Lee, unfaithful?

[tulip]

The accusation that Lee was unfaithful to Mary Custis is based almost totally on the body of racy letters he wrote to his many women friends over the years most particularly to Markie Williams.

The letters are indiscreet and reveal a man whose true love was lost to him, but I do not believe they confirm an affair. My reasoning is two-fold.

1. Lee was not his notorious father Lighthorse Harry Lee nor his half-brother the prolifigate Blackhorse Harry Lee. In fact Robert, the dutiful son of Ann Hill Carter was determined to redeem the family reputation destroyed by his father and brother by living an exemplary life that would only cast a brilliant counterpoint to their scandalous affairs. His marriage to Mary Custis with her Washington connection, was I believe, a move to reclaim the patriotic legacy of the revolution that his father had squandered. It was Mary's name, her right to claim an inheritance from the father of the country rather than her charm or money or Arlington that prompted Robert to ask for her hand. He needed to link his family name once again to Washington as his father had once done and then destroyed with his notorious actions.

2. Markie was a relative of Mary's, which in the culture of the Southern elite precluded the crass betrayal of the family with a sordid affair. As a female relative she was to be protected, cosseted and admired from afar not compromised. While many men quite easily and readily ignored the societal prohibition against using a vulnerable woman, I can't believe that Robert would have done so no matter how much he wanted fulfillment. According to Catherine Clinton in her wonderful examination of southern womanhood <u>Plantation Mistress</u> such an affair would have been a penultimate dastardly deed.

Having said that, I do, however, believe that Markie Williams was Lee's true love in spirit if not in body. She offered him something that the dour, ill and poorly matched Mary could not and did not give Robert. Markie soothed Lee's soul in ways that are today difficult for us to understand. To my mind, it is the only explanation for the flowery letters and whimsy he consistently reserves only for Markie, never Mary.

[rallyround]

Wow. A lot to chew on there, Connie. Thanks.

[redeye]

To resurrect a slightly old thread, it may be that for a Lee fan it's better to think he had one great love apart from his wife, platonic (which seems likely, judging from this thread) or otherwise, than to think he just slept around. I don't think this affection for Markie would diminish his heroic stature, but then again I am only an admirer of his from afar, and maybe more strenuous fans would be more jealous of his reputation.

However this is something that always causes me to stop and think. How did these people (I'm not thinking necessarily of Lee) really behave when they were away from their wives? Maybe they did not have a mistress, but how about going to the brothel? Was it normally considered a venial sin, a natural vent, as sometimes I'm led to believe? I hope this does not sound morbid or gossipy, it's just an attempt to understand. As always I guess there must have been a variety of behaviours, but I wonder whether there was an unspoken tendency in one sense or the other, for example religious considerations pushing one to be virtuous, or the contrary.

[tulip]

I saw a stand-up comedian during the last presidential campaign that said after Gore was seen kissing Tippy behind stage, "What is this world coming to a presidential candidate caught kissing his wife!" We knew the inside joke because we had lived through the Clinton scandals, but you have to wonder how an historian will interpret it in the next millennium.

From my many explorations through letters, diaries and historical perspectives, I finally realized that "those people" were just like our people. "They" had the same hormones along with an identical range of emotional and sexual adjustments and maladjustments. The big difference is that "they" kept the closet door not only locked, but also better camouflaged.

Thomas Lowry in his book <u>The Story the Soldier Wouldn't Tell</u>called City Point VA headquarters the flagship of immorality. Lowry included an excerpt from a sanitary worker's letter. "They have laid out a village to the east where the railroad bends to the docks. Streets, signs and even corduroy sidewalks with gutters . . .There were three parallel streets about four blocks long. Each block there are about ten structures on either side. They are for the most part one-storied, northern log or clapboard make. The number of rooms are different. How many, I am not sure, since I have not been in any."

It seems the young man was scandalized that such an enclave of ill repute existed in camp. "I found that my conscience would not let it go unchallenged from me. I determined to see the place for myself, and to protest to General Grant in person." After providing details, the young man laments, "I have not yet been able to reach Grant to protest these matters." He does say that he was able to speak to Bowers who defended it "as necessary." [pages 28-29 -- Lowry's notes do not give the name of the sanitary worker nor does he report General Grant's position on the village.] More likely Grant turned a blind eye and it’s doubtful that Julia acknowledged its existence in polite conversation or at least "on the record." Knowing Julia she more likely made private jokes about it, however.

But someone, in fact, many some ones were visiting and buying the services or it would not have existed. As I pointed out in my Victorian women posting, sex was not unknown nor particularly hidden nor misunderstood. It was couched in euphemisms and misdirection to be sure, but it was there in front of society - advertised openly i.e. whorehouses, abortion options, birth control in the newspapers across the country .

In addition, it was a society much like ours with a double standard that snickered behind lace hankies about the proclivities of male wants and needs while pushing the ladies higher and higher on the pedestal. The irony is that women were gaining in many areas from the 1860s on, while at the same time a heavier and heavier veil was thrown over their own natural urges, which slowly developed into denial of its existence. Men were expected to do it, good women were expected to refrain.

The result of course was a cultural veneer of pretense. The ubiquitous Mary Chesnut of course made her famous entry in her diary describing the hypocrisy of miscegenation that ran rampant in the South. "Like the patriarchs of old our men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines, and the mulattoes one sees in every family exactly resemble the white children--and every lady tells you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household, but those in her own she seems to think they drop from the clouds, or pretends so to think." Let’s face few black Americans are untainted by white blood.

When antebellum and CW soldiers marched off, they were as my momma used to say, "red blooded boys" with all the raging hormones of any young lad. The epidemic numbers of VD in places like Nashville and throughout both armies attests to what they were doing when away from home. The excessive numbers of whore houses in both capital cities is proof that men were seeking relief and willing to pay for it.

In the antebellum army, it had to be even easier as men were posted in remote forts where whores were plentiful and Indian women available. In these places there were few respectable women or preachers to control the boys and the soldiers could indulge themselves without consequences and did. In other words, if a husband wanted it, he could and did get it wherever he was stationed.

After all there was no one to naysay him and little danger that the wife back home would find out. If she did get wind of his activities she most likely ignored it. Closing ranks to protect their own and fear of their own exposure would have kept the others at these posts mum on the topic and unlikely to blow the whistle. Plus there was a strong belief that these things were private and not fodder for the rumor mill and certain cultural prohibitions were respected even in war. For instance when Custer's letters from Libby were captured, they were returned with the packet still intact and obviously unread by rebel eyes. Men and women may have cackled and gossiped in their closed bedchambers, but few were willing to discuss it in the parlors.

Back to your original question, did all CW men mess around on their wives and sweethearts? Nah, not in my opinion. I'd be willing to bet the exact same percentage of extra curricular marital activity took place then as now. One codicil - women because of inadequate birth control were not as free to indulge and probably didn't in the same numbers as men unless they had chosen "the life."

[redeye]

Thanks, Connie, this is very enlightening. Yes, I too imagine that things didn't change much with the years, apart from women's position. One has to weigh carefully all reports. Imagine if one should judge our society from soap operas!

[rallyround]

Thanks for bringing this up again guys. I thought this thread had died down. It was the first one I started here at CWT!

[redeye]

It's a good thread, Aimee. Though I jokingly referred to "Civil War Gossip", it's definitely not gossip but a push towards once again musing about the truth of daily life in those times and the perception we have of historical figures. It intrigued me so much that I even dreamed of reading about Markie somewhere, and discovering that her affair with Lee had been confirmed! Now this means hanging around too much in CWT.

I am not saying at all that I agree with the fact that Lee was unfaithful to his wife Mary the mother of his seven children,but considering the amount of time he spent away from home on different army assignments assigned to him by the United States Army and as well as the time he spent away from his wife fighting the American,Mexican war.......yes it could be very possible he was unfaithful

[rallyround]

Possible, yes, as would have been the case with any other married person who was active in the army. I suppose the only reason this is so talked about is because of the hero Lee is seen as by so many people. What do you guys think? If it could be solidly proven that Lee was unfaithful, would your opinion of the man change?

[rivrrat]

Why does this keep coming up? There is no real evidence that he was unfaithful. If he was did it make him any less a great general? (Questions are rhetorical, please let this thread die the death it deserves.)