xt7cvd6p064r https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7cvd6p064r/data/mets.xml Page, Thomas Nelson, 1853-1922. 190618  books b92-230-31280747v17 English C. Scribner's sons, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Novels, stories, sketches, and poems of Thomas Nelson Page (vol. 17) text Novels, stories, sketches, and poems of Thomas Nelson Page (vol. 17) 1906 2002 true xt7cvd6p064r section xt7cvd6p064r 











PLANTATION

  EDITION



VOLUME XVII

 









































Gene;ill Rohert E. Lee.

 




'-5, THE NOVELS, STORIES,
SKETCHES AND POEMS OF
THOMAS NELSON PAGE 5




   ROBERT E. LEE
      MAN AND SOLDIER



    O  v' d-y'ye&Xov Aatxeoaqwplotr 6rA rie
    xice&i t  roKs /eLpwJ Ah1a   TeG6cvo&.






CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK    .       1912



I

 




















Copyright, 1911, 1912, by
CHARLES SCRIBNEIE S SONS

 
























              TO THE MEMORY OF

"AS GALLANT AND BRAVE AN ARMY AS EVER EXISTED":

        THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA:

        ON WHOSE IMPERISHABLE DEEDS

        AND INCOMPARABLE CONSTANCY

      THE FAME OF THEIR OLD COMMANDER

                WAS FOUNDED

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PREFACE



  WHEN this book was begun, I had in mind only
to prepare a second and enlarged edition of the
little volume published three years since, under
the title "Robert E. Lee, the Southerner," in
which the theme was Lee's personal character,
and no attempt was made to present more than
a bare outline of the militarv side of his life.
AWith the materials in hand, however, and the
attractiveness of the subject, the work soon ex-
p)anded beyond the dimensions of a inere New
Edition, and has finally assumed the proportions
of a biography. The work has led into a field,
new, at least to me, and besides a fuller account
of the extraordinary conditions under which Lee
conducted his military operations, I have en-
deavored to give his relation to the civil power
of the Confederate Government.
  Some repetition will be fcund, but the inten-
tion has been to give a clear outline of Lee's
military career for those who may not care to go
further into an account of battles, and then, for
others, to give a history of Lee's military opera-
                      xii

 


PREFACE



tions, which it is hoped may prove sufficiently
complete to enable the interested reader to follow
intelligently the masterly campaigns on which
Lee's fame as a soldier is founded.
  The authorities consulted in my studies cover
a wide range of reports, histories, biographies,
personal memoirs, and personal letters, to which
I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness, es-
pecially to General Long's "Life of Lee, " Dr.
J. W. Jones's "Personal Reminiscences of Lee,"
General Fitzhugh Lee's "Lee, " and Captain
R. E. Lee's "Personal Recollections and Letters
of General Lee. ")
  I desire, however, to signalize certain authori-
ties whose masterly studies have been found gen-
erally so accurate as to appear conclusive on the
subjects of which they have treated. These are
Mr. John C. Ropes's "Story of the Civil War,"
Colonel William Allan's " Army of Northern
Virginia, " Colonel G. F. R. Henderson's "Life
of Stonewall Jackson," Major John Bigelow,
Jr.'s, "Campaign of Chancellorsville" (the most
complete and authoritative history of any battle
ever fought on American soil), and, finally, Gen-
eral A. A. Humphreys's "The Virginia Campaign
of '64 and '65. " These I have often followed
closely and, though I have not always adopted
                      viii

 

PREFACE



their conclusions, I desire to record my indebted-
ness to them in the fullest possible way.
  I further desire to make may acknowledgments
to Colonel Hunter Liggett, Colonel Charles (.
Treat, and the officers who accompanied them
in the War College expedition of 1911 over the
battle-fields of Virginia, for their courtesy ex-
tended me during that expedition and for the
great aid which I derived from their careful and
thoughtful discussions of Lee's campaigns in
Virginia. The historical spirit in which these
soldiers have approached tLeir subject is one I
have endeavored to emulate, even though I may
have done so vainly, and is, the best assurance
that in time a complete history of the great war
will be written.
                        THOS. NELSON PAGE.
 WASHINGTON, October, 1911.



ix

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                CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                      PAGE
   1.EARLY LIFE ....  . . ..  . .. . . .   .  3

   II. FIRST SERVICE..... . . . . . . . .   . 18

 III. THE CHOICE OF HERCULES ... . .. .    . 44

 IV. RESOURCES .... .  . . . . . .. . .   . 83

 V. LEE IN WEST VIRGINIA.... .  . . . .   . 100

 VI. THE SITUATION WHEN LEE TOOK COMMAND. 153

 VII. BATTLES AROUND RICHMOND ... .  . .   . 182

 VIII. LEE RELIEVES RICHMOND.... .  . ..    . 241

 IX. LEE'S AUDACITY-ANTIETAM TO CHANCEL-
       LORSVILLE.... .  . . . . . . . .  .   270

  X. FREDERICKSBURG   .... . . . . . . .   . 313

  XI. CHANCELLORSVILLE  .... .  . .. . .   . 332

XII. LEE'S AUDACITY-SALEM CHURCH  ... .   . 368

XIII. GETTYSBURG  .... . . . . . . . . .   . 383

XIV. AUTUMN OF 1863 ............. . 459

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                     ILLUSTRATIONS


GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE.    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece

                                                       FACING PAGE
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE'S HOME AT ARLINGTON. VIRGINIA . . .      22
From a photograph. copyright, by Underwood & Underwood


GENERAL THOMAS J. JACKSON ............... . 362
From a photograph taken in Winchester, Virginia, 1862


HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG . ...           .... .                438
From a drawing by C. S. Reinhart

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                        MAPS


GENERAL MAP OF THE COUNTRY AROUND MANASSAS JUNCTION . 264


THE FIELD OF THE ANTIETAM ............... . 286


FREDERICKSBURG -POSITION OF UNION AND CONFEDERATE
  FORCES ON DECEMBER 13, 1862...... . . .. . . .   . 330


UNION AND CONFEDERATE WORKS AROUND CHANCELLORSVILLE . 348


GETTYSBURG AND VICINITYC.I.I.Y. . . . ........... . 410

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INTRODUCTORY



  THIS study of a great American is not written
wNNith the expectation or even with the hope that
the writer can add anything to the fame of Lee;
but rather in obedience to a feeling that as the
soil of a Confederate soldier, as a Southerner,
as an American, he, as a writer, owes something
to himself and to his countrymen which he should
endeavor to pay, though it may be but a mite
cast into the Treasury of Abundance.
  The subject is not one to be dealt with in
the language of eulogy. To attempt to decorate
it with panegyric would but belittle it. What
the writer proposes to say wvill be based upon
public records; on the studies of those whose
authority is unquestioned; or on the testimony
of those personal witnesses who by character
and opportunity for observation would be held
to furnish evidence by which the gravest con-
cerns of life would be decided.
  At the outset I venture to quote the words of
the Master of Historians, not to express my
achievement, but my endeavor:
                     xvii

 
INTRODUCTORY



   " With reference to the narrative of events,
far from permitting myself to derive it from the
first source that came to hand, I did not even
trust my own impressions; but it rests partly on
what I saw myself, partly on what others saw
for me, the accuracy of the report being always
tried b- the most severe and detailed tests pos-
sible.
  "My conclusions have cost me some labor
from the want of coincidence between accounts
of the same occurrences I)y different eve-wvit-
nesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory,
sometimes from undue partiality for one side or
the other. " 
  True enough it is, Lee was assailed-and as-
sailed with a rancor and persistence which have
undoubtedly left their deep impression on the
minds of a large section of his countrymen; but,
as the years pass by, the passions and prejudices
which attempted to destroy him have been
gradually giving place to a juster conception of
the lineaments of Truth.
  Among his warmest admirers to-day are some
who fought against him. No more appreciative
study of him has been written than that by Mr.
Charles Francis Adams, whose breadth, clear-
  Thuoydides's "History of the Peloponnesian War," chap. 1.
                     xviii

 
INTRODU(CTORY



ness of vision, and classic charm as a writer were
only equalled by his gallantry in the Army of
the Potomac, where he woii his first laurels.
   Unhappily, the world j i dges mainly by the
measure of success, and though Time hath his
revenges, and finally rights many wrongs, the
man who fails of an immediate end appears to
the body of his contemporaries, and often to the
generations following, to be a failure. Yet from
such seed as this have sprang the richest fruits
of civilization. In the Divine Economy appears
a wonderful mystery. Through all the history of
sublime endeavor would seem to run the strange
truth enunciated by the Di vine Master: that he
who loses his life for the sake of the Truth shall
find it.
  But although, as was said by the eloquent
Holcombe of Lee just after his death, "No
calumnny can ever darken his fame. for History
has lighted up his image with her everlasting
lamp," yet after forty years there still appears
in certain quarters a tendency to rank General
Lee, as a soldier, among those captains who
failed. Some historians, looking with  narrow
vision at but one side, and many readers, igno-
rant of all the facts, honestly take this view. A
general he was, they say, able enough for de-
                      xix

 
INTRODUCTORY



fence; but he was uniformly defeated when he
took the offensive. He failed at Antietam; he
was defeated at Gettysburg; he could not drive
Grant out of Virginia; therefore he must be
classed among captains of the second rank only.
  Iteration and reiteration, to the ordinary
observer, however honest he may be, gather
accumulated force and oftentimes usurp the place
of truth. The public has not time, nor does it
care, to go deeper than the ordinary presentation
of a case. It is possible, therefore, that unless
the truth be set forth so plainly that it cannot
be mistaken, this estimate of Lee as a captain
may in time become established as the general,
if not the universal. opinion of the public.
  If, however, Lee's reputation becomes estab-
lished as among the second class of captains,
rather than as among the first, the responsibility
for it will rest, rot upon Northern writers, but
upon the Southerners themselves. For the facts
are plain.
  We of the South have been wont to leave the
writing of history mainly to others, and it is far
from a complete excuse that whilst others were
writing history we were.making it. It is as much
the duty of a people to disprove any charge
blackening their fame as it is of an individual.
                      xx

 
INTRODUCT(O)RY



Indeed, the injury is infinitely) more far-reaching
in the former case than in the latter.
  Lee's character I deem absolutely the fruit of
the Virginian civilization whit h existed in times
past. No drop of blood alien to Virginia coursed
in his veins; his rearing was wholly within her
borders and according to the principles of her
life.
  Whatever of praise or censure, therefore, shall
be his must fall fairly on his mother, Virginia,
anti the civilization which existed within her
borders. The history of Lee is the history of the
South during the greatest crisis of her existence.
For with his history is bound up the history of
the Army of Northern Virgini-a on whose impel-
ishable deeds and incomparable constancy rests
his fame.
  The reputation of the South has suffered be-
cause we have allowed rhetoric to usurp the place
of history. We have furnished many orators,
but few historians. But all history at last must
be the work, not of the orator, but of the his-
torian. Truth, simply stated, like chastity in a
woman's face, is its own best advocate; its sim-
plest presentation is its strongest proof.



Xxi

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ROBERT E. LEE
MAN AND SOLDIER

       I

 






















"A Prince once said of a Monarch slain,
'Taller he seems in Death."'
                          -HOPE.

 





       ROBERT E. LEE
          MAN AND SOLDIER


                      I
                 EARLY LIFE

O  N a plateau about a mile from the south
     bank of the Potomac River, in the old co-
lonial county of Westmoreland., in what used to be
known as the "Northern Neck,"-that portion of
Virginia which Charles II in hius heedlessness once
undertook to grant to his friends and favorites,
Culpeper and Arlington,-stands a massive brick
mansion, one of the most impressive piles of brick
on this continent. Built in the form of a broad
11, it looks, even in its dilapidation, as though it
might have been erected by Elizabeth and bomi-
barded by Cromwell. It had to be built strong;
for in those days the Indians were just across the
blue mountains to the westwai'd, and roving bands
were likely to appear at any time, following the
broad river in search of scalps or booty, and ready
                      3

 
ROBERT E. LEE



to fall on anyl defenceless family in their way. The
broad chim-nevs clustered above the roof of each
wing are said to have been connected in old times
by a pavilion which was used for dances and such
like entertainments. No picture of the mansion
gives any adequate idea of its chateaulike massive-
ness. It was built by Thomas Lee, grandson of
Richard Lee, the immigrant, who came to Vir-
ginia about 1641-42, and founded a family which
has numbered among its members as many men
of distinction as any family in America. It was
through him that Charles II, when an exile in
Brussels, is said to have been offered an asylum
and a kingdom in Virginia. When the first man-
sion erected was destroyed by fire, Queen Anne,
in recognition of the services of her faithful coun-
sellor in Virginia, sent over a liberal contribution
toward its rebuilding. Founded about 1725-30,
it bears the old English name, Stratford, after the
English estate of Richard Lee, and for many gen-
erations, down to the last generation, it was the
home of the Lees of Virginia.
  This mansion has a unique distinction among
historical houses in this country; for in one of its
chambers were born two signers of the Declara-
tion of Independence: Richard Henry Lee, who,
in obedience to the mandate of the Virginia Con-
                      4

 
EARLY LIFE



vention, moved the resolution in Congress to de-
clare the Colonies free and independent States,
and Francis Lightfoot Lee, his brother. But it
has a yet greater distinction.  in one of its cham-
bers -was born, on the 19th of Januaiv, 1807, Rob-
ert E. Lee, whom many students of military his-
torv believe to have been not only the greatest
soldier of his time, and, taking all things together,
the greatest captain of the English-speaking race,
but the loftiest character of his generation; one
rarely eqjualled, and possibly never excelled, in all
the anmals of the human race.
  His reputation as a soldier has been dealt -with
by others much better fitted Ilo speak of it than
I; and in what I shall have to say as to this I
shall often follow them , drawing fromi. their studies
what seem to me the necessary conclusions pre-
sented. The campaigns in which that reputation
was achieved are now the studies of all military
students throughout the world, quite as much as
are the campaigns of Hannibal and Cxsar, of
Cromwell and Marlborough, of Napoleon and
Wellington.
  "According to my notion o(f military history,"
says Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley, "there is
as much instruction both in Strategy and in tac-
tics to be gleaned from Cleneral Lee's operations
                       5

 
ROBERT E. LEE



of 1862 as there is to be found in Napoleon's cam-
paigns of 1796,i" In recognition of this fact the
United States War College annually sends an ex-
pedition of picked officers to study the movements
of these campaigns on the fields onI which he gained
his renown.
  Robert Edward Lee was the fourth son of Gen-
eral Henry Lee, known in history as "Light Horse
Harry" Lee (who in his youth had been the gal-
lant voung commander of the "Partisan Legion"),
and the third son of Anne Carter, of Shirley, his
second wife, a pious and gracious representative
of the old Virginia family whose home still stands
in simple dignity upon the banks of the James,
and has been far-famed for generations as one of
the best-knlown seats of the old Virginia hospital-
itv. His three older brothers were Henry (who
was the only child of "Light Horse Harry" Lee's
first marriage), Charles Carter, and Sidney Smith,
all of whom were unusually clever men. His two
sisters were Mildred and Anne. In his veins
floweed the best blood of the gentry of the Old
Dominion, and, for that matter, of England, and
surrounding him from his earliest childhood were
the best traditions of the old Virginia life. Amid
these, and these alone, he grew to manhood. On
both sides of his house his ancestors for genera-
                      6

 
EARLY LIFE



tions had been councillors and governors of Vir-
ginia, and had contributed their full share toward
'Virginials greatness.
  Richard Lee, "the inmmigran-t," was a scion of
an old family, ancient enough to have fought at
Hastings and to have followed Richard of the
Lion Heart to the Holy Land. On this side of
the water they had ever stood among the highest.
The history of no two families mwas more indisso-
lubly bound up with the history of Virginia than
that of the Lees and the Carters. Thus, Lee was
essentially the type of the cavalier of the Old
Dominion, to whom she owed so much of her
glory. Like Sir Walter Raleigh, he could number
a hundred gentlemen among hit kindred, and, even
at his greatest, he was in character the type of his
order.
  In the youth of young Henry Lee, Princeton
was the most popular of the colleges with the Vir-
ginians. and Henry Lee was a student at Princeton
when the Revolutionary W\ar broke out. Nearly
all the young men of his age were deeply interested
in the matters which brought on the war, and
probably because of the leading part Virginia took
in the movement for independence, and possibly
because of the prominent part that his kinsmen
         "Lee of Virginia," by Edmnund I. Lee.

 
ROBERT E. LEE



took in Virginia, no sooner had war begun, with
the battle of Lexington, than young Henry Lee
left his studies and joined the army. He was
commissioned a captain at the age of nineteen,
and by his soldierly qualities soon became a
marked man. He rendered such signal service in
the early campaigns of the war, and showed such
courage, ability, and dash, that he early became
a favorite with Washington, and, as was stated
by his famous son long afterward, "in the diffi-
cult and critical operations in Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, and New York, from 1777 to 1780, inclu-
sive, he was always placed near the enemy, in-
trusted with the command of outposts, the super-
intendence of scouts, and that kind of service
which requires unusual qualities of resourcefulness
and self-reliance." 
  His activity and daring in scouting near the
enemy drew their attention, and they set to work
to capture him. Knowing that he was quartered
about six miles below Valley Forge, a surprise was
attempted by them. A body of two hundred
horse set out one night, and having taken a round-
about route, they eluded his outposts and reached
about daybreak the house where he was quartered.
In the house were only eight men: Captain Lee,
      "Memoirs of the War of '76," by H. Lee, p. 16.
                       8

 
EARLY LI FE



Lieutenant Lindsay, Major Gemieson, a corporal,
and four men. Though surprised, the soldiers in
the house, instead of surrendering as they were
expected to do, under Lee's direction barricaded
the doors and fought the assailants off, forcing
theni finally to retire with a loss of five men killed
and a number more wounded. Then, as they were
attempting to carry off the horses of the party,
Lee hurried the departure of the enemy by shout-
ing to his men to fire away, as the infantry were
coming, and they would bag them all. As soon
as thev retired he sallied forth, got his men to
horse, and pursued the English force to their
main body.
  For this exploit, together with his services in
the campaign before it, which Washington highly
commended, Congress promoted Captain Lee to
the rank of major, and gave him an independent
command, known as a "partisan corps," composed
first of two, and later of three troops of horse.
  That summer he took par[t in the capture of
Stony Point, which gave lad Anthony W ayne his
fame, and a little later he planned and executed
the surprise and capture of Paulus Hook under
the nose of the British warships and the garrisons
of the -New York forts. For this exploit Congress
again signally honored him--thanking him pub-
                      9

 
ROBERT E. LEE



licl, and striking a medal in his honor, a tribute
paid to no other officer below the rank of general
during the war.
  When the (chief seat of war was transferred to
the South, toward the end of 1780, Major Lee
moved to join the Southern army, opposing Corn-
wallis in South Carolina, and Congress in recog-
nition of his distinguished services made him,
on Washinrgton's recommendation, a lieutenant-
colonel. He took part iil all the battles of the
Southern campaign, and rendered such service
that, when broken in health and partly because dis-
appointed of a reward which he thought due him
he retired about February, 1782, General Greene
wrote of him to the president of Congress in the
following warm terms: "Lieutenant-Colonel Lee
retired for a time for the recovery of his health.
I am more indebted to this officer than to any
other for the advantages gained over the enemy in
the operations of the last campaign, and should
be wanting in gratitude not to acknowledge the
importance of his services, a detail of which is
his best panenrie."T
  Later on Colonel Lee became a member of Con-
gress, and was so noted for his eloquence that when
        Lees 'Memoirs of the War of 17(3," p. 23.
       t Ibid., p. 41.
                      10

 
EARLY LIFE



in 1.799 Washington died, he was selected by Con-
,ress to deliver the official eulogy on his old corn-
inander and life-long friend. Subsequently he be-
came the governor of Virginia, and served as such
for three terms, and when the rebellion broke out
il Pennsylvania, he was chosen to command the
troops mobilized for its suppression.
  Thus, the blood that coursed through the veins
of Robert E. Lee was that of a soldier.
  It has been well said that knowledge of a man s
ideals is the key to his cha:-acter. Tell us his
ideals and we can tell yJou what manner of man
he is. Lee's ideal character was close at hand from
his earliest boyhood. His earliest days were spent
in a region filled with traditions of him who, hav-
ing consecrated his life to (rutv, had with the
fame of a great soldier attained such a standard
of virtue that if we would liken him to other gov-
ernors we must go back to Marcus Aurelius, to
St. Louis, and to William the Silent.
  Not far from Stratford, within an easy ride, in
the same old colonial county of Westmoreland, on
the bank of the noble river whose broad waters
reflect the arching sky, spanning Virginia and
Maryland, was Wakefield, the plantation which
had the distinction of having given birth to the
Father of his Country. Thus, on this neighbor-
                      11

 
ROBERT E. LEE



hood, the splendor of the evening of his noble life,
just closed, had shed a peculiar glory. And not a
great way off, in a neighboring county on the
banks of the same river, was the home of his man-
hood, where in majestic simplicity his ashes re-
pose, making 'Mount Vernon a shrine for lovers of
liberty of every age and every clime.
  On the wall at Shirley, Lee's mother's home,
among the portraits of the Carters, hangs a full-
length portrait of Washington, in a general's uni-
form, given by him to General Nelson, who gave
it to his daughter, M'rs. Carter. Thus, in both
his ancestral homes the boy from his cradle found
an atmosphere redolent at once of the greatness
of Virginia's past and of the memory of the pre-
server of his country.
  It was Lee's own father, the gallant and gifted
"Light Horse Harry" Lee, who, as eloquent in
debate as he had been eager in battle, having, as
stated, been selected by Congress to deliver the
memorial address on Washington, had coined the
golden phrase which, reaching the heart of Amer-
ica, has become his epitaph and declared him by
the unanimous voice of a grateful people, "First
in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of
his countrymen."
  How passionately the memory of " Light Horse
                      12

 
EARLY LIFE



Harry " Lee was revered by his sons we know, not
only from the life of Robert E. Lee, himself, but
from that most caustic of Amrerican philippics, the
"Observations on the Writings of Thomas Jeffer-
son, with Particular Reference to the Attacks they
contain on the 'Memory of the late General Henr'y
Lee, in a series of Letters by Henry Lee of Vir-
ginia.
  Mr. Jefferson, with all his prestige and genius,
had found a match when he aroused "Black
Harry" Lee by a charge ol' ingratitude on the
part of his father to the adored Washington. In
no family throughout Virginia was Washington's
niame more revered than alnong the Lees, who
were bound to him by every tie of gratitude, of
sentiment, and of devotion.
  Thus, the impress or the character of Washing-
ton was l1aturai on the plastic and serious mind
of the thoughtful son of "Light Horse Harry."
  One fanmiliar with the life of Lee cannot help
noting the strong resemblance of his character in
its strength, its poise, its rounded completeness,
to that of Washington, or h il to mark what in-
fluence the life of W'ashingtcn had on the life of
Lee. The stamp appears upon it from his boy-
hood, and grows more plain as his years progress.
  Just when the youth definitely set before him-
                      13

 

ROBERT E. LEE



self the character of Washington we may not
know; but it must have been at an early date.
The famous story of the sturdy little lad and the
cherry-tree must have been well known to young
Lee from his earliest boyhood, for it was floating
about that region when Parson Weems came across
it as a neighborhood tradition, and made it a part
of our literature.  It has become the fashion to
deride such anecdotes, but this much, at least,
may be said of this story, that however it may
rest solely on the authority of the simple, itiner-
ant preacher, it is absolutely characteristic of
Washington, and it is equally characteristic of him
who since his time most nearly resembled him.
  However this was. the lad grew up amid the
traditions of that greatest of great men, whose
life he so manifestly takes as his model, and with
whose fame his own fame was to be so closely
allied in the minds and hearts of the people of
the South.
  Like Washington, Robert E. Lee became an
orphan at an early age, his father having been
mortally injured in an election riot in Baltimore,
 A Japanese officer, a military attache at Washington, related
to the writer that when he was a boy in a hill-town of Japan,
where his father was an officer of one of the old Samurai, his
mother told him the story of George Washington and the
cherry-tree and tried to impress on him the lessons of truth.
                       14

 
EARLY LIFE



an( (lyiing when the lad wa1s only eleven years
ol0(, and, like Washington, Lee was brought up
by a devoted nother, the genitle and pious Anne1
Carter, of Shirley, a representative, as already
statedl, of one of the old fanLilies of "Tidewater"
Virginia, and a descendani-l of Robert Carter,
known as "Kinog Carter," equally because of his
great possessions, his dominanxt character. and his
high position in the colony. Through his mother,
as throu(gh his father, Lee was related to most of
the families of distinction in the Old Dominion,
,and, 1w at least one strain (If blood, to Washing-
ton himself.
  Early in Lee's life his father and mother moved
from SRtratford to Alexandria, one of the two or
three Virginia towns that were homes of the gen-
tr, and1 his boyhood was passed in the old town
that was redolent of the memoi'y of Washington.
He worshipped in old Christ Church, the same
c hurch in which Washington had been a pew-
holder, and he was a, freque::it visitor both at the
noble mansion on the banks Df the Potomac where
the Father of his Country had made his home
and at that one where lived the Custises, the de-
scendants and representatives of his adopted son,
which was to become Lee's own home in the
future.
                      15

 
ROBERT E. LEE



  Sprung from such stock and nurtured on such
traditions, the lad soon gave evidence of the
character that was to place him next to his model.
Little is recorded of his childhood beyond the
fact of his devotion to his mother and his sisters,
and his attention to his duties. Both of his older
brothers were very clever, and it is possible that
the sturdy Robert was overshadowed by them.
"Robert, who was always good," wrote his father
of him from the West Indies, where he had gone
hoping to restore his health after his injury, "will
be confirmed in his happy turn of mind by his
ever-watchful and affectionate mnother." This
prophecy was amply fulfilled. It is recorded that
"his mother taught him in his childhood to prac-
tice self-denial and self-control, as wvell as the
strictest economy in all financial concerns." To
his mother he was ever a dutiful and devoted son,
and we have a glimpse of him, none the less in-
teresting and significant because it is casual, leav-
ing his playfellows at their sport to go and take
his invalid mother driving in the old family car-
riage, where he was careful to fasten the curtains
and close up the cracks with newspapers to keep
the draughts from her, and using all his powers
to entertain and divert her. The ties between
them were ever peculiarly close, and more than
                       16

 
EARLY L[FE



one of his cousins have recorded that what im-
pressed them most in their Youth was "Robert's
devotion to his mother."  "You have been both
son and daughter to me," wrote his mother in her
loneliness, after he had left home for West Point.
"The other boys used to dIlink from the glasses
of the gentlemen," said one of the family; "'but
Robert never would join then. He was different."
  A light is thrown on his character at this time
in a pleasant reference to his boyhood made by
himself long afterward, in writing of his ounlg-
est son, then a lad, who was goiilg to the Virginia
Springs as escort to his mother anid sister. "A
youtng gentleman," he says, "who has read Virgil
must surely be competent to take care of two
ladies; for before I had adz anced that far I was
my mother's outdoor agent and confidential mes-
senger."  He might readily have said more; for
it is related that he was known from his boyhood
for his devoted attention to his mother, and that
"ill her last illness he mixed every dose of rnedi-
cine which she took," and nursed her both night
and day.
              Letter of June 2'5, 1857.



17

 





II



                FIR-9ST SERVICE

Y\OUNG Lee selected at an early age the mil-
     itary profession, which had given his father
and his great prototype their fame. During his
early boyhood occurred the capture of Washing-
ton city and the destruction of the Capitol and
the White House by the British troops, and it
has been suggested that this may have turned
his mind toward the army. But this was not
needed. It was the profession to which all young
men of spirit turned. It was in the blood. And
young Lee was the son of him of whom General
Charles Lee, himself an accomplished soldier, had
said, that "he seemed to have come a soldier from
his mother's womb." a bit of characterization
which this soldier's distinguished son was to quote
with filial satisfaction when, after he himself had
become possibly the most famous soldier of his
time, he wrote his father's biography. He was,
wrote one of his cousins, "most anxious to go to
W est Point, both to relieve his mother arid to
have a military education."  He had gone to
                      18S