A Portrait in Letters (Newly Discovered Robert E. Lee)

The Washington Post ^ | July 12, 2007 | Peter Carlson

[RDTF]

Two old steamer trunks sit in the rare-book room at the Virginia Historical Society, looking worn and forlorn. The smaller one was once red but the paint has faded to a dull rust. The larger one is brown with a piece of tin patching a hole in the top. On one side, a name is stenciled: "M. LEE."

That's Mary Custis Lee, Gen. Robert E. Lee's adventurous eldest daughter. In 1917, she stored these wooden trunks in the "silver vault" in the basement of Burke & Herbert Bank & Trust in Alexandria. A year later, she died at the age of 83. Her trunks sat in a dusty corner of the vault for 84 years, unclaimed, until E. Hunt Burke, the bank's vice chairman, discovered them in 2002.

Burke called his high school classmate Rob E.L. deButts Jr., who is Robert E. Lee's great-great-grandson. Together, the two men descended into the vault. Burke carried a basket of old keys.

"The first one I pulled out was a perfect fit," he says.

The trunks were stuffed with Lee family papers -- a priceless cache of 4,000 letters, photographs and documents. DeButts carted them to the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, which houses the world's largest collection of Lee papers. He spent a week there, sitting at a desk in the research library, reaching into Mary Custis Lee's trunks and picking out treasures and trash.

-snip-

[khnyny]

I’m guessing WV.

The Greenbrier Resort there is quite nice!

[RobbyS]

Many people don’t know the difference between western Virginia and West Virginia. The boundary between Virginia and West Virginia is, I think, the only boundary between States that was determined by war.

[Non-Sequitur]

I believe it's likely there were more black regiments than officially recognized. I've met several descendants of black confederates and the stories handed down are amazing.

Sorry but I believe that is impossible, that there were no black combat regimentss and almost no black combat soldiers. And I base that on several reasons. One, the confederate government didn't authorize black combat units until March 1865. Two, as anyone who has read the OR will discover, the confederate military was well documented and almost all those documents survived the war. And nowhere in any of those confederate documents is there any mention of black combat units. Three, none of the major commanders of the time mention anything about black combat units in any of their letters or documents. And fourth, when black combat units finally were authorized Richard Ewell was placed in charge of the effort. And his longtime aide, Major George Brown, notes that a single company raised in Richmond were the first and only black troops used by the confederacy.

Black combat troops are a nice story but existed only on the Union side.

[Non-Sequitur]

The South, which exported agricultural products to and imported manufactured goods from Europe, favored free trade and was hurt by the tariffs.

So what was it that the South imported in such quantities, and what could they only get from Europe?

That’s when the South seceded, setting up a new government. Their constitution was nearly identical to the US. Constitution except that it outlawed protectionist tariffs, business handouts and mandated a two-thirds majority vote for all spending measures.

That didn't stop the confederacy from passing a tariff that was protectionist in nature, or from ignoring their constitution in other areas whenever it was convenient.

By destroying the states’ right to secession, Abraham Lincoln opened the door to the kind of unconstrained, despotic, arrogant government we have today, something the framers of the Constitution could not have possibly imagined.

Utter nonsense.

[lovecraft]

And to this day, the arguments that led us there before, still divide us.

As a Southerner, I believe the War ended as it was supposed to, by God's will. But I will NEVER believe that the war was fought over what we were indoctrinated to believe that it was. There is just too much contradictory evidence.
I believe in our current government politicians (D as well as R) less now than I ever have. I will believe in it less, if that's possible, if Hillary or Obama get elected. What makes you think I believe in Lincoln's government, or the government's that followed that have propagated this view? People still hate Southerners for having the audacity to try to leave this nation. I dare to say, given the option, many would do so again. To stand or fall on our own.
That is the American way.

[khnyny]

Very good! Of course, many “boundaries” are only determined by war.

[toddlintown]

Trash?

[toddlintown]

That in the Bizzaro World.

[khnyny]

Good post. Of course, the American psyche is the independent thinker, the oddball intellectual, the pioneer, the inventor. Those roles define and enhance what we traditionally think of as “the American way”. It gives us the power to “create”. Personally, I think there is much evidence to support the fact that the “South” is one of last remaining outposts of what could be called “patriotism”. Funny isn’t it - the Government is now fighting against the traditional “Northeasterners” who were the hero’s of the CW.

[joebuck]

I blew the old i before e thingy. It’s the keyboard’s fault....yeah the keyboard. I just washed it and I can’t do a THING with it.

[khnyny]

LOL. Thanks for being such a good sport with a great sense of humour. I’m just an anal, well, you know.

[puroresu]

I wish I had a dollar for every typo I’ve made here at FR. I could retire with ease!

[Eva]

Wow, that’s exciting.

My grandmother had some similar trunks that had belonged to my grandfather’s mother. Her husband was only a major in the Union Army, from NY, though.

Unfortunately, she sold most of it to a museum or collector, after her stock broker churned her retirement account into oblivion. She had more than just letters. She had his uniform and sword and an old leather doll. I have the picture album and the history of the family that his mother wrote about 1918. He is not my blood grandfather, though, and I can’t find any living members of the family.

[elfman2]

"I think your answer is somewhat simplistic."

I think promoting reconcilable issues such as tariffs and shipping to primary importance in the civil war, while ignoring the 6000lb elephant in the room is a stretch.

All wars are about money and control as you say. Slavery and the disparate N/S economies created a host of divergent interests. In the 1858 House Divided Speech, Lincoln campaigned to "arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction". He wasn’t talking about tariff opposition. But Southern economic interests and culture demanded more protection of slavery than that.

"That’s when the South seceded, setting up a new government. Their constitution was nearly identical to the US. Constitution except that it outlawed protectionist tariffs, business handouts and mandated a two-thirds majority vote for all spending measures… " … and enacted constitutional protection of slavery, over any potential objection under states rights to eliminate it within their boundaries.

The VP of the confederacy said slavery was the "cornerstone of the Confederacy" upon succession, but changed his mind and claimed the war was about “states rights” after their defeat. This really isn’t difficult to see through. As wars go, that one really was that simple.

[stainlessbanner]

There are enough credible sources to verify the existence of black confederates. My favorite is W.C. Davis' acknowledgment of black troops despite his criticism of the CSA government.

Tell the gentleman I sat next to at the Lee-Jackson banquet a couple of years ago his gr-grandaddy wasn't a Confederate soldier and you'd have a fight on your hands!

[RobbyS]

Not that simple. The issue of states rights raised strong impediments to the efficient conduct of the war. Davis wanted a more centralized control, but Stephens and others were opposed to this, including many governors. One reason why the North won was central command. . Lincoln had wanted to convey such authority on Halleck, but Halleck could not or world not. But in Grant he found his generalissimo. Lee never had such authority.

[alfa6]

marker bump

[khnyny]

I beg to differ, nothing is ever all that simple.

[rustbucket]

... there were no black combat regimentss and almost no black combat soldiers. And I base that on several reasons. One, the confederate government didn't authorize black combat units until March 1865. Two, as anyone who has read the OR will discover, the confederate military was well documented and almost all those documents survived the war.

Just because the Feds segregated blacks into separate units in the Federal army doesn't mean they fought that way in various state troops on the Confederate side. From an 1862 report in the Official Records by Lt. Col. J. G. Parkhurst, Ninth Regiment Michigan Infantry about the battle of July 13, 1862 at Murfreeborough, Tennessee:

The forces attacking my camp were the First Regiment Texas Rangers, Colonel Wharton, and a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers, Colonel Morrison, and a large number of citizens of Rutherford County, many of whom had recently taken the oath of allegiance to the United States Government. There were also quite a number of negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day.

I don't know if the blacks were officially counted as soldiers or not. You might ask the Federal troops they helped whip at Murfreeborough. From the Confederate report of the battle:

Attacked Murfreesborough 5 a. m. last Sunday morning; captured two brigadier-generals, staff and field officers, and 1,200 men; burnt $200,000 worth of stores; captured sufficient stores with those burned to amount to $500,000 and brigade of 60 wagons; 300 mules, 150 or 200 horses, and field battery of four pieces; destroyed the railroad and depot at Murfreesborough. Had to retreat to McMinnville, owing to large number of prisoners to be guarded. Our loss 16 or 18 killed; 25 or 30 wounded. Enemy's loss 200 or 300.

[rustbucket]

Two, as anyone who has read the OR will discover, the confederate military was well documented and almost all those documents survived the war.

I forgot to comment on this point of yours. It is not always as easy as that. Confederate muster rolls from west of the Mississippi did not always survive or were not complete or updated versions of them with late joiners never made it to Richmond.

For a long time we tried to find the Confederate units of a couple of my Texas great great grandfathers after whom I'm named. Eventually we came across the wartime diary of one of them in another branch of the family. It identified his unit, and with that information we were able to find him on some regimental returns. He had a common name, and there were something like ten people with that name in Texas Confederate units. That is why we never could identify his unit before.

We found the unit of the other one in his Confederate pension application. The application was approved after his former commander swore in an affidavit that he had been part of the unit. We always though he was part of that unit -- two of his brothers were on the muster roll of the unit, but my ancestor was too young to join until 1864, after the surviving muster roll was recorded.