Robert E. Lee was born on Jan. 19,1807, in Westmoreland County, Va., the same county that gave to the world George Washington and James Monroe. Though he was fatherless at eleven, the father's blood in him inclined him to the profession of arms, and when eighteen,--in 1825,--on an appointment obtained for him by General Andrew Jackson, he entered the Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1829, being second in rank in a class of forty-six. Among his classmates were two men whom one delights to name with him,--Ormsby M. Mitchell, later a general in the Federal army, and Joseph E. Johnston, the famous Confederate. Lee was at once made Lieutenant of Engineers, but, till the Mexican War, attained only a captaincy. This was conferred on him in 1838.
In 1831, Lee had been married to Miss Mary Randolph Custis, the grand-daughter of Mrs. George Washington. By this marriage he became possessor of the beautiful estate at Arlington, opposite Washington, his home till the Civil War. The union, blessed by seven children, was in all respects most happy.
In his prime, Lee was spoken of as the handsomest man in the army. He was about six feet tall, perfectly built, healthy, fond of outdoor life, enthusiastic in his profession, gentle, dignified, studious, broad-minded, and positively, though unobtrusively, religious. If he had faults, which those nearest him doubted, they were excess of modesty and excess of tenderness.
During the Mexican War, Captain Lee directed all the most important engineering operations of the American army,--a work vital to its wonderful success. Already, at the siege of Vera Cruz, General Scott mentioned him as having "greatly distinguished himself." He was prominent in all the operations thence to Cerro Gordo, where, in April, 1847, he was brevetted Major. Both at Contreras and at Churubusco he was credited with gallant and meritorious services. At the charge up Chapultepec, in which Joseph E. Johnston, George B. McClellan, George E. Pickett, and Thomas J. Jackson participated, Lee bore Scott's orders to all points until from loss of blood by a wound, and from the loss of two nights' sleep at the batteries, he actually fainted away in the discharge of his duty. Such ability and devotion brought him home from Mexico bearing the brevet rank of Colonel. General Scott had learned to think of him as "the greatest military genius in America."
In 1852 Lee was made Superintendent of the West Point Military Academy. In 1855 he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of Col. Albert Sidney Johnston's new cavalry regiment, just raised to serve in Texas. March, 1861, saw him Colonel of the First United States Cavalry. With the possible exception of the two Johnstons, he was now the most promising candidate for General Scott's position whenever that venerable hero vacated it, as he was sure to do soon.
On the initiative of Mississippi, a provisional Congress had met at Montgomery on Feb. 4, 1861, and created a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America. By March 11 a permanent constitution was drafted, reproducing that of the United States, with certain modifications. Slavery and State-sovereignty received elaborate guarantees. Bounties and protective tariffs were absolutely forbidden. Cabinet members had seats in Congress. Parts of appropriation bills could be vetoed. The presidential term was six years, and a president could not be re-elected. This constitution, having been ratified by five or more legislatures, was set in play by the provisional Congress. Virginia on seceding was taken into the Confederacy, and the Confederate capital changed from Montgomery to Richmond.
Lee was a Virginian, and Virginia, about to secede and at length seceding, in most earnest tones besought her distinguished son to join her. It seemed to him the call of duty, and that call, as he understood it, was one which it was not in him to disobey. President Lincoln knew the value of the man, and sent Frank Blair to him to say that if he would abide by the Union he should soon command the whole active army. That would probably have meant his election, in due time, to the presidency of his country. "For God's sake, don't resign, Lee!" General Scott--himself a Virginian--is said to have pleaded. He replied: "I am compelled to; I cannot consult my own feelings in the matter." Accordingly, on April 20, 1861, three days after Virginia passed its ordinance of secession, Lee sent to Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, his resignation as an officer in the United States army.
Few at the North were able to understand the Secession movement, most denying that a man at once thoughtful and honorable could join in it. So centralized had the North by 1861 become in all social and economic particulars, that centrality in government was taken as a matter of course. Representing this, the Nation was deemed paramount to any State. Governmental sovereignty, like travel and trade, had come to ignore State lines. The whole idea and feeling of State-sovereignty, once as potent North as South, had vanished and been forgotten.
Far otherwise at the South, where, owing to the great size of States and to the paucity of railways and telegraphs, interstate association was not yet a force. Each State, being in square miles ample enough for an empire, retained to a great extent the consciousness of an independent nation. The State was near and palpable; the central government seemed a vague and distant thing. Loyalty was conceived as binding one primarily to one's own State.
It is a misconception to explain this feeling--for in most cases it was feeling rather than reasoned conviction--by Calhoun's teaching. It resulted from geography and history, and, these factors working as they did, would have been what it was had Calhoun never lived.