Lee's Lieutenants by Douglas Southall Freeman

He had said: ‘If the Union is dissolved and the government disrupted, I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people and save in defence will draw my sword on no one.’ There he stood, and in that spirit, after listening to all Blair had to say, he made the fateful reply that is best given in his own simple account of the interview: ‘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 a an invasion of the Southern states.’ ” Then his Virginia background and the mental discipline of years of years asserted themselves. A large army, he said, was soon to be called into the field to enforce Federal law the President had authorized him to ask Lee if he would accept the command.Ĭommand of an army of 75,000, perhaps 100,000 men opportunity to apply all he had learned in Mexico the supreme ambition of a soldier realized the full support of the government many of his ablest comrades working with him rank as a major general- all this may have surged through Lee’s mind for an instant, but if so, it was only an instant. Blair promptly and plainly explained his reason for asking Lee to call.

“Duly on the morning of April 18 Lee rode over the bridge and up to the younger Blair’s house on Pennsylvania avenue, directly opposite the State, War and Navy building, where he found the old publicist awaiting him.

Lee's Lieutenants by Douglas Southall Freeman