Robert E. Lee's Wife Writes Friend Across Potomac in Washington as Nation Descends into Civil War

In this fascinating letter, Mary Custis Lee expresses her anger at the Lincoln administration and pride in her husband's stand "to defend" Virginia. Within days, she evacuated Arlington House and went to one of the other family plantations. The recipient of her letter is Rev. R. R. Gurley, the long-time corresponding secretary of the American Colonization Society and a friend of Mary Custis Lee, her husband, and her father.

MARY CUSTIS LEE, Autograph Letter Signed, to Ralph R. Gurley, [April 26, May 3, or May 10], 1861, Arlington, Virginia. 3 pp., 5.5" x 9.25". With autograph of ROBERT E. LEE clipped from a letter to his wife closed, "affectionately yours" pasted to third page.

Complete Transcript
Friday
My dear friend
I received your letter today & will forward it immediately to Genl Lee, but his office now is to defend his state, not to control its votes. What it has cost him to resign his situation in the Army of the U. States is known to the Searcher of Hearts who can appreciate the purity & disinterestedness of his motives. He has relinquished the most flattering offers of advancement from the government the security of his home & family to aid those oppressed by "the Union" we would freely have laid down our lives to preserve. It no longer exists, it is an empty name, its flag dishonoured by those who furl it. Surrounded as you are in Washington by a military despotism, you can scarcely be expected to see thro' the infectious atmosphere. I send you a paper that may open your eyes to some truths. Please return it to me thro' Mical as I wish to send it to a friend. The Washington papers are completely silenced. I scarcely think if poor Mr Gales was alive he would have condescended to fill his columns with details of the fine appearances of the Northern troops sent to overrun the South. The defence of the Capitol is a mere pretext I do not believe it is has ever been seriously threatened except by news-paper paragraphs I wish the South had taken it before it had been so polluted as it now is & which they might easily have done when all the authorities there were in such a panic It would at least have been saved from desecration. You know my dear friend that I have no prejudices against the North I have lived there many years, have admired its energy, its progress & seen the advantages it possessed over us in its free institutions I have many friends there, & you know how this house has always been open to receive them, this house that I hear now has been reconnoitred for a military position for the Northern troops who are to overrun Virginia, I have for the last 10 days in consequence of the urgent entreaties of my friends been engaged in packing every thing we possessed of value especially all our Mount Vernon relics & sending them away, but except for the fear of adding one feather to my husband's weight of care & keeping my son at home I would never leave it & shall not do so now if they will permit me to remain no other power not the whole Northern Army would move me.
excuse me for writing so warmly when trouble comes to our homes we are apt to feel it. I shall be very happy to hear from you or to see you if you can come over. At any rate remember me affectionately to your family & tell me how they are.
I will tell Mical to call at your house on Monday morning as he comes over. Please have the paper & an answer ready for me & send me any colonization papers that may be due
yrs in sorrow
M C Lee

[Pasted on:]
affectionately yours
R E Lee
Mrs M. C. Lee

[Address:] Revd R. R. Gurley / Washington

[Docketing:] Mrs. Lee's letter / 1861.

Historical Background
As war loomed between the North and the South, Robert E. Lee denounced secession as "revolution" and unconstitutional but he believed peaceful separation might be necessary. He rejected abolitionists' objections to slavery as an institution and supported the Crittenden Compromise. Ultimately, his opposition to secession was outweighed by his sense of personal honor. Although he would not voluntarily fight against the Union, he would defend his native state of Virginia.

He was relieved when Virginia rejected secession early in 1861. General Winfield Scott, the commanding general of the U.S. Army and Lee's mentor, had great confidence in Lee's abilities. On March 28, 1861, Lee accepted a promotion to colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry and again swore an oath to the United States. He also declined an offer of command from the Confederacy. However, the environment quickly changed. After the Confederate assault on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12 and President Abraham Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion, Virginia held a second convention in Richmond on April 17 that voted for secession. Knowing that it was likely to be approved by a referendum on May 23, Lee reluctantly resigned his commission in the U.S. Army on April 20. Within days, he was in command of all of Virginia's army and naval forces. Soon afterward, he became one of the first five full generals in the Confederate States Army.

Although Mary Custis Lee simply wrote "Friday" and did not date this letter, her husband resigned his commission on April 20, and she evacuated Arlington House on May 15, leaving only three Fridays in late April and early May on which she could have written this letter. Her husband wrote to her from Richmond on April 26 that "War is inevitable, and there is no telling when it will burst around you.... You have to move and make arrangements to go to some point of safety which you must select. The Mount Vernon plate and pictures ought to be secured." The federal army occupied Arlington House and its surroundings on May 25, 1861.

In this letter, Mary Custis Lee also mentions "Mr. Gales," who had died nine months earlier. Joseph Gales (1786-1860) became a partner in publishing the National Intelligencer in Washington, D.C., in 1809. Beginning in 1812, Gales and his brother-in-law William Winston Seaton (1785-1866) were the newspaper's publishers for nearly fifty years, and it became the dominant newspaper of the capital. Gales and Seaton were also the official printers of Congress from 1819 to 1829. From the 1830s to the 1850s, the National Intelligencer was one of the nation's leading Whig newspapers, with conservative, unionist principles.

Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee (1807-1873) was born in Virginia as the great-granddaughter of Martha Custis Washington and therefore step-great-granddaughter of George Washington. The only surviving child of her parents, she was pampered and well-educated. Like her mother, she taught enslaved people how to read and write, and she supported gradual emancipation and colonization in Africa but opposed abolitionism and racial equality. In 1831, she married her third cousin, Lt. Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) of the U.S. Army, and they had seven children. After the death of her father George Washington Parke Custis, she edited and published his writings in 1859. She also inherited Arlington House from him, which she only evacuated on May 15, 1861. When trapped behind Union lines at her son's plantation east of Richmond in May 1862, Union Major General George B. McClellan allowed her to pass through the lines into Richmond. After the war, she lived with her husband in Lexington, where he was president of Washington College from October 1865 until his death.

Ralph Randolph Gurley (1797-1872) was born in Connecticut and graduated from Yale College in 1818. He soon moved to Washington, D.C., where he was licensed to preach as a Presbyterian. In 1822, he began work with the American Colonization Society (ACS), for which he acted as agent and secretary until his death fifty years later. He also served as chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1829 to 1833 and again from 1847 to 1851. The ACS included among its members a heterogenous mix of slaveholders and abolitionists committed to transporting free and freed African Americans to a colony in western Africa. Through his efforts in promoting the ACS, Gurley is considered one of the founders of the nation of Liberia, which he named. Gurley also edited for 25 years the African Repository and Colonial Journal, the official publication of the ACS, published from 1825 to 1892.


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