Robert E. Lee: Letter to Custis Lee

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The debate over slavery and its future escalated during the late 1850s. In November 1860 the antislavery Republican Party at last triumphed in the presidential contest with the election of Abraham Lincoln. Several southern states then hastened to declare that they would leave the Union and set up their own slaveholding republic in order to protect slavery from the encroachment of a Republican-controlled White House. Texas was among the first states to secede; as it prepared to do so, Colonel Lee contemplated his own next move. He shared his thoughts in a letter that was most probably addressed to his son Custis.

In this letter of 1861 Lee again blames the crisis on northern agitators, although he displays impatience with convoluted theories of secession. It would be better, he thought, to label the departure of the southern states for what it was—a revolution, with the goal of independence. Regardless, he admits to having no interest in serving on the side of the United States in any war that might result. If fighting were to break out, he would assess his fortunes according to what the state of Virginia decided to do. If it stayed within the Union, he would set aside his commission and watch from the sidelines; if Virginia cast its fate with the Confederacy, he would side with his state and offer his military services. He professes to deplore the idea of a country held together by force rather than sentiment, explicitly noting that he would not take up arms against the Confederacy. Not until Virginia chose to secede and join the Confederacy in the wake of the Union surrender of Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for volunteers did Lee's course become clear. Any notion that he might have led U.S. forces against the Confederacy is belied by his own correspondence from when he was considering his options.