A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee - John Esten Cooke
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[Illustration]
A LIFE OF GEN. ROBERT E. LEE.
BY JOHN ESTEN COOKE.
"Duty is the sublimest word in our language."
"Human virtue should be equal to human calamity."
LEE.
1876
CONTENTS.
PART I.
_LEE'S EARLY LIFE_.
I.--Introduction
II.--The Lees of Virginia
III.--General "Light-Horse Harry" Lee
IV.--Stratford
V.--Lee's Early Manhood and Career in the United States Army
VI.--Lee and Scott
VII.--Lee resigns
VIII.--His Reception at Richmond
IX.--Lee in 1861
X.--The War begins
XI.--Lee's Advance into Western Virginia
XII.--Lee's Last Interview with Bishop Meade
PART II.
_IN FRONT OF RICHMOND_.
I.--Plan of the Federal Campaign
II.--Johnston is wounded
III.--Lee assigned to the Command--his Family at the White House
IV.--Lee resolves to attack
V.--Stuart's "Ride around McClellan"
PART III.
_ON THE CHICKAHOMINY_.
I.--The Two Armies
II.--Lee's Plan of Assault
III.--The Battle of the Chickahominy
IV.--The Retreat
V.--Richmond in Danger--Lee's Views
VI.--Lee and McClellan--their Identity of Opinion
PART IV.
_THE WAR ADVANCES NORTHWARD_.
I.--Lee's Protest
II.--Lee's Manoeuvres
III.--Lee advances from the Rapidan
IV.--Jackson flanks General Pope
V.--Lee follows
VI.--The Second Battle of Manassas
PART V.
_LEE INVADES MARYLAND_.
I.--His Designs
II.--Lee in Maryland
III.--Movements of the Two Armies
IV.--The Prelude to Sharpsburg
V.--The Battle of Sharpsburg
VI.--Lee and McClellan--their Merits in the Maryland Campaign
VII.--Lee and his Men
VIII.--Lee passes the Blue Ridge
IX.--Lee concentrates at Fredericksburg
X.--The Battle of Fredericksburg
XI.--Final Movements of 1862
XII.--The Year of Battles
XIII.--Lee in December, 1862
PART VI.
_CHANCELLORSVILLE AND GETTYSBURG_.
I.--Advance of General Hooker
II--The Wilderness
III.--Lee's Determination
IV.--Jackson's Attack and Fall
V.--The Battle of Chancellorsville
VI.--Flank Movement of General Sedgwick
VII.--Lee's Generalship and Personal Demeanor during the Campaign
VIII.--Personal Relations of Lee and Jackson
IX.--Circumstances leading to the Invasion of Pennsylvania
X.--Lee's Plans and Objects
XI.--The Cavalry-fight at Fleetwood
XII.--The March to Gettysburg
XIII.--Lee in Pennsylvania
XIV.--Concentration at Gettysburg
XV.--The First Day's Fight at Gettysburg
XVI.--The Two Armies in Position
XVII.--The Second Day
XVIII.--The Last Charge at Gettysburg
XIX.--Lee after the Charge
XX.--Lee's Retreat across the Potomac
XXI.--Across the Blue Ridge again
PART VII.
_LAST CAMPAIGNS OF THE YEAR_ 1863.
I.--The Cavalry of Lee's Army
II.--Lee flanks General Meade
III.--A Race between Two Armies
IV.--The Fight at Buckland
V.--The Advance to Mine Run
VI.--Lee in the Autumn and Winter of 1863
PART VIII.
_LEE'S LAST CAMPAIGNS AND LAST DAYS_.
I.--General Grant crosses the Rapidan
II.--The First Collision in the Wilderness
III.--The Battle of the 6th of May
IV.--The 12th of May
V.--From Spottsylvania to the Chickahominy
VI.--First Battles at Petersburg
VII.--The Siege of Richmond begun
VIII.--Lee threatens Washington
IX.--The Mine Explosion
X.--End of the Campaign of 1864
XI.--Lee in the Winter of 1864-'65
XII.--The Situation at the Beginning of 1865
XIII.--Lee attacks the Federal Centre
XIV.--The Southern Lines broken
XV.--Lee evacuates Petersburg
XVI.--The Retreat and Surrender
XVII.--Lee returns to Richmond
XVIII.--General Lee after the War
XIX.--General Lee's Last Years and Death
_APPENDIX_.
I.--The Funeral of General Lee
II.--Tributes to General Lee
A LIFE
OF
GENERAL ROBERT EDWARD LEE.
PART I.
_LEE'S EARLY LIFE_,
I.
INTRODUCTION.
The name of Lee is beloved and respected throughout the world. Men of
all parties and opinions unite in this sentiment, not only those who
thought and fought with him, but those most violently opposed to his
political views and career. It is natural that his own people should
love and honor him as their great leader and defender in a struggle of
intense bitterness--that his old enemies should share this profound
regard and admiration is due solely to the character of the
individual. His military genius will always be conceded, and his
figure remain a conspicuous landmark in history; but this does not
account for the fact that his very enemies love the man. His private
character is the origin of this sentiment. The people of the North, no
less than the people of the South, feel that Lee was truly great; and
the harshest critic has been able to find nothing to detract from this
view of him. The soldier was great, but the man himself was greater.
No one was ever simpler, truer, or more honest. Those who knew him
best loved him the most. Reserved and silent, with a bearing of almost
austere dignity, he impressed many persons as cold and unsympathetic,
and his true character was long in revealing itself to the world.
To-day all men know what his friends knew during his life--that under
the grave exterior of the soldier, oppressed with care and anxiety,
beat a warm and kindly heart, full of an even extraordinary gentleness
and sweetness; that the man himself was not cold, or stiff, or
harsh, but patient, forbearing, charitable under many trials of his
equanimity, and magnanimous without effort, from the native impulse of
his heart. Friend and foe thus to-day regard him with much the same
sentiment, as a genuinely honest man, incapable of duplicity in
thought or deed, wholly good and sincere, inspired always under all
temptations by that _prisca fides_ which purifies and ennobles, and
resolutely bent, in the dark hour, as in the bright, on the full
performance of his duty. "Duty is the sublimest word in our language,"
he wrote to his son; and, if we add that other august maxim, "Human
virtue should be equal to human calamity," we shall have in a few
words a summary of the principles which inspired Lee.
The crowning grace of this man, who was thus not only great but good,
was the humility and trust in God, which lay at the foundation of his
character. Upon this point we shall quote the words of a gentleman of
commanding intellect, a bitter opponent of the South in the war:
"Lee is worthy of all praise. As a man, he was fearless among men. As
a soldier, he had no superior and no equal. In the course of Nature my
career on earth may soon terminate. God grant that, When the day of
my death shall come, I may look up to Heaven with that confidence and
faith which the life and character of Robert E. Lee gave him. He
died trusting in God as a good man, with a good life, and a pure
conscience."
He had lived, as he died, with this supreme trust in an overruling and
merciful Providence; and this sentiment, pervading his whole being,
was the origin of that august calmness with which he greeted the most
crushing disasters of his military career. His faith and humble trust
sustained him after the war, when the woes of the South wellnigh
broke his great spirit; and he calmly expired, as a weary child falls
asleep, knowing that its father is near.
Of this eminent soldier and man whose character offers so great
an example, a memoir is attempted in this volume. The work will
necessarily be "popular" rather than full and elaborate, as the public
and private correspondence of Lee are not at this time accessible.
These will throw a fuller light on the subject; but sufficient
material is at the disposal of the writer to enable him to present an
accurate likeness of Lee, and to narrate clearly the incidents of his
career. In doing so, the aim of the author is to measure out full
justice to all--not to arouse old enmities, which should be allowed to
slumber, but to treat his subject with the judicial moderation of the
student of history.
A few words will terminate this preface. The volume before the reader
was begun in 1866. The writer first, however, informed General Lee
of his design, and had the honor to receive from him in reply the
assurance that the work "would not interfere with any he might have in
contemplation; he had not written a line of any work as yet, and might
never do so; but, should he write a history of the campaigns of the
Army of Northern Virginia, the proposed work would be rather an
assistance than a hinderance."
As the writer had offered promptly to discontinue the work if it were
not agreeable to General Lee, this reply was regarded in the light of
an assurance that he did not disapprove of it. The composition was,
however, interrupted, and the work laid aside. It is now resumed and
completed at a time when the death of the illustrious soldier adds a
new and absorbing interest to whatever is connected with his character
or career.
II.
THE LEES OF VIRGINIA.
The Lees of Virginia spring from an ancient and respectable family of
Essex, in England.
Of some members of the family, both in the Old World and the New, a
brief account will be given. The origin of an individual explains much
that is striking and peculiar in his own character; and it will be
found that General Lee inherited many of the traits of his ancestors,
especially of some eminent personages of his name in Virginia.
The family pedigree is traced back by Lee, in the life of his father,
to Launcelot Lee, of London, in France, who accompanied William the
Conqueror to England. After the battle of Hastings, which subjected
England to the sway of the Normans, Launcelot Lee, like others, was
rewarded by lands wrested from the subdued Saxons. His estate lay in
Essex, and this is all that is known concerning him. Lionel Lee is the
next member of the family of whom mention is made. He lived during the
reign of Richard Coeur de Lion, and, when the king went on his third
crusade, in the year 1192, Lionel Lee raised a company of gentlemen,
and marched with him to the Holy Land. His career there was
distinguished; he displayed special gallantry at the siege of Acre,
and for this he received a solid proof of King Richard's approbation.
On his return he was made first Earl of Litchfield; the king presented
him with the estate of "Ditchley," which became the name afterward of
an estate of the Lees in Virginia; and, when he died, the armor which
he had worn in the Holy Land was placed in the department of "Horse
Armory" in the great Tower of London.
The name of Richard Lee is next mentioned as one of the followers of
the Earl of Surrey in his expedition across the Scottish border in
1542. Two of the family about this period were "Knights Companions
of the Garter," and their banners, with the Lee arms above, were
suspended in St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. The coat-of-arms
was a shield "band sinister battled and embattled," the crest a closed
visor surmounted by a squirrel holding a nut. The motto, which may be
thought characteristic of one of General Lee's traits as a soldier,
was, "_Non incautus futuri_"
Such are the brief notices given of the family in England. They seem
to have been persons of high character, and often of distinction. When
Richard Lee came to Virginia, and founded the family anew there, as
Launcelot, the first Lee, had founded it in England, he brought over
in his veins some of the best and most valiant blood of the great
Norman race.
This Richard Lee, the _princeps_ of the family in Virginia, was,
it seems, like the rest of his kindred, strongly Cavalier in his
sentiments; indeed, the Lees seem always to have been Cavalier. The
reader will recall the stately old representative of the family in
Scott's "Woodstock"--Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley--who is seen stalking
proudly through the great apartments of the palace, in his laced
doublet, slashed boots, and velvet cloak, scowling darkly at the
Puritan intruders. Sir Henry was not a fanciful person, but a real
individual; and the political views attributed to him were those of
the Lee family, who remained faithful to the royal cause in all its
hours of adversity.
It will be seen that Richard Lee, the first of the Virginia Lees, was
an ardent monarchist. He came over during the reign of Charles I., but
returned to England, bequeathing all his lands to his servants; he
subsequently came back to Virginia, however, and lived and died there.
In his will he styles himself "Richard Lee, of Strafford Langton, in
the County of Essex, Esquire." It is not certainly known whether he
sought refuge in Virginia after the failure of the king's cause, or
was tempted to emigrate with a view to better his fortunes in the New
World. Either may have been the impelling motive. Great numbers of
Cavaliers "came over" after the overthrow of Charles at Naseby; but a
large emigration had already taken place, and took place afterward,
induced by the salubrity of the country, the ease of living, and
the cheapness and fertility of the lands on the great rivers, where
families impoverished or of failing fortunes in England might "make
new settlements" and build on a new foundation. This would amply
account for the removal of Richard Lee to Virginia, and for the
ambition he seems to have been inspired with, to build and improve,
without attributing to him any apprehension of probable punishment for
his political course. Very many families had the first-named motives,
and commenced to build great manor-houses, which were never finished,
or were too costly for any one of their descendants to possess. The
abolition of primogeniture, despite the opposition of Pendleton and
others, overthrew all this; and the Lees, like other families, now
possess few of the broad acres which their ancestors acquired.
To return, however, to Richard Lee. He had already visited Virginia in
some official capacity under the royal governor, Sir William Berkeley,
and had been so much pleased with the soil and climate of the country,
that he, as we have said, emigrated finally, and cast his lot in the
new land. He brought a number of followers and servants, and, coming
over to Westmoreland County, in the Northern Neck of Virginia,
"took up" extensive tracts of land there, and set about building
manor-houses upon them.
Among these, it is stated, was the original "Stratford" House,
afterward destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt, however, and became the
birthplace of Richard Henry Lee, and afterward of General Robert E.
Lee. We shall speak of it more in detail after finishing, in a few
words, our notice of Richard Lee, its founder, and the founder of the
Lee family in Virginia. He is described as a person of great force of
character and many virtues--as "a man of good stature, comely visage,
enterprising genius, sound head, vigorous spirit, and generous
nature." This may be suspected to partake of the nature of epitaph;
but, of his courage and energy, the proof remains in the action taken
by him in connection with Charles II. Inheriting, it would seem, in
full measure, the royalist and Cavalier sentiments of his family, he
united with Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor, in the irregular
proclamation of Charles II. in Virginia, a year or two before his
reinstallment on the English throne. He had already, it is reported on
the authority of well-supported tradition, made a voyage across the
Atlantic to Breda, where Charles II. was then in exile, and offered
to erect his standard in Virginia, and proclaim him king there. This
proposition the young monarch declined, shrinking, with excellent good
sense, from a renewal, under less favorable circumstances, of the
struggle which terminated at Worcester. Lee was, therefore, compelled
to return without having succeeded in his enterprise; but he had made,
it seems, a very strong impression in favor of Virginia upon the
somewhat frivolous young monarch. When he came to his throne again,
Charles II. graciously wore a coronation-robe of Virginia silk, and
Virginia, who had proved so faithful to him in the hour of his need,
was authorized, by royal decree, to rank thenceforward, in the British
empire, with England, Scotland, and Ireland, and bear upon her shield
the motto, "_En dat Virginia quartam._"
Richard Lee returned, after his unsuccessful mission, to the Northern
Neck, and addressed himself thenceforward to the management of his
private fortunes and the affairs of the colony. He had now become
possessed of very extensive estates between the Potomac and
Rappahannock Rivers and elsewhere. Besides Stratford, he owned
plantations called "Mocke Neck," "Mathotick," "Paper-Maker's Neck,"
"War Captain's Neck," "Bishop's Neck," and "Paradise," with four
thousand acres besides, on the Potomac, lands in Maryland, three
islands in Chesapeake Bay, an interest in several trading-vessels, and
innumerable indented and other servants. He became a member of the
King's Council, and lived in great elegance and comfort. That he was a
man of high character, and of notable piety for an age of free living
and worldly tendencies, his will shows. In that document he bequeaths
his soul "to that good and gracious God that gave it me, and to my
blessed Redeemer, Jesus Christ, assuredly trusting, in and by His
meritorious death and passion, to receive salvation."
The attention of the reader has been particularly called to the
character and career of Richard Lee, not only because he was the
founder of the family in Virginia, but because the traits of the
individual reappear very prominently in the great soldier whose life
is the subject of this volume. The coolness, courage, energy,
and aptitude for great affairs, which marked Richard Lee in the
seventeenth century, were unmistakably present in the character of
Robert E. Lee in the nineteenth century.
We shall conclude our notice of the family by calling attention to
that great group of celebrated men who illustrated the name in the
days of the Revolution, and exhibited the family characteristics as
clearly. These were Richard Henry Lee, of Chantilly, the famous orator
and statesman, who moved in the American Congress the Declaration of
Independence; Francis Lightfoot Lee, a scholar of elegant attainments
and high literary accomplishments, who signed, with his more renowned
brother, the Declaration; William Lee, who became Sheriff of London,
and ably seconded the cause of the colonies; and Arthur Lee,
diplomatist and representative of America abroad, where he displayed,
as his diplomatic correspondence indicates, untiring energy and
devotion to the interests of the colonies. The last of these brothers
was Philip Ludwell Lee, whose daughter Matilda married her second
cousin, General Henry Lee. This gentleman, afterward famous as
"Light-Horse Harry" Lee, married a second time, and from this union
sprung the subject of this memoir.
III.
GENERAL "LIGHT-HORSE HARRY" LEE.
This celebrated soldier, who so largely occupied the public eye in the
Revolution, is worthy of notice, both as an eminent member of the Lee
family, and as the father of General Robert E. Lee.
He was born in 1756, in the county of Westmoreland--which boasts of
being the birthplace of Washington, Monroe, Richard Henry Lee, General
Henry Lee, and General Robert E. Lee, Presidents, statesmen, and
soldiers--and, after graduating at Princeton College, entered the
army, in 1776, as captain of cavalry, an arm of the service afterward
adopted by his more celebrated descendant, in the United States army.
He soon displayed military ability of high order, and, for the capture
of Paulus's Hook, received a gold medal from Congress. In 1781 he
marched with his "Legion" to join Greene in the Carolinas, carrying
with him the high esteem of Washington, who had witnessed his skilful
and daring operations in the Jerseys. His career in the arduous
campaigns of the South against Cornwallis, and the efficient commander
of his cavalry arm. Colonel Tarleton, may be best understood from
General Greene's dispatches, and from his own memoirs of the
operations of the army, which are written with as much modesty as
ability. From these it is apparent that the small body of the "Legion"
cavalry, under its active and daring commander, was the "eye and ear"
of Greene's army, whose movements it accompanied everywhere, preceding
its advances and covering its retreats. Few pages of military history
are more stirring than those in Lee's "Memoirs" describing Greene's
retrograde movement to the Dan; and this alone, if the hard work at
the Eutaws and elsewhere were left out, would place Lee's fame as a
cavalry officer upon a lasting basis. The distinguished soldier under
whose eye the Virginian operated did full justice to his courage and
capacity. "I believe," wrote Greene, "that few officers, either in
Europe or America, are held in so high a position of admiration as you
are. Everybody knows I have the highest opinion of you as an officer,
and you know I love you as a friend. No man, in the progress of the
campaign, had equal merit with yourself." The officer who wrote those
lines was not a courtier nor a diplomatist, but a blunt and honest
soldier who had seen Lee's bearing in the most arduous straits,
and was capable of appreciating military ability. Add Washington's
expression of his "love and thanks," in a letter written in 1789,
and the light in which he was regarded by his contemporaries will be
understood.
His "Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department" is a valuable
military history and a very interesting book. The movements of Greene
in face of Cornwallis are described with a precision which renders the
narrative valuable to military students, and a picturesqueness which
rivets the attention of the general reader. From these memoirs a
very clear conception of the writer's character may be derived, and
everywhere in them is felt the presence of a cool and dashing nature,
a man gifted with the _mens aequa in arduis_, whom no reverse of
fortune could cast down. The fairness and courtesy of the writer
toward his opponents is an attractive characteristic of the work,[1]
which is written with a simplicity and directness of style highly
agreeable to readers of judgment.[2]
[Footnote 1: See his observations upon the source of his successes
over Tarleton, full of the generous spirit of a great soldier. He
attributes them in no degree to his own military ability, but to the
superior character of his large, thorough-bred horses, which rode over
Tarleton's inferior stock. He does not state that the famous "Legion"
numbered only two hundred and fifty men, and that Tarleton commanded a
much larger force of the best cavalry of the British army.]
[Footnote 2: A new edition of this work, preceded by a life of the
author, was published by General Robert E. Lee in 1869.]
After the war General Henry Lee served a term in Congress; was then
elected Governor of Virginia; returned in 1799 to Congress; and, in
his oration upon the death of Washington, employed the well-known
phrase, "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of
his countrymen." He died in Georgia, in the year 1818, having made a
journey thither for the benefit of his health.
General Henry Lee was married twice; first, as we have said, to his
cousin Matilda, through whom he came into possession of the old family
estate of Stratford; and a second time, June 18,1793, to Miss Anne
Hill Carter, a daughter of Charles Carter, Esq., of "Shirley," on
James River.
The children of this second marriage were three sons and two
daughters--Charles Carter, _Robert Edward_, Smith, Ann, and Mildred.
[Illustration: "STRATFORD HOUSE." The Birthplace of Gen. Lee.]
IV.
STRATFORD.
Robert Edward Lee was born at Stratford, in Westmoreland County,
Virginia, on the 19th of January, 1807.[1]
[Footnote 1: The date of General Lee's birth has been often given
incorrectly. The authority for that here adopted is the entry in the
family Bible, in the handwriting of his mother.]
Before passing to Lee's public career, and the narrative of the stormy
scenes of his after-life, let us pause a moment and bestow a glance
upon this ancient mansion, which is still standing--a silent and
melancholy relic of the past--in the remote "Northern Neck." As the
birthplace of a great man, it would demand attention; but it has other
claims still, as a venerable memorial of the past and its eminent
personages, one of the few remaining monuments of a state of society
that has disappeared or is disappearing.
The original Stratford House is supposed, as we have said, to have
been built by Richard Lee, the first of the family in the New World.
Whoever may have been its founder, it was destroyed in the time of
Thomas Lee, an eminent representative of the name, early in the
eighteenth century. Thomas Lee was a member of the King's Council, a
gentleman of great popularity; and, when it was known that his house
had been burned, contributions were everywhere made to rebuild it. The
Governor, the merchants of the colony, and even Queen Anne in person,
united in this subscription; the house speedily rose again, at a
cost of about eighty thousand dollars; and this is the edifice still
standing in Westmoreland. The sum expended in its construction must
not be estimated in the light of to-day. At that time the greater part
of the heavy work in house-building was performed by servants of the
manor; it is fair, indeed, to say that the larger part of the work
thus cost nothing in money; and thus the eighty thousand dollars
represented only the English brick, the carvings, furniture, and
decorations.