Robert E Lee – Confederate General
By
John C Abercrombie
Robert E Lee is most well known as a Confederate States of America General having served in the United States Military after graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He resigned from the Union military to fight for the Confederate States of America after the state of Virginia secede from the Union.
The Confederate States of America was formed from former states that had been part of the United States of America and took up arms against the Union. In the case of Robert E Lee, he had served in the United States of America and had even served as superintendent of the United States of Military Academy at West Point. He knowingly left the Union to take up arms against it. For years the United States of America named many of its facilities against those who took up arms against it. This was highly offensive to Blacks and others who believed in the Union. Finally, America came to its senses and is taking to remove the honor from these traitors.
This post looks at Lee and next week, we will look at those the Americans these bases are being renamed in honor of.
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His mother, Ann Hill Carter, descends from one of the wealthiest families in Virginia. His father Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee served as Governor of Virginia and was known for his friendship with President George Washington, who commanded troops during the American Revolution.
Robert Edward Lee was born January 19, 1807, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. His ancestor Richard Lee had emigrated from Shropshire, England.
His father suffered great financial losses due to failed investments and served time in debtors’ prison. After being released, the family moved to Alexandria, Virginia. At that time, it was part of the District of Columbia (Washington DC) before it reverted back to Virginia in 1847.
In 1812 Lee’s father moved to the West Indies, leaving the family in Virginia and Lee attended Eastern View, a school for young gentlemen in Fauquier County, Virginia. Lee later attended Alexander Academy where he showed an aptitude for math.
Anne Lee’s family received some support from William Henry Fitzhugh. a relative who owned the Oronoco Street house. He also allowed the family to stay at his country home in Ravensworth. It was Fitzhugh who wrote John C Calhoun asking that Robert be given an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Robert E Lee entered the Academy in 1825.
Lee studied engineering as the school was headed by the head of the head of the Corps of Engineers and he was an engineering officer. Cadets were not allowed to leave until they finished two years of study and were confined to academy grounds. Lee finished second in his class and did not get any demerits during his entire four-years of schooling, becoming one of only five of his forty-five classmates to do the same. Lee was commissioned in 1829 a brevet second lieutenant in the corps of engineers. While awaiting assignment he returned to Virginia to find his mother on her deathbed. She died July 26, 1829.
After Lee’s father was released from debtors’ prison the family moved to the city of Alexandria, Virginia which at the time was part of the District of Columbia. Note: the city was retroceded back to Virginia in 1847 both because there were then high-quality local schools there, and because several members of Anne’s extended family lived nearby.
In 1812 Lee’s father abandoned the family, moving permanently to the West Indies. Lee was able to continue his education by attending Eastern View school for young gentlemen in Fauquier County, Virginia, the Alexandria Academy. Lee showed promise in mathematics from an early age.
William Henry Fitzhugh owned the home that the abandoned family was allowed to live in. It was the influence of Fitzhugh who wrote the United States Secretary of War, John C Calhoun that got Lee into the United States Military Academy at West Point. Lee entered the Academy in the summer of 1825. Lee was able to follow his love of math.
Lee’s next assignment was to Cockspur Island, Georgia to build a fort on the marshy island near the mouth of the Savannah River. In 1831. It was abundant that things were not going well, and he was transferred to Fort Monroe, near Hampton, Virginia.
Lee then began courting Mary Custis, great granddaughter of Martha Washington. She refused Lee the first time he asked her to marry him as her father did not want her to marry the son of disgraced “Light-Horse” Harry Lee. She finally accepted him with her father’s consent in 1830 and they married in June 1831
Robert Lee was tidy and punctual, qualities his wife lacked. Mary Lee also had trouble transitioning from being a rich man’s daughter to having to manage a household with only one or two slaves. Beginning in 1832, Robert Lee had a close but platonic relationship with Harriett Talcott, wife of his fellow officer Andrew Talcott.
Lee distinguished himself in the Mexican American War (1846–1848). He was instrumental in several American victories through his personal reconnaissance as a staff officer; he found routes of attack that the Mexicans had not defended because they thought the terrain was impassable.
Robert E Lee (Confederate) and Ulysses S Grant (Union) served together during the Mexican v American War. That war concluded on February 2, 1848. This was before the Civil War.
In 1852, Lee was appointed Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point. He was reluctant to enter what he called a “snake pit”, but the War Department insisted, and he obeyed.
Lee’s oldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, attended West Point during his tenure. Custis Lee graduated in 1854, first in his class.
Lee’s beliefs and actions on slavery are a contradiction. Lee held slavery to be an evil institution but of benefit to slaves. Lee helped individual slaves to seek freedom in Liberia, a country in West Africa, bordering Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Côte d’Ivoire.
Liberia was founded in the 19th century as a settlement for free African Americans freed slaves from the United States by the American Colonization Society, an organization that sought to address the issue of slavery by repatriating free Blacks to Africa.
Lee helped some individual slaves to freedom in Liberia and provided for their emancipation in his own will. He believed the enslaved should be eventually freed, only as some unspecified future date as a part of God’s purpose. Lee believed slavery was a moral and political evil. While both Lee and his wife were disgusted with slavery, they also defended it against abolitionist demands for immediate emancipation for all enslaved.
Lee argued that slavery was bad for White people, claiming that he found slavery bothersome and time-consuming as an everyday institution to run. In an 1856 letter to his wife, he maintained that slavery was a great evil, but primarily due to adverse impact that it had on White people.
Before leaving to serve in Mexico, Lee had written a will providing for the manumission of the slaves he owned. Lee’s father-in-law, G. W. Parke Custis, was a member of the American Colonization Society, which was formed to gradually end slavery by establishing a free republic in Liberia for African Americans, and Lee assisted several ex-slaves to emigrate there. Lee was a gradual emancipationist, denouncing extremist proposals for the immediate abolition of slavery. Lee rejected what he called evilly motivated political passion, fearing a civil and servile war from precipitous emancipation.
She Historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor wrote that Lee’s private views on race and slavery. No visionary, Lee always tried to conform to accepted opinions. His assessment of Black inferiority, of the necessity of racial stratification, the primacy of slave law, and even a divine sanction for it all, was in keeping with the prevailing views of other moderate slaveholders and a good many prominent Northerners.”
In 1857, George Custis died, leaving Robert Lee as the executor of his estate, which included two hundred slaves. In his will, Custis stated the slaves were to be freed within five years of his death. On taking on the role of administrator for the Parke Custis will, Lee used a provision to retain them in slavery to produce income for the estate to retire debt. Lee did not welcome the role of planter while administering the Custis properties at Romancoke, another nearby the Pamunkey River and Arlington; he rented the estate’s mill. While all the estates prospered under his administration, Lee was unhappy at direct participation in slavery as a hated institution.
Even before what Michael Fellman called a “sorry involvement in actual slave management”, Lee judged the experience of White mastery to be a greater moral evil to the White man than Blacks suffering under the “painful discipline” of slavery which introduced Christianity, literacy, and a work ethic to the “heathen African”. Columbia University historian Eric Foner notes that: Lee “was not a pro-slavery ideologue. But I think equally important is that, unlike some White Southerners, he never spoke out against slavery.”
By the time of Lee’s career in the U.S. Army, the officers of West Point stood aloof from political-party and sectional strife on such issues as slavery, as a matter of principle, and Lee adhered to the precedent. He considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service, and Lee did not speak out publicly on the subject of slavery prior to the Civil War.
Lee himself owned a small number of slaves in his lifetime and considered himself a paternalistic master. There are various historical and newspaper hearsay accounts of Lee personally whipping a slave, but they are not direct eyewitness accounts. He was definitely involved in administering the day-to-day operations of a plantation and participated in the recapture of runaway slaves. One historian noted that Lee separated slave families, something that prominent slave-holding families in Virginia such as Washington and Custis did not do.
On December 29, 1862, Lee freed all the slaves his wife had inherited from George Custis, but this was in accordance with the Custis will, as that was the last day, he was allowed to legally retain them. Prior to this, Lee had petitioned the courts to keep the Custis slaves longer than the five years allotted in Custis’ will, since the estate was still in debt, but the courts rejected his appeals. In 1866, one of Lee’s former slaves, Wesley Norris, charged that Lee personally beat him and other slaves harshly after they had tried to run away from Arlington. Lee never publicly responded to this charge, but privately told a friend “There is not a word of truth in it … No servant, soldier, or citizen, which was ever employed by me can with truth charge me with bad treatment.”
We are seeing a man who never spoke out against slavery no matter his personal position. He kept enslaved people in bondage even after the allotted time for profit just like many other slave owners.
Foner writes that “Lee’s code of gentlemanly conduct did not seem to apply to Blacks” during the War, as he did not stop his soldiers from kidnapping free Black farmers and selling them into slavery. Princeton University historian James M. McPherson noted that Lee initially rejected a prisoner exchange between the Confederacy and the Union when the Union demanded that Black Union soldiers be included. Lee did not accept the swap until a few months before the Confederacy’s surrender. He also called the Emancipation Proclamation “a savage and brutal policy…which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death”.
As the war dragged on and Lee’s losses mounted, he eventually advocated enlisting slaves in the Confederate army in exchange for freedom. However, he came to this position with great reluctance. In an 1865 letter to his friend Andrew Hunter, he wrote: “Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the White and Black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both. I should therefore prefer to rely upon our White population to preserve the ratio between our forces and those of the enemy, which experience has shown to be safe. But in view of the preparations of our enemies, it is our duty to provide for continued war and not for a battle or a campaign, and I fear that we cannot accomplish this without overtaxing the capacity of our White population.”
After the War, Lee told a congressional committee that Blacks were “not disposed to work” and did not possess the intellectual capacity to vote and participate in politics. Lee also said to the committee that he hoped that Virginia could “get rid of them”, referring to Blacks. While not politically active, Lee defended Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson’s approach to Reconstruction, which according to Foner, “abandoned the former slaves to the mercy of governments controlled by their former owners”.
Andrew Johnson was a Southerner chosen by Lincoln in an effort to gain support from the South. However, after the progressive steps to give Blacks their due civil rights, Johnson immediately began reversing them. This has influenced the situation we find today with respect to race.
According to Foner, “A word from Lee might have encouraged White Southerners to accord Blacks equal rights and inhibited the violence against the freed people that swept the region during Reconstruction, but he chose to remain silent.” Lee was also urged to condemn the White-supremacy organization Ku Klux Klan, but opted to remain silent.
In the generation following the war, Lee, though he died just a few years later, became a central figure in the Lost Cause interpretation of the war. The argument that Lee had always somehow opposed slavery, and freed his wife’s slaves, helped maintain his stature as a symbol of Southern honor and national reconciliation.
In Robert E Lee, we see a man who was in the Army of the United States and resigned to fight against that country. He is complicated and it may appear wishy washy as he helped some go to Liberia, but he attempted to use these enslaved people for financial gain. There is a word for people who give comfort and aid to the enemy and that is what Lee did, losing many of his soldiers in the process, yet we honor this man as if he were a god, placing statues of him all over the country. Forcing those that he believed inferior to pay public funds to maintain and put in the face of those he caused so much pain.
It is a slap in the face to a substantial number of American citizens, not only Black, but to those who believe in right.
There is no logical reason to honor this man one second longer.
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Robert E Lee p2
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Robert E. Lee | Facing America’s Deadliest Battle
Robert E. Lee was one of the greatest generals in world history. He lead the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, faced overwhelming odds and ranked alongside Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, and Frederick II
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Call of Duty: The Sterling Nobility of Robert E. Lee (Leaders in Action)
Lee: A Giant Among Leaders
Robert E. Lee was a gentleman. Although he lived during a time filled with conflict and turmoil, in the eyes of his countrymen he emerged from the Civil War with untainted integrity and the respect of all. Despite being perceived as one of the greatest military leaders of all time, he managed to maintain a most humble spirit. In this engaging new biographical study of Lee, J. Stephen Wilkins examines the sterling character of this undeniably noble man.
Charles Bracelet Flood has said that the essence of Robert E. Lee “was to be found not in what he said, but in what he did. There were dimensions to Lee, but his life was one long response to whatever struck him as being the call of duty.”
He was bound by duty to care for his mother, duty as a son, a student, a soldier, a husband and father, a general, and duty as a mentor of students at both West Point and Washington College. Duty called him at every point of his life.
In this captivating looking at his leadership in action, we see why and how Lee answered again and again the calls of duty he could not ignore. Indeed, Robert E. Lee was a leader of leaders.
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Robert E. Lee: A Remarkable Military Career
Robert E. Lee – today, the mere mention of his name is enough to arouse passionate debate. In his time, he was loved and respected by both the Confederate Army and the Southern people. Curiously, following the Civil War, this high admiration carried over to include the people of the North, and Lee become a cherished figure for all Americans. During the war, when Abraham Lincoln looked at a picture of Lee, he remarked that a man with such a compassionate countenance had to be a ‘good man.’ But the war to which he devoted his every fiber broke him, if not in spirit, certainly in body and he was only to outlive the conflict by five years.
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R.E. Lee, A Biography (Pulitzer Prize Edition 4 vols complete)
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Robert E. Lee: The Civil War in Four Minutes
Living historian Frank Orlando transforms into the commander of the Confederate States Army as he describes the life and accomplishments of Robert E. Lee.
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Book
The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Fate of the Confederacy
The story of the unique relationship between Lee and Jackson, two leaders who chiseled a strategic path forward against the odds and almost triumphed.
Why were Generals Lee and Jackson so successful in their partnership in trying to win the war for the South? What was it about their styles, friendship, even their faith, that cemented them together into a fighting machine that consistently won despite often overwhelming odds against them?
The Great Partnership has the power to change how we think about Confederate strategic decision-making and the value of personal relationships among senior leaders responsible for organizational survival. Those relationships in the Confederate high command were particularly critical for victory, especially the one that existed between the two great Army of Northern Virginia generals.
It has been over two decades since any author attempted a joint study of the two generals. At the very least, the book will inspire a very lively debate among the thousands of students of Civil War history. At best, it will significantly revise how we evaluate Confederate strategy during the height the war and our understanding of why, in the end, the South lost.
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Robert E. Lee: A Nation Divided Documentary
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Book
The Encyclopedia of Confederate Generals: The Definitive Guide to the 426 Leaders of the South’s War Effort
A renown military historian and frequent television commenter brings to life the generalship of the South during the Civil War in sparkling, information-filled vignettes. For both the Civil War completist and the general reader!
Anyone acquainted with the American Civil War will readily recognize the names of the Confederacy’s most prominent generals. Robert E. Lee. Stonewall Jackson. James Longstreet. These men have long been lionized as fearless commanders and genius tacticians. Yet few have heard of the hundreds of generals who led under and alongside them. Men whose battlefield resolve spurred the Confederacy through four years of the bloodiest combat Americans have ever faced.
In The Encyclopedia of Confederate Generals, veteran Civil War historian, Samuel W. Mitcham, documents the lives of every Confederate general from birth to death, highlighting their unique contributions to the battlefield and bringing their personal triumphs and tragedies to life.
Packed with photos and historical briefings, The Encyclopedia of Confederate Generals belongs on the shelf of every Civil War historian and preserves in words the legacies once carved in stone.
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Robert E. Lee in the Post-War Years (Lecture
Gettysburg National Military Park Ranger Matt Atkinson examines the post-war life of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Subjects discussed include Lee’s tenure at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), his role in reconciliation, and the general’s famous refusal to discuss the events of the American Civil War.
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The Confederate States of America is a country formed of former states of the United States of America. They formed a new country and had the same principals when the United States of America gained freedom from the United Kingdom. They had a constitution, a president, a vice president and was a separate country. They took up arms against the United States of America over the institution of slavery. To then honor those who took up arms against the United States as did Robert E Lee and others, it is a slap in the face of every Black soldier who has sworn to fight for this country to honor the enemy who fought to see that these brave soldiers never took a free breath of air for their entire lives is not worthy of the honored position they hold. We have finally recognized the error of our ways.
Next week we will look at the brave men and women that are now being honored. Watch for it June 15, 2023.