Robert E. Lee: The Marble [Christian] Man

Originally published at Truthscript.com

On 7 August 2024, the Witherspoon Institute’s journal, Public Discourse, published an article by John F. Doherty entitled: “Propriety without Principle: The Cautionary Tale of Robert E. Lee.” Citing Allen C. Guelzo’s 2021 biography of Lee as his source of information, Doherty paints Robert E. Lee as an irreligious hypocrite of weak moral fiber whose virtues were apparent rather than real. [1] Because of this moral deficiency, Lee (whose desire to appear moral was due to daddy issues) was eventually swept along by the treasonous flood of rebellion sentiment in Virginia. According to Doherty, Lee thus serves as a warning to people who wish to be genuinely, not just apparently, virtuous. In his assessment of Lee, Doherty could not be more wrong. Robert E. Lee was a man of high morality and of genuine Christian faith. Because the correction of falsehoods requires a good deal more ink and effort than their propagation, I beg the reader’s patience. Thoroughness necessitates length.

Supposed Sin

Doherty criticizes Robert E. Lee for not being an abolitionist. This, says Doherty, is an example of the superficiality of Lee’s “good qualities.” While Lee was no abolitionist, he did believe in gradual emancipation, trusting that God would end slavery in His own time. Until then, he wrote to Mrs. Lee, the abolitionists should rely on “moral means and suasion” because “emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy.” [2]

When he wrote these words, Lee probably had in the back of his mind the memories of Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Stirred to violence by abolitionist pamphlets which urged slaves to rise and kill their masters, Nat Turner and his followers rampaged through Southampton County, Virginia, killing over fifty people. They began by killing five people in their beds, including a baby taken from its crib and beaten to death against a brick fireplace. [3] In 1859, John Brown’s abolitionist raid on Harper’s Ferry proved Lee right. The first person killed by Brown’s gang was Heyward Shepherd, a free black man who worked as a baggage handler for the B.&O. Railroad. Shepherd left behind a widow and five children. [4] When the options for emancipation were gradual and peaceful or immediate and violent – not merely violent, but soaked in the blood of innocents – is it any wonder that Lee preferred the former solution?

Doherty declares that Lee had runaway slaves “whipped—with exceptional violence.” This claim was popularized by Elizabeth Brown Pryor in her book, Reading the Man. [5] Prior to Pryor’s book, historians discounted these stories because there was no proof to support them and because Lee repeatedly denied the claims. [6] Unsubstantiated accusations published by hostile tabloids do not constitute evidence. Is it moral for historians to state hearsay as fact because it fits their chosen narratives?

Doherty insists that Lee sided with Virginia out of a selfish desire to save his family’s lands in Northern Virginia, that Lee’s decision was:

…based not on what justice dictated, but on what would be most convenient to his family…A truly good man would have recognized that worldly ruin would have been a small price to pay for avoiding the moral ruin that Lee’s family underwent…Robert E. Lee’s moral principles were weak. When the flood of war came, he compromised with evil, then piled sin upon sin, as the rebellion’s corrupting logic swept away more and more of his moral foundations.

In arguing that Lee sided with Virginia for personal gain, Doherty has overlooked a vitally important detail. Robert E. Lee, a career soldier his entire adult life, chose Virginia over the U.S. government two days after being offered command of what would become the Union Army of the Potomac, a command which would have brought with it promotion to Major General. [7] Military glory, high rank, fame, and success were all within his grasp. Had he accepted this offer, Lee could have had the same career success as William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Sheridan, or John Schofield, all of whom were eventually promoted Commanding General of the U.S. Army. Better still, had Lee swept into Virginia at the head of a Union army, he might have become President of the United States as Ulysses Grant did after the War. Instead, Lee resigned his commission and quit his career of thirty-six years to avoid fighting against his own people. Forced to decide between the U.S. government on the one hand and his land and people on the other, Lee chose the latter. Far from being ashamed of his actions, Lee believed he had made the morally correct choice. He told his brother Sydney that he had resigned to avoid being “ordered on duty which I could not conscientiously perform…I am now a private citizen and 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.” The same day, Lee wrote to his sister Anne:

I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home…save in defense of my native State (with the sincere hope my poor services may never be needed) I hope I may never be called upon to draw my sword. I know you will blame me, but you must think as kindly as you can, and believe that I have endeavored to do what I thought right. [9]

Gentlemanly Morality

Doherty asserts: “it is hard to pinpoint any moral principle that guided Lee’s life,” with the possible exception of Lee’s statement at Washington College that “Every student must be a gentleman.” Citing English Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman, Doherty insists: “Yet this motto precisely shows how hollow Lee’s principles were…merely to be a gentleman falls short of moral uprightness.” There’s just one problem with this line of argument – when a man sums up his moral code in a word, it is no more than justice to let him give his definition of that word. Following Lee’s death, Reverend J. William Jones found the following note among Lee’s personal papers, written in his own handwriting:

The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman. The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly — the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light. The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He can not only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others. [10]

If that definition of gentlemanly character sounds familiar to Christian readers, that’s because it should. It corresponds to the attributes of God’s character set out by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 13:4-7:

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [11]

For Lee, the gentlemanly notion of noblesse oblige walked hand-in-hand with the knowledge that “whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do to me.” Hence Douglas Southall Freeman’s assertion: “There was but one question ever: What was [Lee’s] duty as a Christian and a gentleman? That he answered by the sure criterion of right and wrong, and, having answered, acted…He could not have conceived of a Christian who was not a gentleman.” [12]

Doherty contends that Lee’s morality was performative rather than substantive, concerned with appearing moral rather than being moral. Perhaps Doherty has a point. Posers often jot down notes like this: “There is a true glory and a true honor: the glory of duty done – the honor of the integrity of principle.” [13] And immoral men habitually record ruminations like this: “Truth and manliness are two qualities that will carry you through this world much better than policy, or tact, or expediency, or any other word that was ever devised to conceal or mystify a deviation from a straight line.” [14] While serving as superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, the “amoral” Lee noted: “Young men must not expect to escape contact with evil, but must learn not to be contaminated by it. That virtue is worth but little that requires constant watching and removal from temptation.” [15] After the war, a young woman brought her newborn to meet Robert E. Lee. What life advice, she asked, did the General have for her son? Lee held the boy in his arms looking at him for a few moments before turning his gaze to the woman. He told her: “Madam, teach him he must deny himself.” [16] Reminiscent, isn’t it, of Jesus’s command in Matthew 16:24 and Luke 9:23?

A Devout Man

Doherty claims that Lee must not have been “especially religious” because, “except amid the exceptionally fearsome dangers of the war” Lee did not mention God very often. This is an interesting position to take given that Doherty makes it sound like a man demonstrates Christian faith by meeting a reference quota. Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have filled their books with references to God, but no one has ever credibly accused them of being Christians. [17] Moreover, to discount Lee’s wartime letters and actions artificially reduces the available evidence of Lee’s Christian faith. For example, in February of 1864, two pastors, J. William Jones and B.T. Lacy, visited Lee’s headquarters as representatives of the army’s Chaplain’s Association to ask the General to help promote Sunday religious observances by the soldiers. The following day, Lee issued General Order No. 15, encouraging “proper observance of the Sabbath,” limiting labor to that “strictly necessary,” and ordering inspections to be conducted at times that did not interfere with worship services. Lee had issued similar orders as early as July 1862. [18] When Jones and Lacy departed Lee’s headquarters, the latter clergyman told the General that the chaplains prayed for him fervently. Tears sprang into Lee’s eyes as he replied: “Please thank them for that, sir — I warmly appreciate it. I can only say that I am nothing but a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation, and need all of the prayers they can offer for me.” [19]

In his orders and announcements, Lee regularly thanked God for victory and urged humility and repentance in defeat. [20] Lee filled his letters home with prayers for God’s protection of his wife, daughters, sons, soldiers, and country. [21] In 1861, he wrote to his wife lamenting the contrast between the beauty of nature and the destruction of war: “What a glorious world Almighty God has given us. How thankless and ungrateful we are, and how we labour to mar his gifts.” [22] Indeed, Lee referenced God and His Providence so often in his orders and letters that biographer Gamaliel Bradford half-lamented, half-proclaimed: “[Lee] repeats it and repeats it with an inexhaustible, and I cannot help adding, and at times exasperating piety.” [23]

If wartime letters are inadmissible, perhaps some antebellum evidence will serve. One letter to Lee’s second son contains the following command: “Pray earnestly to God to enable you to keep His Commandments ‘and walk in the same all the days of your life.’” [24] In an 1851 letter to his eldest son, Lee wrote: “May you have many happy years, all bringing you an increase of virtue and wisdom, all witnessing your prosperity in this life, all bringing you nearer everlasting happiness thereafter. May God in His great mercy grant me this my constant prayer.” [25] When his youngest son was baptized, Lee celebrated in a letter to a relative: “I know you will sympathize in the joy I feel at the impression made by a merciful God upon the youthful heart of dear little Rob.” [26] After the war, parents often asked Lee to write letters of advice to their children. To one such lad he gave the following advice: “Above all things, learn at once to worship your Creator and to do His will as revealed in His Holy Book.” [27] Do irreligious men often commend the Bible to their own sons or to the offspring of complete strangers?

Doherty’s second reason for thinking Lee was not religious is that Lee did not appoint a college chaplain during his time as president of Washington College. It is true that Lee appointed no chaplain. There was no need. Lexington had four churches at the time, and four pastors: a Presbyterian, a Baptist, an Episcopalian, and a Methodist. These clergymen preached college chapel services on rotation. [28] Lee loaned Washington College $6,000 of his own money, some of which may have gone toward building the new chapel. [29] Chapel services were held every morning except Sundays when students were expected to attend worship at the denomination of their choice. Compulsory chapel attendance was abolished, but Lee attended every morning, hoping to inspire the students by his example. [30] Lee read the Bible daily and served as president of the Rockbridge County Bible Society, writing to a cousin: “I prefer the Bible to any other book…[it] teach[es] the only road to salvation and eternal happiness.” [31]

Lee’s faith was deep, but never humorless. When one of the chapel speakers got into the habit of running late and delaying classes, Lee quipped to a friend: “Would it be wrong for me to suggest that he confine his morning prayers to us poor sinners at the college, and pray for the Turks, the Jews, the Chinese, and the other heathen some other time?” [32] One is reminded of Christ’s command to refrain from praying publicly for the sake of being seen. [33] When the Episcopal rector lamented to Lee that many of the young Episcopalian students were attending the Presbyterian church, probably because their minister, Dr. Pratt, was a more eloquent and energetic preacher, Lee replied: “I think that the attraction is not so much Doctor Pratt’s eloquence as it is Doctor Pratt’s Grace.” Lee remembered something the dejected rector had overlooked: Dr. Pratt had a beautiful daughter named Grace. [34]

While exiting the chapel one day, Lee appeared pensive to a friend who asked him what was wrong. Lee replied: “I was thinking of my responsibility to Almighty God for these hundreds of young men.” [35] Lee was so interested in the work of the Young Men’s Christian Association that he included them first in his annual reports to the board of trustees, once remarking: “If I could only know that all the young men in the college were good Christians, I should have nothing more to desire. I dread the thought of any student going away from the college without becoming a sincere Christian.” [36] When new students arrived at Washington College, Lee found out which denomination they attended and introduced them to that denomination’s local pastor, sometimes providing the ministers with lists of students on whom to keep an eye. [37] Lee’s last public act was to donate money to his church so they could afford to pay the pastor’s salary. He walked home from the church, sat down at his dinner table, suffered what was probably a stroke, and died two weeks later. [38] Quite a record for a man who wasn’t very religious, isn’t it?

A Very Ordinary, Commonplace Man?

Quoting an unnamed Reconstruction-Era Mayor of New Orleans, Doherty says that Lee was “a very ordinary, commonplace man.” Does the claim hold water? Lee cared for his abandoned, invalided mother and ran the household from the time he was eleven years old. [39] Lee graduated second in his West Point class without incurring a single demerit (misconduct penalty). [40] Lee oversaw a project to change the course of the Mississippi River, thereby saving St. Louis, Missouri. [41] Lee served bravely and brilliantly during the Mexican War, driving himself to the end of his strength to gather and deliver vital military intelligence – intelligence without which the army probably could not have taken Mexico City. [42] In 1861, Lee took charge of Virginia’s non-existent military forces, raising, arming, equipping, and deploying 40,000 men in seven weeks. A quarter of the Southern troops at First Manassas were Virginians. [43] Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862, with Union troops at the gates of the Confederate capital. Three months later he had driven the Army of the Potomac away from Richmond, defeated a second federal army in Northern Virginia, and launched an incursion into Maryland. [44] After the war ended Lee worked to rebuild Virginia and promote reconciliation between North and South. [45] Lee also steadfastly refused to hate his enemies or be bitter toward them despite having every earthly reason to do so. [46] If only all men were so ordinary and commonplace!

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (the same Eisenhower who deployed the 101^st Airborne Division to desegregate public schools) had this to say of Lee:

General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation… Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history…From deep conviction, I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities…we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained. [47]

Robert E. Lee was an affectionate husband, a loving father, a brilliant soldier, an excellent educator, and a devout Christian. He was humble, courageous, generous, and loyal. He bore tragedy and defeat with good grace, quiet strength, and deep faith in the kind Providence of a loving God. Lee is exactly the sort of heroic figure young men need as examples for their own lives.

Citations

[1] Guelzo, Allen C. Robert E. Lee: A Life. New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 2021.

[2]  Freeman, Douglas Southall. R.E. Lee: A Biography, Volume I (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934), 371-373.

[3]  Dowdey, Clifford. The Land They Fought For (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1955), 14-22.

[4]  https://www.shenandoahatwar.org/heyward-shepherd After Brown was hanged, Southerners were shocked and horrified when prominent Northerners eulogized Brown as a martyr. For example, Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that Brown “will make the gallows as glorious as the cross.” See Emerson’s speech entitled “Courage,” given 7 November 1859.

[5]  Pryor, Elizabeth Brown. Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through His Private Letters. New York: Viking, 2007.

[6]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume I, 390-392. Even Thomas Connelly, whose 1977 book, The Marble Man was very critical of Lee and his image in American society, referred to the stories as accusations and “violent assaults” by “Northern newspapers.” See Marble Man, 183.

[7]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume I, 436-437.

[8]  Clifford Dowdey and Louis H. Manarin, eds. The Wartime Papers of R.E. Lee (1961. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1987), 10.

[9]  Dowdey and Manarin, Wartime Papers, 9-10.

[10]  Jones, J. William. Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1875), 163.

[11]  I Corinthians 13:4-7, NKJV.

[12]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume IV, 503.

[13]  Jones, Reminiscences of Lee, 145.

[14]  Jones, Reminiscences of Lee, 145.

[15]  Crocker, H.W. Robert E. Lee on Leadership (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999), 174.

[16]  Packard, Joseph. Recollections of a Long Life (Washington, D.C.: B.S. Adams, 1902), 158.

[17]  In fairness to The Hitch, there have been conflicting reports concerning a possible deathbed conversion. And yes, Dawkins has long referred to himself as a “cultural Christian.” The point stands.

[18]  Jones, J. William. Christ in the Camp, or Religion in Lee’s Army. (Richmond, VA: B.F. Johnson, 1888), 49.

[19]  Jones, Christ in the Camp, 49-50.

[20]  Jones, Christ in the Camp, 53-59.

[21]  Lee Jr., Robert E., Capt. Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 29-30, 35, 37, 41-42, 44-45, 48-68, 79-81, 88-89, 94, 96-98, 100-102, 112-114, 116-118, 123, 125-126, 133, 142-143, 146. Included in these letters are lamentations of the deaths his daughter, Annie (79-81), and of his daughter-in-law, Charlotte (117-118).

[22]  Lee Jr., Recollections and Letters, 38-39.

[23]  Bradford, Gamaliel. Lee the American, (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912), 245.

[24]  Lee Jr., Recollections and Letters, 16.

[25]  Hamilton, Joseph Gregoire de Roulhac. The Life of Robert E. Lee for Young Gentlemen (1917. Reprint. Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 2006), 70-72.

[26]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume I, 410, footnote 19.

[27]  Jones, Reminiscences of Lee, 411. On another occasion, a hopeful young resident of Lexington asked Lee to change churches so he could attend the lad’s Sunday School. Lee replied by encouraging the boy to study the Bible. See Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume IV, 268-269.

[28]  Riley, Franklin L. General Robert E. Lee After Appomattox (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1922), 62, 192.

[29]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume IV, 248, 267.

[30]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume IV, 282; Riley, Lee After Appomattox, 34, 66,  191.

[31]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume IV, 297-298. The society’s purpose was to replenish the county’s supply of Bibles, which had been gifted to the army during the war. See Preston, Margaret J. “Lee After the War.” The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, 38 (May-Oct. 1889), 275.

[32]  Jones, Reminiscences of Lee, 426-427.

[33]  Matthew 6:5-6, NKJV.

[34]  Riley, Lee After Appomattox, 62.

[35]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume IV, 276.

[36]  Riley, Lee After Appomattox, 25.

[37]  Jones, Reminiscences of Lee, 112.

[38]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume IV, 487-492, and Crocker, Lee on Leadership, 183.

[39]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume I, 33-38, 87.

[40]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume I, 82.

[41]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume I, 140-158, 170-183. Thanks to a shortfall in federal funding, the project was stopped halfway but the city of St. Louis finished it on its own initiative following Lee’s plans and advice and giving him most of the credit for their eventual success.

[42]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume I, 203-300.

[43]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume I, 521-522, 539-540.

[44]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume II, 75-376.

[45]  Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume IV, 188-506.

[46]  Long, Armistead L. Memoirs of Robert E. Lee (New York, J.M. Stoddart & Company, 1886), 302; Jones, Life and Letters, 156; Jones, Personal Reminiscences of Lee, 196-197; Freeman, R.E. Lee, Volume II, 342, 420-421, 475; Volume IV, 328-330.

[47]  https://www.civilwarprofiles.com/dwight-d-eisenhower-in-defense-of-robert-e-lee/ (Manuscript source is Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, “Dwight D. Eisenhower, Records as President, 1953-1961; White House Central Files, President’s Personal File Series, Box 743, Folder: PPF 29-S Lee, General Robert E.”)

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