dlofting
2nd Lieutenant
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2013
- Location
- Vancouver, BC, Canada
Lee's father-in-law, George Custis died in 1857. He had made Lee the executor of his will. This would be the only time in his life that Lee would have complete responsibility for the management of slaves. The following is excerpted from Lee (Abridged Version) by Douglas Southall Freeman, published in 1961 by Charles Scribner's Sons.
Lee soon found that Mr. Custis's will had put a heavy burden on him.
He had to discharge all the duties of settling a troublesome estate under a complicated testament. Mr. Custis had drawn up the paper in 1855, apparently without consulting counsel. He left Mrs. Lee a life interest in Arlington and its contents and in adjacent properties. On her demise all this property except the minor plate was to pass in fee to Custis Lee, "he my eldest grandson taking my name and arms." His "White House" plantation of 4000 acres in New Kent County, Mr. Custis left to Rooney Lee, and the "Roman cock" property of like acreage he bequeathed to his youngest grandson, Robert E. Lee, Jr. To Colonel Lee he left a lot in Washington City. Each granddaughter was to receive $10,000. One paragraph of the will provided that Smith's Island, off Northampton County, and sundry lands in Stafford, Richmond, and Westmoreland Counties, should be sold to provide these legacies. Another section said that these properties and "my estates of the White-House in the County of New Kent and Romancock in the County of King William" were to be "charged with the payment of the legacies to my granddaughters." The will then read: "Smith's Island and the aforesaid lands in Stafford, Richmond and Westmoreland only are to be sold, the lands of the White House and Romancock to be worked to raise the aforesaid legacies to my four granddaughters." All the Custis slaves were to be emancipated, "the said emancipation to be accomplished in not exceeding five years from the time of my decease."
The courts manifestly would be required to construe this document and to determine the nature and extent of the liens on White House and Romancock. The beneficiaries under the will were of the same family. If, therefore, all went well and the miscellaneous landed properties yielded enough to pay the greater part of the legacies without draining the White House and Romancock for too long a time, a settlement would be a matter of no great difficulty. The immediate trouble was that Mr. Custis left more than $10,000 of debts and virtually no money with which to operate the estate. He had always been a negligent farmer and an easygoing master, and he had become more careless as he had grown older. His Arlington tract of 1100 acres was sadly "run down." Instead of inheriting easy luxury, the Lees found themselves "land-poor."
Lee saw that if his daughters' legacies were to be paid, Arlington must be made self-supporting. If the house was to be saved from ruin, it had to be repaired. To do all this called for the expenditure of at least a part of his salary and also for his presence. He had no choice except to ask for a lengthy leave. He applied for two months' leave soon after he reached home, and before that expired he got an extension to December I, 1858.
So Lee settled down in the winter of 1857-58 to become temporarily a farmer-with scant equipment, little money, many debts, and indifferent help. He had often longed to lead the life of a planter, but now that he had to do so he entered upon one of the darkest, most unhappy periods of his life.
The following excerpts recount the only documented evidence of Lee administering physical discipline to a slave or slave.
Testimony of Wesley Norris (1866); reprinted in Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, and Interviews, and Autobiographies; edited by John W. Blassingame; Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press
The testimony of Wesley Norris:
"My name is Wesley Norris; I was born a slave on the plantation of George Parke Custis; after the death of Mr. Custis, Gen. Lee, who had been made executor of the estate, assumed control of the slaves, in number about seventy; it was the general impression among the slaves of Mr. Custis that on his death they should be forever free; in fact this statement had been made to them by Mr. C. years before; at his death we were informed by Gen. Lee that by the conditions of the will we must remain slaves for five years; I remained with Gen. Lee for about seventeen months, when my sister Mary, a cousin of ours, and I determined to run away, which we did in the year 1859; we had already reached Westminster, in Maryland, on our way to the North, when we were apprehended and thrown into prison, and Gen. Lee notified of our arrest; we remained in prison fifteen days, when we were sent back to Arlington; we were immediately taken before Gen. Lee, who demanded the reason why we ran away; we frankly told him that we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget; he then ordered us to the barn, where, in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by Gen. Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty; we were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us; accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered; Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to "lay it on well," an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done. After this my cousin and myself were sent to Hanover Court-House jail, my sister being sent to Richmond to an agent to be hired; we remained in jail about a week, when we were sent to Nelson county, where we were hired out by Gen. Lee's agent to work on the Orange and Alexander railroad; we remained thus employed for about seven months, and were then sent to Alabama, and put to work on what is known as the Northeastern railroad; in January, 1863, we were sent to Richmond, from which place I finally made my escape through the rebel lines to freedom; I have nothing further to say; what I have stated is true in every particular, and I can at any time bring at least a dozen witnesses, both white and black, to substantiate my statements: I am at present employed by the Government; and am at work in the National Cemetary on Arlington Heights, where I can be found by those who desire further particulars; my sister referred to is at present employed by the French Minister at Washington, and will confirm my statement."
The following excerpt's expand and comment on Norris' story. They are from Elizabeth Pryor's Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters, published in 2007 by Viking Press.
"Wesley Norris's testament was given to an antislavery newspaper in 1866 and is one of several accounts of this incident. The story created some uncomfortable negative publicity for Robert E. Lee when it first surfaced in 1859 and continued to haunt him after the war. Its veracity has been questioned by generations of Lee aficiionados, and we might be tempted to dismiss it as the exaggerated ranting of a bitter ex-slave. Except for one thing: all of its facts are verifiable." [p. 261]
"Over the years George Washington Parke Custis had grown more and more lax with his servants, particularly at Arlington. Finally he had asked little of them but to cultivate their gardens and raise the food they would eat. Now they encountered a master who believed that it was their duty to work and, moreover, was accustomed to the disciplined structure of the army. From his arrival at Arlington, Lee found himself 'endeavoring to urge unwilling hands to work' and trying to reorganize his human resources in a rational fashion. Already disgruntled with the taxing new demands, the slaves were further dismayed when Lee began hiring hands to other plantations. With no means of communication, they had no idea where they were being sent, how long they would be there, or what the conditions would be. In addition, Lee rented out so many hands that the black community at Arlington was badly fragmented. The youngest and strongest were chosen to be hired away because they brought in the greatest revenue. By 1859 old men and little boys were the only workers left at Arlington. Worst of all, Lee ruptured the Washington and Custis tradition of respecting slave families. By 1860 he had broken up every family but one on the estate, some of whom had been together since Mount Vernon days. There was singular distress among the slaves, and the community's opinion that Lee was a 'hard taskmaster' and 'the worst man I ever see' was sharpened. Their response was to withhold cooperation, and finally to protest openly.
"Many of the slaves Lee hired away were extremely unhappy. They felt exiled from their friends and families at Arlington and thought the measure a degrading punishment. Three men who were hired off the estate returned after one day 'on account of the work being too hard.' Lee reprimanded them and sent them to work for an even more demanding master. Some of the hiring does appear as a kind of punishment, calculated to give difficult workers the discipline of a seasoned overseer, or keep sullen blacks away from the Arlington workforce. This was the case for several slaves whom Lee 'could not recommend for honesty'--he hired them in Richmond, where, he noted to Custis, they were 'put to your service and mine and much to your mother's relief.' The next year, he advised his son, 'it may be better to hire them all out. Their presence seems to be of no advantage.' Even faced with a near epidemic of runaways, and with other resistance from the slaves, he turned a deaf ear. His wife, in denial about the social dislocation taking place at her home, could only complain: 'The ingratitude & bad conduct of these slaves ... has wounded me sorely, some of them now whom I least expected such conduct have done worst of all.' One of those Lee hired out against his will was Wesley Norris." [pp. 263-264]
"Almost immediately the slaves began to test Lee, and at an early stage he lost control of the situation. Only three months after he returned to Arlington, his wife wrote in some alarm that the slaves were uniting to demand their freedom and that only 'the merciful Hand of Kind Providence & their own ineptness I suppose prevented an outbreak.' Four months after that a number of the slaves did rise up against Lee. 'I have had some trouble with some of the people,' he wrote to Rooney in May 1858. 'Reuben, Parks & Edward, in the beginning of the previous week, rebelled against my authority--refused to obey my orders, & said they were as free as I was, &c, &c--I suceeded in capturing them however, tied them and lodged them in jail. They resisted until overpowered & called upon the other people to rescue them.' Lee kept the three in jail for two months, until they could be hired through a slave trader. He also specified that they were not to be sent back to Arlington at Christmastime, though it was customary for hired servants to be reunited with their families at this season. Several other slaves tried to assert the freedom they believed to be theirs, and it appears from Mary Lee's diary that those who remained continued to resist their master, causing 'constant trouble in our domestic affairs.' Lee had to physically 'overpower' the rebels, narrowly avoiding a dangerous revolt at Arlington, and he and the whole household were shaken. Soon thereafter, Wesley Norris, his sister Mary, and their cousin George Parks ran away." [pp. 266-267]
But run they did, in the late spring of 1859. We know that the incident took place, not only from the account by Norris but from Lee's own description, as well as court and newspaper records. As Lee describes it, the three 'absconded some months ago, were captured in Maryland making their way to Pennsylvania, brought back and are now hired out in lower Virginia.' Records from Westminster, Maryland, show that they were held there just as Norris relates, and that they may have added a guide or additional runaway to the party en route. Exactly what happened after they were returned to Arlington is more difficult to determine. The abolitionist press picked up on the story, probably recounted by the slaves, and immediately printed it in sensationalist style. Like Norris, they described a scene of punishment, with the runaways being taken to the barn and whipped. In the newspaper accounts, the events are more dramatic than those later described by Norris, with Lee himself taking the whip when the overseer refused to wield it against the girl, lashing the bare-breasted woman thirty-nine times. Another version, printed about the same time, also has Lee personally administering the blows." [pp. 269-270]
"Did Robert E. Lee indulge in this kind of tyrannical behavior? Generations of Lee-revering biographers have rejected the idea. 'It is needless to remark,' said a typical curt commentary, 'that while Lee on occasion was a firm disciplinarian, he was never brutal.' Historians have long used care in relying on the abolitionist press, geared as it was to passion and propaganda. There are also many questions about the credibility of slave narratives, which were often filtered through antislavery forces, or retold many years later through the subjective pens of white interviewers. The two contemporary versions in the New York Tribune, with a furious Lee seizing the black girl, do seem exaggerated. But Wesley Norris's more sober account rings true. He was, after all, one of the protagonists, and the tale, though told to an antislavery paper, was given straightforwardly, only a few years after the incident. Moreover, every detail of it can be verified, from the time he ran away (after seventeen months) and the number of slaves at Arlington, from the names of the jail and the overseer (Norris says 'Mr. Gwin,' a corruption of his actual name, "McQuinn') to the place they were taken after the punishment (Hanover County) and their subsequent employment after the war. We know a whipping post stood at Arlington. The added sting of washing the bloodied backs with brine is corroborated by another eyewitness, who also mentions that the whipping was done by the county constable. Even the constable's name is right--Dick Williams. Lee's account book for June 1859 carries this item: 'To Richard Williams, arrest, &c of fugitive slaves--$321.14.' The sum, which did not include the transport of the slaves to Hanover County--Lee paid another $50.53 for that--is exceptionally large. We know that Lee's standard reward for returning runaways was ten dollars per slave. The previous year Lee's accounts show that he paid Williams only $57.25 to arrest and detain three other fugitives, and another $37.12 to transport them to Richmond. The services rendered by Williams in relation to the Norris party must have been extraordinary to command a fee nearly six times as high as those paid the year before." [p. 270]
"There seems to be no obvious reason that Norris's description of his treatment, corroborated by five different witnesses, and substantiated by Lee's own records, should be discounted." [p. 272]
Lee and his wife both denied that the Norris account was true, but were they denying the main point or just the details. Pryor's research would suggest the latter. Lee probably arranged for the whipping, but did not attend. This is consistent with how he operated during the Civil War, delegating responsibilty to others. By today's standards this was a cruel act, but Lee was part of a military that still used corporal punishment for offences……and desertion could incure the death penalty. Lee's attitude towards slavery is summarized in the following letter.
Robert E. Lee letter dated December 27, 1856:
I was much pleased the with President's message. His views of the systematic and progressive efforts of certain people at the North to interfere with and change the domestic institutions of the South are truthfully and faithfully expressed. The consequences of their plans and purposes are also clearly set forth. These people must be aware that their object is both unlawful and foreign to them and to their duty, and that this institution, for which they are irresponsible and non-accountable, can only be changed by them through the agency of a civil and servile war. There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day. Although the abolitionist must know this, must know that he has neither the right nor the power of operating, except by moral means; that to benefit the slave he must not excite angry feelings in the master; that, although he may not approve the mode by which Providence accomplishes its purpose, the results will be the same; and that the reason he gives for interference in matters he has no concern with, holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbor, -still, I fear he will persevere in his evil course. . . . Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?
The attitude expressed in this letter was one held by a number of people in the 1860's. We need to understand that by today's standards virtually everyone of that era was a racist. Many abhorred slavery but they still saw the person of African ancestry as inherently inferior to the white person of European descent….that included Lincoln.
EXECUTIVE MANSTON,
WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
DEAR SIR: I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.
Yours,
A. LINCOLN.
Sorry to post so much, but this is the first time I have encountered "false" Civil War history in Canada. It's not that Canadian newspapers are that accurate it's just that they don't normally concern themselves with the Civil War.
If you think I've erred in any of this please let me know
Lee soon found that Mr. Custis's will had put a heavy burden on him.
He had to discharge all the duties of settling a troublesome estate under a complicated testament. Mr. Custis had drawn up the paper in 1855, apparently without consulting counsel. He left Mrs. Lee a life interest in Arlington and its contents and in adjacent properties. On her demise all this property except the minor plate was to pass in fee to Custis Lee, "he my eldest grandson taking my name and arms." His "White House" plantation of 4000 acres in New Kent County, Mr. Custis left to Rooney Lee, and the "Roman cock" property of like acreage he bequeathed to his youngest grandson, Robert E. Lee, Jr. To Colonel Lee he left a lot in Washington City. Each granddaughter was to receive $10,000. One paragraph of the will provided that Smith's Island, off Northampton County, and sundry lands in Stafford, Richmond, and Westmoreland Counties, should be sold to provide these legacies. Another section said that these properties and "my estates of the White-House in the County of New Kent and Romancock in the County of King William" were to be "charged with the payment of the legacies to my granddaughters." The will then read: "Smith's Island and the aforesaid lands in Stafford, Richmond and Westmoreland only are to be sold, the lands of the White House and Romancock to be worked to raise the aforesaid legacies to my four granddaughters." All the Custis slaves were to be emancipated, "the said emancipation to be accomplished in not exceeding five years from the time of my decease."
The courts manifestly would be required to construe this document and to determine the nature and extent of the liens on White House and Romancock. The beneficiaries under the will were of the same family. If, therefore, all went well and the miscellaneous landed properties yielded enough to pay the greater part of the legacies without draining the White House and Romancock for too long a time, a settlement would be a matter of no great difficulty. The immediate trouble was that Mr. Custis left more than $10,000 of debts and virtually no money with which to operate the estate. He had always been a negligent farmer and an easygoing master, and he had become more careless as he had grown older. His Arlington tract of 1100 acres was sadly "run down." Instead of inheriting easy luxury, the Lees found themselves "land-poor."
Lee saw that if his daughters' legacies were to be paid, Arlington must be made self-supporting. If the house was to be saved from ruin, it had to be repaired. To do all this called for the expenditure of at least a part of his salary and also for his presence. He had no choice except to ask for a lengthy leave. He applied for two months' leave soon after he reached home, and before that expired he got an extension to December I, 1858.
So Lee settled down in the winter of 1857-58 to become temporarily a farmer-with scant equipment, little money, many debts, and indifferent help. He had often longed to lead the life of a planter, but now that he had to do so he entered upon one of the darkest, most unhappy periods of his life.
The following excerpts recount the only documented evidence of Lee administering physical discipline to a slave or slave.
Testimony of Wesley Norris (1866); reprinted in Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, and Interviews, and Autobiographies; edited by John W. Blassingame; Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press
The testimony of Wesley Norris:
"My name is Wesley Norris; I was born a slave on the plantation of George Parke Custis; after the death of Mr. Custis, Gen. Lee, who had been made executor of the estate, assumed control of the slaves, in number about seventy; it was the general impression among the slaves of Mr. Custis that on his death they should be forever free; in fact this statement had been made to them by Mr. C. years before; at his death we were informed by Gen. Lee that by the conditions of the will we must remain slaves for five years; I remained with Gen. Lee for about seventeen months, when my sister Mary, a cousin of ours, and I determined to run away, which we did in the year 1859; we had already reached Westminster, in Maryland, on our way to the North, when we were apprehended and thrown into prison, and Gen. Lee notified of our arrest; we remained in prison fifteen days, when we were sent back to Arlington; we were immediately taken before Gen. Lee, who demanded the reason why we ran away; we frankly told him that we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget; he then ordered us to the barn, where, in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by Gen. Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty; we were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us; accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered; Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to "lay it on well," an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done. After this my cousin and myself were sent to Hanover Court-House jail, my sister being sent to Richmond to an agent to be hired; we remained in jail about a week, when we were sent to Nelson county, where we were hired out by Gen. Lee's agent to work on the Orange and Alexander railroad; we remained thus employed for about seven months, and were then sent to Alabama, and put to work on what is known as the Northeastern railroad; in January, 1863, we were sent to Richmond, from which place I finally made my escape through the rebel lines to freedom; I have nothing further to say; what I have stated is true in every particular, and I can at any time bring at least a dozen witnesses, both white and black, to substantiate my statements: I am at present employed by the Government; and am at work in the National Cemetary on Arlington Heights, where I can be found by those who desire further particulars; my sister referred to is at present employed by the French Minister at Washington, and will confirm my statement."
The following excerpt's expand and comment on Norris' story. They are from Elizabeth Pryor's Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters, published in 2007 by Viking Press.
"Wesley Norris's testament was given to an antislavery newspaper in 1866 and is one of several accounts of this incident. The story created some uncomfortable negative publicity for Robert E. Lee when it first surfaced in 1859 and continued to haunt him after the war. Its veracity has been questioned by generations of Lee aficiionados, and we might be tempted to dismiss it as the exaggerated ranting of a bitter ex-slave. Except for one thing: all of its facts are verifiable." [p. 261]
"Over the years George Washington Parke Custis had grown more and more lax with his servants, particularly at Arlington. Finally he had asked little of them but to cultivate their gardens and raise the food they would eat. Now they encountered a master who believed that it was their duty to work and, moreover, was accustomed to the disciplined structure of the army. From his arrival at Arlington, Lee found himself 'endeavoring to urge unwilling hands to work' and trying to reorganize his human resources in a rational fashion. Already disgruntled with the taxing new demands, the slaves were further dismayed when Lee began hiring hands to other plantations. With no means of communication, they had no idea where they were being sent, how long they would be there, or what the conditions would be. In addition, Lee rented out so many hands that the black community at Arlington was badly fragmented. The youngest and strongest were chosen to be hired away because they brought in the greatest revenue. By 1859 old men and little boys were the only workers left at Arlington. Worst of all, Lee ruptured the Washington and Custis tradition of respecting slave families. By 1860 he had broken up every family but one on the estate, some of whom had been together since Mount Vernon days. There was singular distress among the slaves, and the community's opinion that Lee was a 'hard taskmaster' and 'the worst man I ever see' was sharpened. Their response was to withhold cooperation, and finally to protest openly.
"Many of the slaves Lee hired away were extremely unhappy. They felt exiled from their friends and families at Arlington and thought the measure a degrading punishment. Three men who were hired off the estate returned after one day 'on account of the work being too hard.' Lee reprimanded them and sent them to work for an even more demanding master. Some of the hiring does appear as a kind of punishment, calculated to give difficult workers the discipline of a seasoned overseer, or keep sullen blacks away from the Arlington workforce. This was the case for several slaves whom Lee 'could not recommend for honesty'--he hired them in Richmond, where, he noted to Custis, they were 'put to your service and mine and much to your mother's relief.' The next year, he advised his son, 'it may be better to hire them all out. Their presence seems to be of no advantage.' Even faced with a near epidemic of runaways, and with other resistance from the slaves, he turned a deaf ear. His wife, in denial about the social dislocation taking place at her home, could only complain: 'The ingratitude & bad conduct of these slaves ... has wounded me sorely, some of them now whom I least expected such conduct have done worst of all.' One of those Lee hired out against his will was Wesley Norris." [pp. 263-264]
"Almost immediately the slaves began to test Lee, and at an early stage he lost control of the situation. Only three months after he returned to Arlington, his wife wrote in some alarm that the slaves were uniting to demand their freedom and that only 'the merciful Hand of Kind Providence & their own ineptness I suppose prevented an outbreak.' Four months after that a number of the slaves did rise up against Lee. 'I have had some trouble with some of the people,' he wrote to Rooney in May 1858. 'Reuben, Parks & Edward, in the beginning of the previous week, rebelled against my authority--refused to obey my orders, & said they were as free as I was, &c, &c--I suceeded in capturing them however, tied them and lodged them in jail. They resisted until overpowered & called upon the other people to rescue them.' Lee kept the three in jail for two months, until they could be hired through a slave trader. He also specified that they were not to be sent back to Arlington at Christmastime, though it was customary for hired servants to be reunited with their families at this season. Several other slaves tried to assert the freedom they believed to be theirs, and it appears from Mary Lee's diary that those who remained continued to resist their master, causing 'constant trouble in our domestic affairs.' Lee had to physically 'overpower' the rebels, narrowly avoiding a dangerous revolt at Arlington, and he and the whole household were shaken. Soon thereafter, Wesley Norris, his sister Mary, and their cousin George Parks ran away." [pp. 266-267]
But run they did, in the late spring of 1859. We know that the incident took place, not only from the account by Norris but from Lee's own description, as well as court and newspaper records. As Lee describes it, the three 'absconded some months ago, were captured in Maryland making their way to Pennsylvania, brought back and are now hired out in lower Virginia.' Records from Westminster, Maryland, show that they were held there just as Norris relates, and that they may have added a guide or additional runaway to the party en route. Exactly what happened after they were returned to Arlington is more difficult to determine. The abolitionist press picked up on the story, probably recounted by the slaves, and immediately printed it in sensationalist style. Like Norris, they described a scene of punishment, with the runaways being taken to the barn and whipped. In the newspaper accounts, the events are more dramatic than those later described by Norris, with Lee himself taking the whip when the overseer refused to wield it against the girl, lashing the bare-breasted woman thirty-nine times. Another version, printed about the same time, also has Lee personally administering the blows." [pp. 269-270]
"Did Robert E. Lee indulge in this kind of tyrannical behavior? Generations of Lee-revering biographers have rejected the idea. 'It is needless to remark,' said a typical curt commentary, 'that while Lee on occasion was a firm disciplinarian, he was never brutal.' Historians have long used care in relying on the abolitionist press, geared as it was to passion and propaganda. There are also many questions about the credibility of slave narratives, which were often filtered through antislavery forces, or retold many years later through the subjective pens of white interviewers. The two contemporary versions in the New York Tribune, with a furious Lee seizing the black girl, do seem exaggerated. But Wesley Norris's more sober account rings true. He was, after all, one of the protagonists, and the tale, though told to an antislavery paper, was given straightforwardly, only a few years after the incident. Moreover, every detail of it can be verified, from the time he ran away (after seventeen months) and the number of slaves at Arlington, from the names of the jail and the overseer (Norris says 'Mr. Gwin,' a corruption of his actual name, "McQuinn') to the place they were taken after the punishment (Hanover County) and their subsequent employment after the war. We know a whipping post stood at Arlington. The added sting of washing the bloodied backs with brine is corroborated by another eyewitness, who also mentions that the whipping was done by the county constable. Even the constable's name is right--Dick Williams. Lee's account book for June 1859 carries this item: 'To Richard Williams, arrest, &c of fugitive slaves--$321.14.' The sum, which did not include the transport of the slaves to Hanover County--Lee paid another $50.53 for that--is exceptionally large. We know that Lee's standard reward for returning runaways was ten dollars per slave. The previous year Lee's accounts show that he paid Williams only $57.25 to arrest and detain three other fugitives, and another $37.12 to transport them to Richmond. The services rendered by Williams in relation to the Norris party must have been extraordinary to command a fee nearly six times as high as those paid the year before." [p. 270]
"There seems to be no obvious reason that Norris's description of his treatment, corroborated by five different witnesses, and substantiated by Lee's own records, should be discounted." [p. 272]
Lee and his wife both denied that the Norris account was true, but were they denying the main point or just the details. Pryor's research would suggest the latter. Lee probably arranged for the whipping, but did not attend. This is consistent with how he operated during the Civil War, delegating responsibilty to others. By today's standards this was a cruel act, but Lee was part of a military that still used corporal punishment for offences……and desertion could incure the death penalty. Lee's attitude towards slavery is summarized in the following letter.
Robert E. Lee letter dated December 27, 1856:
I was much pleased the with President's message. His views of the systematic and progressive efforts of certain people at the North to interfere with and change the domestic institutions of the South are truthfully and faithfully expressed. The consequences of their plans and purposes are also clearly set forth. These people must be aware that their object is both unlawful and foreign to them and to their duty, and that this institution, for which they are irresponsible and non-accountable, can only be changed by them through the agency of a civil and servile war. There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day. Although the abolitionist must know this, must know that he has neither the right nor the power of operating, except by moral means; that to benefit the slave he must not excite angry feelings in the master; that, although he may not approve the mode by which Providence accomplishes its purpose, the results will be the same; and that the reason he gives for interference in matters he has no concern with, holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbor, -still, I fear he will persevere in his evil course. . . . Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?
The attitude expressed in this letter was one held by a number of people in the 1860's. We need to understand that by today's standards virtually everyone of that era was a racist. Many abhorred slavery but they still saw the person of African ancestry as inherently inferior to the white person of European descent….that included Lincoln.
EXECUTIVE MANSTON,
WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
DEAR SIR: I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.
Yours,
A. LINCOLN.
Sorry to post so much, but this is the first time I have encountered "false" Civil War history in Canada. It's not that Canadian newspapers are that accurate it's just that they don't normally concern themselves with the Civil War.
If you think I've erred in any of this please let me know
Bringing the