It is now fourteen years since the publication of “Lee the American,” but the interest in at any rate the subject of the book seems by no means to have diminished. The colossal struggle of the European War, with all the passions and sacrifices involved in it, has made the American Civil War in general seem not perhaps less important, but more remote. Yet the great figures of Lee and Lincoln stand out and become more impressive and more significant for American life and thought as the years pass on. In a sense their problems were not our problems, but assuredly there never was a time when our country and all countries needed more their tolerant, human spirit and their broad, constructive intelligence.
The public, both North and South, so kindly receptive of my book in the beginning, retains an interest in it, which, considering the flood of more stimulating and sensational literature, is very gratifying. Especially, as is natural, Southern readers continue appreciative of “Lee the American.” Within a few months the United Confederate Veterans, assembled at Birmingham, Alabama, passed a resolution commending the spirit in which the “Lee” and the “Confederate Portraits” were written and accepting them as evidence of at least fairness of intention on the part of a Northern writer. And a similar resolution was approved by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Convention at Richmond….
It has been my privilege to examine a number of collections of manuscript material of varying value and interest, bearing on Lee’s career. The papers of Captain Frederick M. Colston, of Mr. Charles Marshall, and particularly of Mr. G. Nash Morton, are important from chis point of view. Some minor, but suggestive and humanizing anecdotes have come to me from various sources, for example; the following. As is well known, General Lee was at no time averse to the society of ladies, even in later life. When he was a college president at Lexington, weighed down with years and cares, he used to recreate himself by a daily ride on his old war-horse Traveler. One day my informant saw the general stop and chat with two very pretty girls, but Traveler was restive, pawed and curvetted, and gave excellent opportunity for Lee to display all his skill in witching horsemanship. The observer, however, who was standing on the other side from the young ladies, was able to perceive that the exhibition was brought about by the general’s dexterous and coquettish use of the spur. Such touches paint the man almost as effectively as his outbursts of warlike ardor at Gettysburg, or his despair over the necessity of the final surrender.
Yet, in spite of all the new material that has appeared and the various changes that have come about, as I turn over the pages of the book, I feel that the fundamental lines of my treatment require little or no modification. My powers were by no means adequate for presenting Lee as I saw him twenty years ago, nor are they adequate now. But I see him to-day, as I saw him then, one of the first soldiers of the world, and as a man quite unsurpassed in patriotic self-sacrifice, in unfaltering patience and courage, in unassuming, unconquerable dignity when adversity overcame him. “Human virtue should be equal to human calamity.” He said it, and he proved it….
Yet in spite of all this, it must be admitted that Lee’s life will always be regarded as a record of failure. And it is precisely because he failed that I have been interested to make this study of him. Success is the idol of the world and the world’s idols have been successful. Washington, Lincoln, Grant, were doubtless very great But they were successful. Who shall say just how far that element of success enters into their greatness. Here was a man who remains great, although he failed. America in the twentieth century worships success, is too ready to test character by it, to be blind to those faults success hides, to those qualities that can do without it. Here a mas who failed grandly, a man who said that “human virtue should be equal to human calamity,” and showed that it could be equal to it, and so, without pretense, without display, without self-consciousness, left example that future Americans may study with profit as long as there is an America.
A young sophomore was once summoned to the president’s office and gently admonished that only patience and industry would prevent the failure that would inevitably come to him through college and through life.
“ But, General, you failed,” remarked the sophomore, with the inconceivable ineptitude of sophomores.
“I hope that you may be more fortunate than I,” was the tranquil answer.
Literature can add nothing to that.
Given the disparity of forces, no one should say Lee failed without naming the commander who we can be sure would have been successful in such circumstances.
Growing up among people who knew Confederate veterans and their heirs, General Lee was never portrayed as having lost. You’re right, “Lost Cause” originally connoted the good fight against overwhelming odds. The sentiment applied to the greater effort by all the officers, men, boys and the women and families back home.
Interestingly, starting with Thomas Connolly in the 1970’s, there began to be insinuated even within Southern partisans the idea that Lee was a failure. Critical analysis is always fair, for Lee and anyone else, but I see allusions almost daily on dedicated online sites that “Lee should’ve listened to Longstreet” at Gettysburg, a thought never taken seriously by historians and military theoreticians until the subplot of a popular B-movie, GETTYSBURG, in 1993. However, to expand on your admonition, name the commander who, in the event, led a Confederate army to several smashing victories – a handful of which leave the same military theoreticians to wonder if results may have been overwhelming but for a few accidents of war.
Given Lee’s success, the question to ask is why Pres. Davis did not choose to have Lee lead Confederate forces from the beginning. What might have been the result at First Manassas if the Confederate army had fought like it did with Lee, to fight until it could fight no more?
I very much appreciate the further discussion. Thank you.
My pleasure. Maybe too much pleasure. You sum it up well enough.
Lee was successful in maintaining his personal integrity and fidelity to what he regarded as his duty. Lincoln was a failure with regard to the first of these characteristics and an utter failure as the leader of the voluntary republic that his direction and actions completely dismantled and destroyed to be replaced with a coercive union domestically and the foundation of one that became an imperial aggressor abroad.
Very well said!
May God bless Robert E. Lee.
And also, General Jackson on his birthday, today.
I have studied Lee most of my life and I have never associated the word failure with him.
General Lee was a complete success, did the right things for the right reasons with what he had in the time that he had. He was a human man, gentleman and warrior genius that we should all aspire our son’s to be. A success of the highest order.
Lincoln, well he was nothing more than a common bully, scalawag and criminal turned politician thus a failure of the worst kind.
“Those People” cannot help but attack, ever seeking to sully, and destroy the memory of one of our noblest sons, simply because he was – humanly speaking – noble and virtuous in bearing and action. By his own confession, General Lee was, like all of us, a sinner in need of God’s grace, but to continue to fight the good fight, not just during, but perhaps most especially, after the War, even more gave evidence of the true goodness the LORD worked in and through His humble servant.
Now of course the same things could be said of Thomas J. Jackson, and doubtless a myriad of other lesser known and celebrated saints among our ancestors, all of them urging us to give glory ultimately to the One who made them. Still, thank the LORD we as Southerners have so many flesh-and-blood examples of lives well – if not perfectly – lived in the midst of such trying events and circumstances!