Pretty harsh, Cash. The Reverend not black enough for you?
His account doesn't hold water. This group has discussed this phony account before.
Combining my comments with observations by "Horace Porter:"
"I was cook for Marse Robert, as I called him, during the civil war and his body servant. I was with him at the first battle of Bull Run, second battle of Bull Run, first battle of Manassas, second battle of Manassas and was there at the fire of the last gun for the salute of the surrender on Sunday, April 9, 9 o'clock, A. M., at Appomatox, 1865."
R. E. Lee wasn't at First Bull Run/First Manassas, and they are the same battle, as are 2nd Bull Run/2nd Manassas. This account makes it seem as those are all four separate battles. And how many confederate guns saluted Lee's surrender?
"The onliest time that Marse Robert ever scolded me," said William Mack Lee, "in de whole fo' years dat I followed him through the wah, was, down in de Wilderness--Seven Pines-- near Richmond. I remembah dat day jes lak it was yestiday. Hit was July the third, 1863."
R. E. Lee was otherwise occupied in Pennsylvania on July 3, 1863 and wasn't anywhere near the Wilderness or Seven Pines.
"On dat day--July the third--we was all so hongry and I didn't have nuffin in ter cook, dat I was jes' plumb bumfuzzled. I didn't know what to do. Marse Robert, he had gone and invited a crowd of ginerals to eat wid him, an' I had ter git de vittles. Dar was Marse Stonewall Jackson, and Marse A. P. Hill, and Marse D. H. Hill, and Marse Wade Hampton, Gineral Longstreet, and Gineral Pickett and sum others."
It must have been a very smelly meal if they brought Stonewall Jackson's body with them to eat a meal with it while they were in Pennsylvania. Interesting that they brought D. H. Hill back for the meal, too.
He claims to have been raised at Arlington, but his name doesn't appear on the list of slaves at Arlington. He claims to have been a slave of Lee's, but I find no other case where an identified slave of Lee's took Lee's last name. I've yet to find any documentation that puts William Mack Lee together with Robert E. Lee at any time.
"Having stayed on Marse Robert's plantation 18 years after the war and with limited schooling, "
Did R. E. Lee have a plantation after the war? And 5 years after the war Marse Robert was dead. Arlington was a cemetery.
On page 5 of the account: Lee claims that after his 1881 ordination, he built the Third Baptist Church in Washington, DC for $3,000, pastored two years, and increased the membership from 20 to 500. But the church's website says it was built in 1885 under Rev. William B. Jefferson, with Patrick Umbles as interim. The next pastor was a Rev. Lee - James H. Lee, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, who formerly served as church clerk:
http://www.thirdbaptistchurch.org/history.html
Cromwell's history states that the church was completed in 1893, and cost $26,000, and that under James Lee around 200 members were added:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/cromwell/cromwell.html (p.88)
Two years after building another unnamed D.C. church (and increasing *its* membership from 8 to 200), our Rev. Lee says he then built a church at "Cantorsville, Maryland", where in four years he increased membership from 12 to 365. I couldn't find a "CaNTORsville," although there is a CaTONsville (perhaps this is a printing or scanning transcription error).