Those who mistakenly believe Lee's letter to Seddon refers to Milroy, we've already seen how that is not so:
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/ga...vil-war-monuments.123621/page-11#post-1342385
As I wrote later in that thread:
Let's look at the words Lee uses:
"In view of the vast increase of the forces of the enemy,
of the savage and brutal policy he has proclaimed, which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death, if we would save the honor of our families from pollution, our social system from destruction, let every effort be made, every means be employed, to fill and maintain the ranks of our armies."
When they referred to Milroy, they referred to him not as "the enemy," but as Milroy. "the vast increase of the forces of the enemy" clearly refers to the United States as a whole, not to Milroy who had not received a "vast increase" in his forces. Since that clearly refers to the United States, "of the savage and brutal policy he has proclaimed" also refers to the United States.
"Savage and brutal policy": As I showed, the confederates never referred to Milroy's orders as a policy. They sought to determine if it was a policy and found out it wasn't, which satisfied them.
"He has proclaimed": Lincoln's proclamation. Again, "he" refers to the national enemy, the United States. Lincoln, as president, makes the proclamations for the nation.
"No alternative but success or degradation worse than death." Nothing in Milroy's orders can pertain to this. Here's an example of how those words were used: "If the policy of the Republicans is carried out, according to the programme indicated by the leaders of the party, and the South submits, degradation and ruin must overwhelm alike all classes of citizens in the Southern States. The slave-holder and non-slave-holder must ultimately share the same fate --- all be degraded to a position of equality with free negroes, stand side by side with them at the polls, and fraternize in all the social relations of life; or else there will be an eternal war of races, desolating the land with blood, and utterly wasting and destroying all the resources of the country. Who can look upon such a picture without a shudder? What Southern man, be he slave-holder or non-slave-holder, can without indignation and horror contemplate the triumph of negro equality, and see his own sons and daughters, in the not distant future, associating with free negroes upon terms of political and social equality, and the white man stripped, by the Heaven-daring hand of fanaticism of that title to superiority over the black race which God himself has bestowed? In the Northern States, where free negroes are so few as to form no appreciable part of the community, in spite of all the legislation for their protection, they still remain a degraded caste, excluded by the ban of society from social association with all but the lowest and most degraded of the white race. But in the South, where in many places the African race largely predominates, and, as a consequence, the two races would be continually pressing together, amalgamation, or the extermination of the one or the other, would be inevitable. Can Southern men submit to such degradation and ruin? God forbid that they should." [Stephen F. Hale of Alabama to Gov. Beriah Magoffin of Kentucky, 27 December 1860]
Another example can be seen here, where "worse than death" is seen as a white woman raped by a black slave:
https://books.google.com/books?id=V...um South degradation worse than death&f=false
"save the honor of our families from pollution": Again, nothing in Milroy's orders has anything to do with this. Lee is talking about all of the confederacy, not the Shenandoah Valley. This is another reference to interracial sexual relations.
"our social system from destruction": This is a clear reference to the institution of slavery.
See also this from historian John Hennessy:
https://fredericksburghistory.wordp...ee-responds-to-the-emancipation-proclamation/