When I sit down to read a good book, it’s usually on history. I’ve read books on the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. One historical figure from that time period missing from my library was Robert E. Lee.
That has changed. I have read “Robert E. Lee — A Life” by Allen C. Guelzo.
As expected, the Confederate commander of the Army of Northern Virginia was a complicated figure.
Lee was the son of Revolutionary War officer Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee II. He married Mary Ann Custis Lee, the great-granddaughter of George Washington’s wife, Martha. They had seven children.
He graduated second from the United States Military Academy in 1829. Lee was a military engineer. At that time, West Point was run by the Army Corps of Engineers with an emphasis on engineering.
When it came to the war between the states, Lee was a peacemaker. He did not want a civil war. In fact, according to Guelzo, “enough of the peacemaker attitude was on display” before the war that leaders in Virginia complained about his attitude. At one point, before the war, Lee wrote of his desire to “retire to private life.”
Although Lee had served in the United States Army for 32 years, his loyalty lay with his home state of Virginia. He did not resign his commission in the army until Virginia voted to succeed.
Even after the Confederacy was established, Lee still hoped for reconciliation to avoid war.
Philosophically Lee opposed slavery, considering it an evil institution, and argued it was terrible for the slave owners. On the other hand, he inherited nearly 200 enslaved people after the death of his father-in-law. This has been the most challenging aspect of Lee for modern Americans to understand. A rough analogy — I know it’s not perfect — might be tobacco. It has been around for close to 8,000 years.
It was not until the 1950s and 60s that smoking cigarettes was confirmed as the cause of lung cancer and so much more.
After this realization, my parents, who grew up smoking, quit cold turkey. Many still smoke today even though they know it harms their health.
Before Lincoln freed the enslaved people with the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, many knew slavery was wrong, but like a bad habit, they needed help breaking it.
Lee knew his only hope of winning the war was a decisive victory in the north which he hoped would cause Republicans to lose seats in the U.S. House and Lincoln to lose support for the unpopular war, leading to peace.
After the failure at Gettysburg, speaking to his son Custis, Lee reiterated, “When this war began, I was opposed to it, bitterly opposed to it.”
Lee’s final decision as general was to reject the calls by some of his officers to engage in guerrilla warfare and surrender to Grant at Appomattox in 1865.
After the war was over, Lee campaigned for reconciliation. “So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South.”
From 1865 until his death, Lee served as the president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Va. While there, he told one student, “The greatest mistake of my life was taking military education.” He only wanted to be an engineer.
So at Washington College, there were no military instructions or displays. At the college, Lee had only one rule: “every student must be a gentleman.”
Before his death, Lee opposed public memorials to the rebellion, saying they would prevent healing.
Since his death, Lee has had buildings named in his honor, many monuments and sculptures erected, over 70 roads, 48 schools, four settlements, four ships, eight counties, a medium-duty tank, and one car — the General Lee from the TV show Dukes of Hazard — named after him. Many have been changed or removed — notably, in 2021, a statue was removed in Charlottesville, Va.
I wonder if he would approve of all this attention.
Last week, on April 25, descendants of General Robert E. Lee held a reunion at Arlington House — the home of Arlington Cemetery — with the descendants of the people he once enslaved. An article on www.BlackEnterprise.com reported, “Stephen Hammond, the organizer and the descendant of a Lee family slave, said this has been a lifelong goal of his. ‘It’s important that we get to know one another because our ancestors existed in this space together.’”
What an inspiration. I believe Lee would approve of this.
