The Civil War: Robert E. Lee to George Washington Custis Lee

January 23, 1861

While Robert E. Lee was serving as the acting commander of the Department of Texas at Fort Mason, in Texas, he wrote to his son George Washington Custis Lee of the events unfolding in the east—southern states beginning to secede amid antagonism from the north.

Of the country’s situation, Lee wrote that: “As far as I can judge by the papers, we are between a state of anarchy and civil war. May God avert both of these evils from us!”

He had seen that four states had announced their secession from the Union and “four more will apparently follow their example.” Then, if the border states, such as Maryland and Kentucky were “brought into the gulf of revolution, one-half of the country will be arrayed against the other”—the South against the North.

Lee agreed with his son that the South had “been aggrieved by the acts of the North.” He had felt the North’s aggression and was “willing to take every proper step for redress.” In his view, “[a]s an American citizen, I take great pride in my country, her prosperity and institutions, and would defend any State if her rights were invaded.” However, he could “anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union.”

Recognizing the detriments of such dissolution, he wrote that he was “willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation.” Lee went on: “The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will.”

Wistfully, he wrote that the “Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me.” He mourned for his “country and for the welfare and progress of mankind.” But, if the Union dissolved, “and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native State [Virginia] and share the miseries of my people, and save in defense will draw my sword on none.”