Lee, Robert E.

Autograph letter signed ("R E Lee"), 1 page (9 7/8 x 7 7/8 in.; 253 x 201 mm) on blue-ruled paper, Arlington, 20 April 1861, to Captain Sidney Smith Lee, with the original autograph envelope, later endorsements on envelope; letter with mottled discoloration and slight fading, vertical fold separation repaired with minor loss just touching signature, upper left corner lost, envelope browned, rear flaps defective.

See "Lee Secedes," chapter 3 of Alan T. Nolan's Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History (1991)

"Sent in my resignation this m[ome]nt. ... I am now a private Citizen & 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."

Robert E. Lee's letter to his brother Sidney Smith Lee explaining one of the most momentous and consequential decisions in American history; previously known only by a corrupt and incomplete published text.

Robert E. Lee graduated from West Point in 1829, ranking second in his class. He served ably in the engineering corps until the Mexican War, when he gained the notice of General Winfield Scott. His service at Vera Cruz, Churubusco, and Chapultepec resulted in a brevet promotion, for gallantry, to colonel. From 1852 to 1855, Lee was the superintendent of West Point, a position in which he excelled, although he had little enthusiasm for it. Through the intervention of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, Lee was given a line command in March 1855, becoming lieutenant colonel of the Second Cavalry. His regiment was stationed in Texas, but because of personal circumstances (including an increasingly invalid wife and his duty as executor of his father-in-law's tangled estate), Lee was seldom with his men. During one of these absences, October 1859, he led a detachment of Marines in crushing John Brown's raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

Lee was with his command in Texas when the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency gave momentum to the secession movement. South Carolina led the parade, seceding on 20 December 1860; in January of the new year, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana followed. When Texas voted to leave the Union on 1 February 1861, Lee was recalled to Washington and promoted to colonel of the First Cavalry on 30 March. At this time, Lee equated secession with revolution (he would later be persuaded of the constitutionality of the Southern position), and as long as Virginia remained in the Union, he remained loyal to the United States and its Army.

But on 17 April, a Virginia convention voted in favor of secession. The next day, Lee was offered the field command of the United States Army. He hoped to avoid a decision until the Virginia ordinance of secession had been submitted to the state's citizen for ratification, but his private conferences with General Scott—also a Virginian—made him realize that such a position was untenable. On 20 April, therefore, Lee wrote a letter of resignation to Scott: "Since my interview with you on the 18^th instant I have felt that I ought not longer to retain my commission in the Army. I therefore tender my resignation. ... 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."

On 20 April, Lee also wrote a one-sentence letter of resignation to Secretary of War Simon Cameron; a letter of explanation to his sister Mrs. Anne Marshall, of Baltimore; and the present letter to his brother Sidney Smith Lee, himself a captain in the United States Navy (and formerly the commandant of the U.S. Naval Academy). Captain Lee had been struggling with the same issues as his brother, and two had discussed their anomalous positions. Robert E. Lee's letter here explains how he reached his decision; Sidney Smith Lee followed him into Confederate service.

"The question which was the subject of my earnest Consultation with you on the 18th has in my own mind been decided.

"After the most anxious inquiry as to the Correct Course for me to pursue, I Concluded to resign.

"Sent in my resignation this mnt. I wished to wait until the ordinance of revolution should be acted on by the people of Virginia, but war seems to have Commenced & I am liable at any time to be ordered on duty which I Could not Conscientiously perform. To save me from such a position & to prevent the necessity of resigning under orders, I had to act at once, & before I Could see you again on the subject as I had wished.

"I am now a private Citizen & 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. As we were speaking of Carter the other day, I send over a letter recd. from him Since. After perusal please burn it."

The published text of Lee's letter (best known from The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee, edited by Clifford Dowdey and Louis H. Manarin, and from Douglas Freeman's worshipful biography) deviates from the original not only in paragraphing format and numerous incidentals, but in word choice and other content. The published text eliminates entirely the final sentence of the letter, but, more significantly, it misrepresents Lee's phrase "ordinance of revolution" as "Ordinance of Secession." The change—and one can be confident that it was a conscious redaction—may suggest that Lee had a constitutional basis for his actions, but it actually diminishes the extent of the sacrifice he was willing to make. The devoted army officer was essentially prepared to break the law in order not to have to take up arms against his home state.

Lee's life as "a private Citizen" lasted exactly one day. On 22 April he accepted from Virginia Governor John Lechter the command of all of the states military and naval forces. Almost exactly a month later, Virginia voters approved the state's Ordinance of Secession and turned its forces over to the Confederate States of America, of which it was now a part. After just a month of carrying his sword "in defense of [his] native state," Robert E. Lee was commissioned a brigadier general in the CSA Army.