The following is a synopsis of the views of Robert E. Lee on secession in the 4 months before he resigned his commission in the US Army.
Largely taken from William Southall Freeman's work on Lee:
-----
Letter to his son Custis, December 14, 1860:
"It is, however, my only hope for the preservation of the Union, and I will cling to it to the last. Feeling the aggressions of the North, resenting their denial of the equal rights of our citizens to the common territory of the commonwealth, etc., I am not pleased with the course of the 'Cotton States,' as they term themselves. In addition to their selfish, dictatorial bearing, the threats they throw out against the 'Border States,' as they call them, if they will not join them, argue
[sic] little for the benefit While I wish to do what is right, I am unwilling to do what is wrong, either at the bidding of the South or the North. One of their plans seems to be the renewal of the slave trade. That I am opposed to on every ground. . . .
-----
[Note: Winfield Scott had sent Anderson to Texas with a pamphlet showing scott's views, asking him to share it with Twiggs, Lee, and such other officers as Anderson saw fit, and to report their impressions. This is after Lee has read the pamphlet, and after Twiggs in San Antonio had. About mid-December, before Lee left San Antonio for Ft. Mason on the 19th.]
He accordingly sent for Anderson, who called in company with Doctor Willis G. Edwards. Lee returned him the pamphlet. "My friend," said he, "I must make one request of you, and that is, that you will not suffer these
Views to get into the newspapers." Anderson promised, though he did not understand why Lee was so solicitous on this point. The conversation then shifted, inevitably, to the crisis. Anderson spoke out vigorously. Lee remarked, "Somebody surely is grievously at fault, probably both factions." Anderson, strongly Federalist in his views, answered that he had previously thought both sides were to blame, but that he had concluded there was a definite conspiracy against the Union, by men who were only alleging abolition as an excuse. Lee made no answer. Then Doctor Edwards raised the question whether a man's allegiance was due his state or the nation. Lee's courteous reticence vanished. Instantly he spoke out, and unequivocally. He had been taught to believe, he said, and he did believe that his first obligations were due Virginia.
-----
Lee to Markie Williams, Jan. 22 1861: "... I wish to live under no other government, and there is no sacrifice I am not ready to make for the preservation of the Union save that of honour. If a disruption takes place, I shall go back in sorrow to my people and share the misery of my native state, and save in her defence there will be one soldier less in the world than now. I wish for no other flag than the 'Star spangled banner' and no other air than 'Hail Columbia.' I still hope that the wisdom and patriotism of the nation will yet save it. "
-----
Freeman's opinion from the book:
On the convictions expressed in his talk with Anderson, and on those set forth in these letters, which were written nearly three months before he resigned from the army, the whole of Lee's subsequent course was based. He refused to despair until the very last hour, but he believed that the country stood between anarchy, through the dissolution of the Union, and war, through secession. Like Buchanan, he regarded secession as nothing but revolution. Prior to the war, he never believed in secession as a right. In January, 1861, it was not justified in his opinion, even as revolution, but if it came, he would not serve a Union that had to be maintained by force.
The plain inference from the concluding sentence of the second letter quoted above is that if secession destroyed the Union, Lee p423 intended to resign from the army and to fight neither for the South nor for the North, unless he had to act one way or the other in defense of Virginia. In this, he showed that he was no constitutional lawyer. Apparently he did not stop to reason that Virginia could not be neutral in a war between the states, but must either fight with the North against the South or with the South against the North. Perhaps his optimism and his devotion to the Union led him to close his mind to this hard logic of action. But Mrs. Lee correctly stated his position when she said, "From the first commencement of our troubles he had decided that in the event of Virginia's secession, duty . . . would compel him to follow." In the light of his own words and hers, it is hard to understand why it has been so widely believed that he waited until the secession of Virginia to determine what he would do.There is not the slightest doubt that before he left Texas he had decided, without any mental struggle, or thought of personal gain or loss, to stand with Virginia, though he hoped with all his heart that the Union would be preserved.
-----
Lee starting on his way back to Washington, February 13, 1860:
As the vehicle was about to start, one of Lee's young officers asked: "Colonel, do you intend to go South or remain North? I am very anxious to know what you propose doing."
"I shall never bear arms against the Union," Lee answered simply, "but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in the defense of my native state, Virginia, in which case I shall not prove recreant to my duty."
-----
Lee on the road to San Antonio, lunching with Captain Cosby of his command, is asked about what will happen. Captain Cosby:
"He further said that he had confidence that Virginia would not act on impulse, but would act as she had in the past, and would exhaust every means consistent with honor to avert civil war. That, if she failed and determined to secede, he would offer her his services. That he had ever been taught that his first allegiance was due his mother State; that he fervently hoped that some agreement would be reached to avert such a terrible war; and there was no personal sacrifice he would not make to save his beloved country from such a dreadful calamity; but under no circumstance could he ever bare his sword against Virginia's sons. As he spoke his emotion brought tears to his eyes, and he turned away to avoid showing this emotion which was greater than he afterwards showed when he lost or won some great battle."
-----
Lee about February 16-18, after arriving in San Antonio and finding the Texans had seized the post and caused Twiggs to surrender (from Freeman):
Either then or a day or two later, while he was trying to make arrangements to travel to the coast, the Texas commissioners bluntly told Lee that if he would forthwith resign his commission and join the Confederacy, he should have every facility, but that if he refused he would not be allowed transportation for his effects. Holding that his allegiance was to Virginia and to the Union, not to any revolutionary government in Texas, Lee was indignant at such a proposal.
-----
Lee as he prepared to leave anyway, entrusting his property to Charles Anderson (from Freeman):
On their way thither, or as they prepared to separate, Lee thought he should make his position still plainer to the man who was helping him. He asked if Anderson remembered their conversation in the presence of Doctor Edwards some time previously? Anderson recalled it distinctly. Lee then said: "I think it but due to myself to say that I cannot be moved by the conduct of those people from my sense of duty. I still think, as I then told you and Doctor Edwards, that my loyalty to Virginia ought to take precedence over that which is due the Federal Government. And I shall so report myself at Washington. If any stands by the old Union, so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for revolution), then I will still follow my native state with my sword, and if need be with my life. I know you think and feel very differently, but I can't help it. These are my principles, and I must follow them."
-----
Freeman on what might have happened had Lee still held the command in Texas instead of Twiggs:
In sad reflection on the political tragedy he was witnessing, Lee slept little that first night in San Antonio, and it must have been with some difficulty that he met curious inquiries with the statement that he was neutral in the controversy between Texas and the Union. By discretion and silence he avoided a commitment that might have had a momentous effect on his own career and on the whole course of the war. For what might not have happened if he had been in command of the department instead of Twiggs when the Texans demanded surrender? His own state had not seceded; he would have had no hesitancy in obeying the orders of the War Department; he certainly would have refused to surrender government property. Would he then have clashed with the Texans? Would he have been the first to face secession fire? The experience of Colonel Waite indicates that it might have been so. Waite was soon at odds with the Texans. They refused him transportation, and, on April 23, arrested him and several of his officers as prisoners of war, though they promptly paroled them.
[Note: I have seen other works that say many of the officers in Texas at the time speculated on this, on what would have happened if Lee -- not the 70-year-old Twiggs, a strong state's rights man, who arrived intending to return to New Orleans -- had been in command. Some of the younger officers believed Lee would have cut his way through the Texans and marched for Kansas.]
-----
Travelling homeward through a country in an uproar, Lee arrived in Alexandria on March 1 and went to Arlington.
Lee then visited Scott. The two spoke behind closed doors for three hours, and neither ever reported the conversation to anyone else. This was apparently early March.
-----
From Freeman:
All the while Scott probably was quietly at work, seeing if he might not hold Lee to the Union. Keyes thought that Scott did not expect Lee to fight against the South, but that the General believed it possible to put Lee at the head of an army so powerful that war could be prevented. General Twiggs was dismissed from the army on March 1 for his surrender of Texas. Colonel E. V. Sumner of the 1st Cavalry was named brigadier general to succeed him on March 16. Lee was at once made colonel and was given Sumner's regiment. This commission, which was signed by Abraham Lincoln, Lee did not hesitate to accept when, on March 28, it was forwarded to him.
[Note: at this time, Lee received an offer of a generalship in the Confederate Army from Secretary of War Leroy P. Walker. All evidence is that he ignored it, or at least that no one ever could find a reply. Freeman's opinion: "He owned allegiance to only two governments, that of Virginia and that of the Union, and there could be no thought of a third so long as these two did not conflict and Virginia did not throw in her destiny with the Confederate States. "
-----
More from Freeman: "... On April 4 a test vote in the Virginia convention showed a majority of two-to-one against secession. ... But during those days of suspense, Lee was confirmed in his point of view. He had been determined from the outset that he would adhere to Virginia and defend her from any foe. Now, fully, he realized that though he considered secession neither more nor less than revolution, he could not bring himself to fight against the states that regarded secession as a right. He could not think of himself as fighting with the South against the Union, unless Virginia's defense were involved, but neither, as the possibility seemed to be brought nearer, could he reconcile himself to fighting with the Union against the South. ..."
-----
Then we come to the Confederate attack on Ft. Sumter, surrendered on the 14th. Lincoln calls for militia on the 15th. The nation is in an uproar, wild rumors abound. Virginia's secession convention goes into secret session, which is all Lee knows. On the 17th, Lee is called to meet with Blair and Scott in Washington. Blair offers him the command of a large field army. Lee: "I declined the offer he made me to take command of the army that was to be brought into the field, 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."
[Note: Ft. Sumter has been attacked and Lincoln has called for troops. Lee still says he is opposed to secession.]
-----
Lee then goes to see Scott. He tells him what transpired with Blair. Scot says: "Lee, you have made the greatest mistake of your life; but I feared it would be so." Scott says: "There are times when every officer in the United States service should fully determine what course he will pursue and frankly declare it. No one should continue in government employ without being actively employed." Scott says: "I suppose you will go with the rest. If you purpose to resign, it is proper that you should do so at once; your present attitude is equivocal."
-----
Lee then meets with his brother Smith. They talk of what to do, but neither seems to wish to take a final step just then. Lee rides back to Arlington.
Amid the rumors, Lee rides into town on the morning of the 19th and sees the news: Virginia has seceded! Lee's only recorded observation, to a druggist as he paid a bill: "I must say that I am one of those dull creatures that cannot see the good of secession."
No choice now. Lee has said he will follow Virginia, and Virginia has seceded:
Arlington, Virginia (Washington City P.O.)
20 April 1861.
Hon. Simon Cameron
Secty of War
Sir:
I have the honor to tender the resignation of my commission as Colonel of the 1st Regt. of Cavalry. Very resp'y Your Obedient Servant.
R. E. Lee
Col 1st
Cav'y.
-----
Lee never believed in any "right of secession" before the war. He always thought it was simply revolution. But he saw his allegiance as belonging to Virginia, and so with Virginia he went.
Regards,
Tim
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Robert E. Lee's view of secession, late 1860- early 1861 
Linear Mode
