remark in a ledger.
34
The lights blazed on the hill at Arlington that Friday, when the family convened to face the crisis together. Lee paced the
garden alone. He resumed pacing among the shadows on Arlington’s broad portico with its grand view of Washington just across the way, where the capital’s lights shimmered in the dark. As the night lengthened, he continued his deliberations
upstairs, pacing alone in his narrow bedroom. The floorboards creaked as Lee walked to the north, to the south, and back again,
retracing his steps and telegraphing his anguish to family members listening below. At one point Mary Lee, sitting in the
downstairs parlor, heard the creaking stop. Then Lee resumed pacing.
“Nothing here is talked or thought of except our troubles,” one of Lee’s daughters wrote to another. “Our poor country & our
Fathers & brothers need all our prayers.”
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Tension permeated the house on the hill. George Upshur, a four-year-old relative visiting that night, burst into tears as
the anxiety built around him. “Cousin Mary Lee and other ladies of her family were greatly excited,” he recalled. “I recollect
that I began to cry and was put in the large room on the left … Peering out of the window, I could see Cousin Robert pacing
up and down among the trees, and wondered why he was out there.”
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Another witness who remembered that night was James Parks, an Arlington slave born on the estate, who recalled how Lee seemed
to age before his eyes. “He looked fine—keen as a briar—tall and straight,” said Parks. “He walked backward and forward on
the porch studying. He looked downhearted. He didn’t care to go. No … he didn’t care to go.”
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But he did go, of course. Perhaps his conversation with General Scott, followed by the avid secessionists he had met in Alexandria,
convinced Lee that there was no point in waiting for the Virginians to ratify secession, which seemed inevitable. After midnight
Lee stopped pacing, sat at his desk, and wrote out two letters. When they were done, he scraped back his chair, made his way
down the narrow stairs at Arlington, and found his wife waiting.
“Well, Mary,” he announced, handing the papers to her, “the question is settled. Here is my letter of resignation and a letter
I have written General Scott.”
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The first letter, dated April 20, 1861, and addressed to Simon Cameron, the U.S. secretary of war, was written in Lee’s clear,
firm hand. It was brief and to the point: “Sir,” it said. “I have the honour to tender the resignation of my commission as
Colonel of the 1st Regt. of Cavalry. Very resply your obtservt, R. E. Lee, Col. 1st Cavalry.”
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The second letter, to General Scott, shed more light on Lee’s thinking. Referring to their April 18 interview, Lee hinted
that he had taken Scott’s advice to heart and felt “that I ought not longer to retain my commission in the Army,” he wrote.
“I therefore tender my resignation, which I request you will recommend for acceptance.”
It would have been presented at once, but for the struggle it has cost me to separate myself from a service to which I have
devoted all the best years of my life & all the ability I possessed.
During the whole of that time, more than 30 years, I have experienced nothing but kindness from my superiors, & the most cordial
friendship from my companions. To no one Genl have I been as much indebted as to yourself for uniform kindness & consideration,
& it has always been my ardent desire to merit your approbation.
I shall carry with me to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind consideration, & your name & fame will always
be dear to me. Save in the defence of my native State, I never desire again to draw my sword.
Be pleased to accept my most earnest wishes for the continuance of your happiness & prosperity & believe me most truly yours
R. E. LEE
40
After dealing with these professional obligations, it is likely that Lee got some sleep before sitting down to write more
letters that day. The second round of correspondence went to key members of his family. Lee felt the need to explain to his
brother Smith why he had resigned without further consultation. “The question which was the subject of my earnest consultation
with you on the 18th instant has in my own mind been decided,” Lee announced in his April 20 note.
After the most anxious inquiry as to the correct course for me to pursue, I concluded to resign, and sent in my resignation
this morning. I wished to wait till the Ordinance of Secession should be acted upon by the people of Virginia; but war seems
to have commenced, and I am liable at any time to be ordered on duty which I could not conscientiously perform. To save me
from such a position, and to prevent the necessity of resigning under orders, I had to act at once, and before I could see
you again on the subject, as I had wished. I am now a private citizen, and have no other ambition than to remain at home.
Save in defense of my native State, I have no desire ever again to draw my sword. I send you my warmest love.
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Lee’s brother would shortly follow his example by resigning from the Navy. Their sister, Anne Lee Marshall, was in a more
delicate position. Living in Baltimore, she was married to an ardent Union sympathizer, and she was the mother of a U.S. Army
captain who would soon be drawn into the war. Robert E. Lee wrote to ask for her understanding, if not her forgiveness, as
their own family was forced to choose sides in a conflict that would estrange them, just as it would scar and sometimes break
thousands of other families on opposing sides.
“The whole South is in a state of revolution, into which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn,” he wrote Anne Marshall
that day. He told his sister that that he had no choice but to quit the Army.
With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make
up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have, therefore, resigned my commission in the Army,
and save in the defense of my native State (with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed) I hope I may
never be called upon to draw my sword.
I know you will blame me, but you must think as kindly as you can, and believe that I have endeavored to do what I thought
right. To show you the feeling and struggle it has cost me I send you a copy of my letter of resignation. I have no time for
more. May God guard and protect you and yours and shower upon you everlasting blessings, is the prayer of
Your devoted brother,
R. E. LEE
42
Once Lee made a decision, he was never one to dwell upon what might have been. But his break from the familiar rhythms of
Army life, and his foreboding over the troubles that war would rain down upon his family, strained even Lee’s legendary composure.
A service comrade noticed this about the time of Lee’s resignation.
“Are you not feeling well, Colonel Lee?” asked the friend.
“Well in body but not in mind,” Lee answered. “In the prime of life I quit a service in which were all my hopes and expectations
in this world.”
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For the first time in his adult life, Robert E. Lee was out of a job. He must have worried, if only briefly, that he was
destined to follow his father’s path from early promise into late disgrace. But unlike the elder Lee, the younger one had
prospects. Long before Virginia’s secession convention, Lee had received an offer from the Confederate secretary of war, L.
P. Walker, who had written in mid-March offering him command as a brigadier general, the highest rank then available in Confederate
service. There is no record that Lee ever answered Walker.
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But even then Lee must have known that he was destined to join the conflict if war broke out; this, despite his often-stated
desire to put down his sword and take up his plow, a self-conscious refrain running through his prewar correspondence. The
truth is that, with both Union and Confederacy competing for his services, Lee was ensured a command on one side or the other.
And so his life as a citizen-farmer was destined to be a brief one, lasting all of two days.