Damage Them All You Can Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia

1861 ONE THE SOUTHERN COMMANDERS In both North and South the early months of 1861 clearly signaled the onset of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, viewed as a decisive victory for the abolitionists on the slavery issue, had splintered the traditional political parties and divided the nation as never before. Emancipation had become a creed, states' rights a dogma. By February 1, all the states of the Deep SouthSouth Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texashad seceded, and soon would form the core of the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, like many Southern leaders, vowed he would fight for secession if necessary. "I glory in Mississippi's star," he declared. "But before I would see it dishonored I would tear it from its place, to be set on the perilous ridge of battle as a sign around which her bravest and best shall meet the harvest home of death."1 Yet as late as March 4, making his inaugural address, Lincoln pressed for reconciliation. "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies," he implored. "Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living hearth and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 2 The shelling of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12 changed all that. Davis, now president of the Confederacy, ordered Pierre Beauregard, newly named brigadier in its army, to make the attack when the North tried to reinforce its garrison. The seceded states had occupied most of the Federal property within their borders, but a few strongholds remained, and Fort Sumter was one of them. Its surrender escalated hostilities. When Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion, Virginia and the states of the Upper South moved closer to secession themselves. No one watched these developments with more concern than Colonel Robert E. Lee, called back to Washington that spring by 75-year-old Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, hero of the Mexican War and long his mentor. On April 18, Lee crossed the long bridge over the Potomac from Arlington to the capital and kept two fateful appointments. The first was with Francis Preston Blair Sr., former editor of the influentialCongressional Globeand a power in Washington politics since the days of Andrew Jackson. Blair had already become a confidant of Lincoln, and had been authorized to offer Lee command of the force being mobilized to invade the South. "I told him what President Lincoln wanted him to do," he would say. "He wanted him to take command of the army." 3 After more than thirty years in service, inching his way up the promotional ladder, Lee must have been tempted; but he only shook his head. "If I owned the four million slaves of the South I would sacrifice then all to the Union," Blair would quote him as saying. "But how can I draw my sword against Virginia?"4 Lee later affirmed the conversation, saying, "I declined the offer, stating as candidly and as courteously as I could, that though opposed to secession and deprecating war, I could take no part in an invasion of the Southern States."5 Lee's next call was on General Scott, who was awaiting news of his decision. Scott, a Virginian but a staunch Unionist, would have liked nothing better than for Lee to accept field command of the embryonic army and later to succeed him. Known as "Fuss and Feathers" because of his attention to detail, he was ailing and obWalsh, George is the author of 'Damage Them All You Can Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia' with ISBN 9780765307552 and ISBN 0765307553.