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Book Review: Lincoln’s Spies – Their Secret War To Save A Nation

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Lincoln’s Spies – Their Secret War To Save The Union

By Douglas Waller

Lincoln's Spies - Their Secret War To Save A Nation

Lincoln’s Spies – Their Secret War To Save A Nation

Do you have some favorite Civil War books, books you have read and reread? I do. Are you always looking for more Civil War books that will become your favorites? I am. Are you looking for more books to add to your Civil War library? I always am. Would you like to know about a newly published Civil War book that is destined to become a Civil War classic, a book you will add to your Civil War library’s top shelf of favorites? I’d sure like to know about such a book.

Are you an experienced Civil War trooper of learning and reading, or are you a fresh recruit just beginning your campaign of Civil War education? Either way, you want to add good books to your Civil War library. I have a Civil War book recommendation for you. A good book about Civil War history that will become one of your favorites.

The new book is Lincoln’s Spies by Douglas Waller. It’s become one of my favorite Civil War books. Just as I’ve done, I think you will make space for it on your Civil War library’s top shelf of favorites.

 

Some notes I made in Lincoln's Spies.

Some notes I made in Lincoln’s Spies.

Douglas Waller’s new book, “Lincoln’s Spies – Their Secret War To Save The Union” is a treasure chest of information for those who want to learn about the Civil War. This is a fast-paced book that will capture and hold your attention. Each page is packed with information and you will be eager to read the next page. I found it hard to put down.

As I read this book I was constantly making notes in the margins, underlining sentences, and circling paragraphs with a good ol’ plain #2 pencil or a red pencil. I have facts, quotes, and stories noted from the beginning to the end of the book. My blog readers and Twitter followers will all be hearing about what I have learned from Douglas Waller’s “Lincoln’s Spies.” This book gave me understanding and value on my journey of learning about the Civil War. It filled many empty nooks and crannies of my Civil War knowledge.

Lincoln’s Spies focuses on four individuals who were Civil War spies: Allan Pinkerton, Elizabeth Van Lew, Lafayette Baker, and George Sharpe. Each of these spies lived a life of daring, intrigue, and excitement during a time of great change in the history of the United States of America. The stories of their lives intersect with the volatile story of the United States during the Civil War and Waller richly covers the people, times, and the events of the Civil War. Waller’s book is a deep well of Civil War information. I found his descriptions of the four main spies especially interesting.

Here are some brief looks at the four main spies of Lincoln’s Spies and a few book excerpts:

Allan Pinkerton

Allan Pinkerton

Allan Pinkerton

Allan Pinkerton was born in Scotland in 1819 and when he was ten-years-old his father died. Young Allan quit school but continued to read and study on his own, he learned to become a cooper to earn his living. He married and emigrated to the United States in 1842 where he built a cabin in Illinois. Pinkerton began a business working as a cooper in Illinois with wife Joan joining him there once the cabin was finished. Allan was an abolitionist and the Pinkerton’s cabin became a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Pinkerton’s career in detective work and spying began serendipitously when he was walking in the woods one day looking for trees he could use to make barrel staves. Pinkerton came upon some counterfeiters in the woods who were busy at a fire hammering out fake coins. He watched them for a spell, and then he went to alert the sheriff. Pinkerton and the sheriff returned to stake out the counterfeiter’s campsite for the night. After their stakeout, the sheriff returned with a posse and arrested the counterfeiters who had a bag of fake dimes. This experience of luckily finding counterfeiters at work in the woods, spying on them, helping the sheriff with a stakeout, and then the subsequent arrest of the crooks led Pinkerton into a life of police, detective, and spy work.

“Friends and associates believed Allan Pinkerton was gifted with courage and unusual powers of observation. As a young man he had been a labor agitator, falling under the spell of Scottish revolutionaries. He now hated slavery and had become a fanatical abolitionist. He thought his parents had been atheists and he considered himself one as well. He had honed a sixth sense to anticipate criminal activity before it happened. He was stubbornly persistent, refusing to be worn down by adversity. Yet he could be a tiresome prig, who harangued employees, friends, and relatives about the virtues of honesty, integrity, and courage. He was a tyrant at home, completely dominating his wife and children. He had dark, brooding eyes set deeply under a wide brow with a heavy beard that covered his face, save for his upper lip that he occasionally shaved. He was dour and humorless, only occasionally showing a sense of humor.”
– A description of Allan Pinkerton. Note that in the image of Pinkerton he has let the hair of his upper lip grow out.
Lincolns Spies, pages 3-4.

“We Never Sleep”
– Pinkerton used a business logo of a wide-open eye along with these words.
Lincolns Spies, page 12.

“Plums arrived here with Nuts this morning–all right.”
– A coded message Pinkerton sent after he helped Abraham Lincoln arrive safely in Washington, D.C. for his first inaugural despite death threats to Lincoln. Pinkerton was the “Plums” and Lincoln was the “Nuts.”
Lincolns Spies, page 19.

Elizabeth Van Lew

Elizabeth Van Lew

Elizabeth Van Lew

Elizabeth Van Lew was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1818 where her father John was very successful in a lucrative hardware business. Wealthy hardware man John Van Lew also owned slaves, despite this the Van Lew family supported abolition. Elizabeth’s maternal grandfather was Hilary Baker who was mayor of Philadelphia from 1796 to 1798. Baker was also an abolitionist, as was his granddaughter. The young Elizabeth studied at a Quaker school in Philadelphia where her anti-slavery sentiments grew stronger.

When her father John died in 1843 Elizabeth and her abolitionist mother Eliza freed the Van Lew family’s slaves. The women paid some of them to continue working for them as servants. During the 1837-1844 depression Elizabeth used her $10,000 cash inheritance from her father to buy and set free some relatives of the slaves that she and her mother had freed. The Van Lew family would use their money to buy slaves and then set them free. Elizabeth Van Lew’s brother once went to Richmond’s slave market where he bought an entire enslaved family and then gave them all freedom so the family could remain together and not be separated under slavery.

With the start of the Civil War Elizabeth Van Lew and her mother began to care for wounded Union prisoners at Libby Prison in the Confederate capital of Richmond. Elizabeth took food and other supplies to the Yankee prisoners at Libby Prison to help make their captivity easier. She helped some escape by providing information about safe houses where they could find shelter during their escape. Elizabeth would gather information from the Yankee prisoners about Confederate troop strength and movements and then pass it on to Union commanders. Elizabeth Van Lew’s most important spy work began when she operated the “Richmond Underground,” a spy network that provided valuable information to Union army commanders. Her spy work was so useful that George Sharpe, the Army of the Potomac’s Intelligence Chief, said that Elizabeth’s spy efforts gave the army, “the greater portion of our intelligence in 1864-65.”

“Elizabeth Van Lew was a short woman, who had been quite fetching in her youth. But now in her forties and unmarried, she was considered by Richmond society to be an old maid. She loved her state, always speaking of Virginians in her soft southern accent as “our people”–although that love would be tested sorely in the years to come. She wore her dark blond hair always in tight curls that hung along her cheeks and neck. She had a thin, nervous-looking face with high cheekbones, pointed nose, and sparkling blue eyes that bore into anyone facing her stare. She was almost always attired in the antebellum style with black silk dress and bonnet whose ribbons tied under her chin in the front. She was clever to the point of “almost unearthly brilliance,” friends said, and decidedly feisty. She could be acid-tongued and scalding in her contempt for people whose social or political views clashed with her strong sense of right from wrong.”
– A description of Elizabeth Van Lew.
Lincolns Spies, page 30.

“She developed an early empathy for the slaves in her home and elsewhere. Their backbreaking work and the beatings she witnessed on city streets horrified her. On family vacations at western Virginia’s Hot Springs, a resort to escape the summer heat, she became friends with a slave trader’s daughter and was repelled by what she learned of the dreadful business.”
– Elizabeth Van Lew was an abolitionist.
Lincolns Spies, page 33.

“Slave power is arrogant, is jealous and intrusive, is cruel, is despotic, not only over the slave but over the community, the state”
– Elizabeth Van Lew
Lincolns Spies, page 33.

“Madness was upon the people!”
– Elizabeth Van Lew regarding Virginia seceding from the Union.
Lincolns Spies, page 36.

Learn Civil War History Podcast: Elizabeth Van Lew – A Union Spymaster in Richmond

Listen and learn about Elizabeth Van Lew.

 

 

Lafayette Baker

Lafayette Baker

Lafayette Baker

Lafayette Baker was born in New York in 1826. His family called him”Lafe” and he grew up to become a mechanic, he was good at repairing farm equipment. In 1853 Baker was in San Francisco after his younger brother urged him to come west like so many other young men to seek his fortune in the booming Gold Rush economy. Baker had no luck finding gold, he instead earned some money as a mechanic and as a saloon bouncer. In 1856 he joined the San Francisco Vigilance Committee, a very tough group of men.

The San Francisco Vigilance Committee’s purpose was to control the climbing rate of lawlessness in San Fransisco caused by the huge amount of men of questionable character flooding into the city seeking their fortunes. Baker joined with hundreds of other committeemen who wore uniforms and carried swords as they worked for San Francisco. They were a tough crew, they took the law into their own hands, there were quick trials sometimes followed by equally quick hangings. Baker enjoyed the unlimited power and force of being a vigilante. He was good at this work.

The San Francisco Vigilance Committee eventually faded away and by 1861 Baker was in Washington, D.C. where he hoped to gain a job in President Abraham Lincoln’s new administration. Through some conniving, Baker met with General Winfield Scott. He started his spy career when Scott hired him, based on Baker’s California vigilante experience–which Baker exaggerated somewhat, to work as an espionage agent. Baker made a spy mission into Virginia, which had some mishaps, but he provided valuable information about Confederate troops in Virginia to General Scott. Scott then advanced Baker to the rank of captain. He served from September 1862 until November 1863 as the Provost Marshall of Washington, D.C. and administered the National Detective Bureau.

Reflecting back to his San Francisco vigilante days, Baker’s actions as a detective were questionable. He or his men literally used strong-arm tactics in their detective work. They gave little consideration or importance to obtaining warrants of those they chased after, or for their constitutional rights. After President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865 Baker’s men gathered the names of two of the conspirators, including the name of the assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

“Baker was a handsome man, with brown hair, a full red beard, and piercing gray eyes that were almost hypnotic. He stood five feet ten inches tall, a muscular 180 pounds, agile, almost catlike in his quick movements, always seemingly restless. H was a fine horseman, a crack shot. He did not swear or drink, priding himself on being a member of Sons of Temperance, a male brotherhood sworn against alcohol, which had started in New York City in 1842 and spread across the country. He was obsessed with Roman history. On his trip from California to New York, he devoured a book on a man who would become one of his role models: Eugéne Francois Vidocq, the famed and, Baker acknowledged, unsavory French detective who helped create France’s security police. Baker was as devious and manipulating as Vidocq, prone to lie about himself, with “the heart of a sneak thief,” according to one profile of him.”
– A description of Lafayette Baker.
Lincolns Spies, page 40.

“In 1856 he joined the 2,200 members of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee, each of whom was known only by his number. Baker’s was 208.”
– Lafayette Baker begins his work as a detective and spy.
Lincolns Spies, page 43.

George Sharpe

George Sharpe

George Sharpe

George Sharpe was from Kingston, New York, a small town in Ulster County located on a bank of the Hudson River. The people of Kingston had strong anti-slavery beliefs and by 1855, sensing that conflict between North and South was coming, Kingston had six militia companies drilling and training in town. After Fort Sumter fell to the Confederates in April 1861 President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 state militiamen to volunteer for ninety days of service. They were needed to meet the challenge of the newly formed Confederacy and its fighting forces.

In response to President Lincoln’s call, a meeting was held in Kingston where important men climbed on top of barrel-heads and gave rallying speeches to encourage young men to volunteer in the militia. Captain George Henry Sharpe of the 20th New York Militia, also known as the “Ulster Guard,” stood on top of a barrel and asked young men to come and serve with him in the militia. Soon Captain Sharpe had 248 men in his Company B which became part of the 20th New York Militia. This began George Sharpe’s Civil War journey, a journey in which he would continually advance in the army and one where he eventually became the country’s master spy. Sharpe became the Army of the Potomac’s Intelligence Chief and created an organization whose purpose was to learn and gather information about the Confederates.

“George Henry Sharpe was born on February 26, 1828. He was Henry and Helen’s only child. For some mysterious reason, the boy in later years attached an e to the end of his last name. Sharpe’s mother lived until age ninety, but throughout her life she was tormented by a nauseous stomach that left her constantly vomiting. She treated her attacks of biliousness with homeopathy, which she believed worked best. George never knew his father. Henry died in 1830 after suffering two paralytic strokes at an asylum in New York, just before his son turned two years old. Sharpe’s surrogate father–or at least the only father he felt he ever had–became Severyn Bruyn, a local banker who served as trustee of Henry Sharp’s considerable estate and doled out an allowance to George until he turned twenty-one and was allowed to control his own finances.”
– George Sharpe’s early life of family difficulties.
Lincolns Spies, pages 26-27.

“Sharpe’s superiors considered him a natural military leader, with a magnetic personality that made men want to follow him. He had a balding head, sad eyes, and a droopy mustache that gave him the look more of a city preacher than a combat commander. He was a learned man. I the breast pocket of his uniform coat he kept always a small, well-thumbed book of verses by his favorite poets, which he routinely read to his men. They never objected to his recitals.”
– A description of George Sharpe.
Lincolns Spies, page 25.

More Book Excerpts

Examples of the jewels of information included in Douglas Waller’s treasure chest of a Civil War book.

“Seventy-four-year-old Winfield Scott, a hero of the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War, was now in decrepit shape. Years of consuming rich foods had made “Old Fuss and Feathers” (his nickname because he enjoyed military pomp) so fat at 350 pounds, he could not walk even short distances and had to be hoisted onto a strong horse to review his troops. Scott found stairs so painful to climb because of the gout he suffered that Lincoln walked down from his second-floor White House office to confer with the general. Yet Scott’s mental acuity, as well as his ego, remained fit and trim.”
Lincolns Spies, page 45.

“Jefferson Davis was inaugurated for a six-year term on a rainy February 22 and moved his family into the old Brockenbrough mansion at Clay and 12th Streets, which became the Confederate White House. Haggard and worn looking, Davis was afflicted with neuralgia, digestive disorders, venereal disease, and bronchial problems and had lost sight in one eye. A workaholic who buried himself in paperwork and did not budget his time wisely, Davis was inaccessible, haughty, and peevish–not suffering fools lightly and feuding with his generals. A week after his inaugural, the Rebel president declared martial law in Richmond. He had reason to do so. Crime was becoming a problem in the refugee-swollen city. Not all the citizens of the capital of the Confederacy–indeed the entire Confederacy, Davis quickly realized–could be counted on to be loyal to the cause. Van Lew was one of them.”
Lincolns Spies, page 124.

“Sharpe checked his watch. It was shortly before 3 p.m. that day when he and other staff officers filed down the narrow center hall of the McClean house–one of those old-fashioned Virginia double homes perched on a knoll, he observed, with a large piazza that ran the full length of it–and turned to the left into a little parlor, bare save for a table and two or three chairs, Sharpe took a moment to sketch on a piece of paper where everyone stood or sat in the room. Grant and Lee sat at a table with their aides-de-camp beside them to take notes and reduce to writing terms of the surrender for the Army of Northern Virginia to the Army of the Potomac. Crowded in the opposite corner with Grant’s other aides, Sharpe craned his neck to see and hear what he said was “one of the most remarkable transactions of this nineteenth century.” Lee’s hair, he observed, “was white as driven snow. There was not a speck upon his coat; not a spot upon those gauntlets that he wore, which were as bright and fair as a lady’s glove.” Grant, by stark contrast, Sharpe believed, wore boots “nearly covered with mud; one button of his coat…had clearly gone astray.”

The two men struggled to make small talk–Grant apologizing for not wearing a sword as Lee did and asking what had become of the white horse the Rebel commander rode when they both served in Mexico. Lee responded with stiff bows, few words, and a “coldness of manner,” Sharpe recalled, that was “almost haughtiness.””
Lincolns Spies, page 394.

“After trying to swallow water and then whiskey from a glass, Booth attempted to speak but did so only in gasps and faint whispers. “Kill me,” he mumbled several times. He was paralyzed from the neck down. Conger put his ear close to Booth’s mouth to listen. “Tell mother I die for my country,” he heard the actor mutter. The two detectives could get him to say nothing of value.”
Lincolns Spies, page 410.

Author Douglas Waller

Douglas-Waller-Author-of-Lincolns-Spies-Author-Image-Credit-Steve-Wilson

Douglas Waller Author of Lincolns Spies. Image-credit: Steve Wilson

Douglas Waller lives in North Carolina and is an accomplished writer who has written best selling books including; Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage, Disciples: The World War II Missions of the CIA Directors Who Fought for Wild Bill Donovan, and The Commandos: The Inside Story of America’s Secret Soldiers. Waller is a journalist who wrote about the CIA, Pentagon, State Department, White House, and Congress when he worked as a correspondent for the magazines Time and Newsweek.

Book Information

Lincoln's Spies - Their Secret War To Save A Nation

Lincoln’s Spies – Their Secret War To Save A Nation

Title: Lincoln’s Spies – Their Secret War To Save The Union
Author: Douglas Waller
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, August 6, 2019
Pages: 624
Book Dimensions: 6″ x 1.8″ x 9″
ISBN-13: 9781501126840
ISBN-10: 1501126849

Where to buy/order:

You can find Lincoln’s Spies at your local bookstore and online:
Simon & Schuster
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Indiebound.org

Editorial Reviews of Lincoln’s Spies

“[A] fast-paced, fact-rich account…Douglas Waller has most skillfully aimed a spotlight on this neglected aspect of the Union effort. Civil War military history can never again be read or told in quite the same way.” – The Wall Street Journal

“Douglas Waller’s fast-paced and deeply-researched narrative of Union intelligence operations in the Eastern theater of the Civil War cuts through the myths and fabrications that grew up around “Lincoln’s spies” and presents a professional, readable appraisal that emphasizes the positive contributions that Colonel George Sharpe and Richmond Unionist Elizabeth Van Lew made to ultimate Northern victory. This book is vital reading for anyone interested in the Civil War or in the origins of modern spycraft.”– James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era and The War That Forged a Nation.

“In Lincoln’s Spies, at long last, we have an absolutely compelling and essential account to stand alongside those on Lincoln’s generals, Lincoln’s admirals, and Lincoln’s cabinet secretaries. Here is a pantheon of heroes and a rogues’ gallery, the patriotic and the subversive, the idealistic and the crooked. Douglas Waller brings more than a keen intelligence to the early craft of intelligence. He is like a spy into the past who has uncovered some of the most incredible and devious characters of the Civil War and revealed their plots, schemes and secret worlds.” – Sidney Blumenthal, author of The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln series.

“Waller’s narrative moves chronologically, alternating between each of the four subjects and recounting their exploits in detail. This is a long but cracking good tale.”– Publishers Weekly

“A detailed, chronological look at the work of a handful of spies in President Abraham Lincoln’s network and the extent to which they helped defeat the Confederacy… A meticulous chronicle of all facets of Lincoln’s war effort.” – Kirkus Reviews

 

Quotes By Robert E. Lee Before, During, And After The Civil War

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Robert E. Lee at Fredericksburg

Robert E. Lee at Fredericksburg

Robert Edward Lee was born on January 19, 1807, at Stratford, Virginia. He was the son of Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, a Revolutionary War hero. He graduated second in his class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1829. Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis on July 5, 1831. Mary was a descendant of John Parke Custis, who was George Washington’s adopted son. Robert E. Lee then served for seventeen years in the Corps of Engineers where his work involved overseeing and inspecting the building of coastal defenses. During the Mexican-American War Lee was a member of General Winfield Scott’s staff. He became a colonel and earned three brevets for gallantry.

Robert E. Lee was the superintendent of West Point from 1852 to 1855. Ironically, while he was West Point’s superintendent he would further the military education of many young men who would later fight with and against him in the Civil War. Lee left West Point in 1855 to take a position commanding the 2nd Cavalry. In October 1859, Robert E. Lee was sent to Harpers Ferry, Virginia to end abolitionist John Brown’s raid on the Harpers Ferry Arsenal and Armory.

With the start of the Civil War in April 1861, President Abraham Lincoln offered Robert E. Lee command of the Union army. Lee declined Lincoln’s offer and instead resigned from the United States Army to side with the Confederate States of America when his home state of Virginia seceded on April 17. Robert E. Lee became the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862. Lee’s battle successes were the Peninsula Campaign, Second Bull Run (Second Manassas), Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. Antietam was a tactical stalemate for Lee and George B. McClellan, but it was a strategic victory for the Army of the Potomac. Robert E. Lee’s greatest battle loss was the Battle of Gettysburg, but his ultimate loss was when he surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865.

After the Civil War Robert E. Lee became the president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. He died in Lexington on October 12, 1870. Robert E. Lee is revered today as one of the greatest military commanders ever.

Robert E. Lee Quotes Before The Civil War

***

“I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice anything but honor for its preservation.”

… From a letter Robert E. Lee wrote on January 23, 1861.

***

Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee

“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy. This influence though slow, is sure. The doctrines & miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years, to Convert but a small part of the human race, & even among Christian nations, what gross errors still exist! While we see the Course of the final abolition of human Slavery is onward, & we give it the aid of our prayers & all justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands who sees the end; who Chooses to work by slow influences; & with whom two thousand years are but as a Single day. Although the Abolitionist must know this, & must See that he has neither the right or power of operating except by moral means & suasion, & if he means well to the slave, he must not Create angry feelings in the Master; that although he may not approve the mode which it pleases Providence to accomplish its purposes, the result will nevertheless be the same; that the reasons he gives for interference in what he has no Concern, holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbors when we disapprove their Conduct; 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 of opinion, have always proved themselves intolerant of the Spiritual liberty of others?”

… Robert E. Lee writing to his wife Mary on December 27, 1856. Lee explains in these words that he believes it is up to God to decide when slavery should end. The reader may learn a lot about Robert E. Lee from his own words, and the reader might draw an opinion about the character of the man.

***

“I am one of the dull creatures that cannot see the good of secession.”

… A thought of Robert E. Lee in 1861.

***

“A soldier has a hard life and but little consideration.”

… Robert E. Lee and Lewis Armistead were both serving at Fort Riley in Kansas before the Civil War. Tragedy struck when Armistead’s wife died during an epidemic at the fort while he was away leading his company. Armistead returned to the fort, buried his wife, and the next day took his children with him when he returned to his company duty in the field.

***

“A Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets has no charm for me. If the Union is dissolved and government disrupted, I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people, and save in defense will draw my sword on none.”

… Robert E. Lee, in a letter written on January 23, 1861, from Fort Mason, Texas.

***

“Where is my little boy?”

… When he returned home to Arlington after a two-year absence from his family while he fought in the Mexican War, Robert E. Lee was anxious to see his young son Robert. A friend of Mary Lee’s had stopped by to visit and her young son was with her. Young Robert and the other boy began playing together away from the adults. Robert E. Lee arrived home from Mexico while the boys were playing together. Lee saw the two young boys and making his way to them he said, “Where is my little boy?” He bent over and lifted young Robert’s play companion up in the air and gave him a kiss. After two years of being away, Robert E. Lee did not recognize young Robert, who had certainly grown and changed since the last time his father saw him.

***

Robert E. Lee Quotes During The Civil War

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General Robert E. Lee and Traveler

General Robert E. Lee and Traveler

“Never mind, General, all this has been my fault; it is I that have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it in the best way you can.”

… General Robert E. Lee to General Wilcox on July 3, 1863, at the Battle of Gettysburg after the failure of Pickett’s Charge. Observer Colonel A. J. Lyon Fremantle of the British Army had this Lee quote as an entry in his diary.

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“This has been a sad day for us, Colonel, a sad day; but we can’t always expect to gain victories.”

… General Robert E. Lee said this to Colonel A. J. Lyon Fremantle after Pickett’s Charge failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. July 3, 1863.

***

“I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving.”

… General Robert E. Lee venting his frustration with the Confederate Congress. In March 1865, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia badly needed supplies, but was not getting them. The end was near.

***

“You see what a poor sinner I am, and how unworthy to possess what was given me; for that reason it has been taken away.”

… Robert E. Lee from a December 1861 letter he wrote to his daughter after their family home of Arlington had been taken by the Yankees. Lee was away on duty in South Carolina at the time.

***

“I can only say that I am nothing but a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation.”

… General Robert E. Lee declaringing his faith in Jesus Christ.

***

“I am glad to see one real American here.”

… Union Lieutenant Colonel Ely S. Parker was a Seneca Indian and an adjutant on General Ulysses Grant’s staff. Parker was at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant. Lee said this to Parker, and Parker replied to Lee, “We are all Americans.”

***

“What a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbours, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world! I pray that, on this day when only peace and good-will are preached to mankind, better thoughts may fill the hearts of our enemies and turn them to peace. … My heart bleeds at the death of every one of our gallant men.”

… Robert E. Lee writing to his wife Mary in late December 1862. The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11-15, 1862. Fredericksburg was a Confederate victory with great loss of men for the Yankees.

***

“Negroes belonging to our citizens are not considered subjects of exchange and were not included in my proposition.”

… Robert E. Lee would not include African-American Union prisoners in any prisoner exchanges. Lee’s logic was that the African-American Union soldiers were probably runaways who belonged to Southern owners. They were not to be exchanged and instead should be returned to their masters.

***

“You will, however, learn before this reaches you that our success at Gettysburg was not so great as reported–in fact, that we failed to drive the enemy from his position, and that our army withdrew to the Potomac. Had the river not unexpectedly risen, all would have been well with us; but God, in His all-wise providence, willed otherwise, and our communications have been interrupted and almost cut off.”

… Robert E. Lee writing home after losing to George G. Meade and the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg.

***

“Our people are opposed to work. Our troops, officers, community, and press all ridicule and resist it. It is the very means by which McClellan has and is advancing. Why should we leave to him the whole advantage of labor. Combined with valour, fortitude & boldness, of which we have our fair proportion, it should lead us to success. What carried the Roman soldiers into all Countries but that happy combination? There is nothing so military as labor, and nothing so important to an army as to save the lives of its soldiers.”

… On June 5, 1862, General Robert E. Lee wrote this to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

***

“This is a sad business, Colonel. …It has happened as I told them in Richmond it would happen. The line has been stretched until it is broken.”

… Robert E. Lee was riding toward Petersburg, Virginia on April 2, 1865. These are Lee’s words to an aide as they rode along together. The time of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederate States of America was now short.

***

“My interference in battle would do more harm than good. I have, then, to rely on my brigade and division commanders. I think and work with all my power to bring the troops to the right place at the right time; then I have done my duty. As soon as I order them into battle, I leave my army in the hands of God.”

… Robert E. Lee summarizes his battle duty.

***

Headquarters Army No Va
August 13th 1863

General Orders No 83,

The President of the Confederate States has, in the name of the people, appointed the 21st day of August as a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer. A strict observance of the day is enjoined upon the officers and soldiers of this Army. All Military duties, except such as are absolutely necessary, will be suspended.

The Commanding Officers of Brigades and Regiments are requested to cause divine services suitable to the occasion to be performed in their respective commands.

Soldiers! We have sinned against Almighty God. We have forgotten His signal mercies and have cultivated a vengeful, haughty and boastful spirit. We have not remembered that the defenders of a just cause should be pure in His eyes; that our lives are in His hand and we have relied too much on our own arms for the achievement of our independence.

God is our only refuge and our strength. Let us humble ourselves before Him. Let us confess our many sins and beseech Him to give us a higher Courage, a purer patriotism and more determined will. That He will convert the hearts of our enemies; that He will hasten the time when war with its sorrows and sufferings shall cease, and that He will give us a name and peace among the Nations of the earth.

R E Lee
Genl

… General Robert E. Lee issued General Orders No. 83 to his men after the Army of Northern Virginia’s loss at the Battle of Gettysburg.

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“I suppose there is nothing for me to do but go and see General Grant. And I would rather die a thousand deaths.”

… General Robert E. Lee before his surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Many, many, many thousands of young Yankees and Rebels had perished in the Civil War. Lee himself, would die of natural causes in 1870 in a united country without the peculiar institution of slavery.

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Robert E. Lee Quotes After The Civil War

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Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee

“I, Robert E. Lee of Lexington, Virginia do solemn, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Union of the States thereafter, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithful support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves, so help me God.”

… Robert E. Lee’s amnesty oath, October 2, 1865.

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“We failed, but in the good providence of God apparent failure often proves a blessing.”

… Robert E. Lee regarding the South’s secession from the United States of America. From a letter of March 22, 1869.

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“I am now considered such a monster, that I hesitate to darken with my shadow, the doors of those I love, lest I should bring upon them misfortune.”

… Robert E. Lee was in Washington D.C. ten months after the Civil War ended. The former Confederate General was not a welcome or popular man in this city and he knew it. He chose not to visit his friends in Washington, D.C. out of concern for the trouble it may cause them.

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“…I believe it to be the duty of everyone to unite in the restoration of the country, and the re-establishment of peace and harmony…. It appears to me that the allayment of passion, the dissipation of prejudice, and the restoration of reason, will alone enable the people of the country to acquire a true knowledge and form a correct judgment of the events the last four years. It will, I think, be admitted that Mr. Davis has done nothing more than all the citizens of the Southern States, and should not be held accountable for acts performed by them in the exercise of what had been considered by them unquestionable right.”

… Robert E. Lee, September 1865.

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“The questions which for years were in dispute between the State and General Government, and which unhappily were not decided by the dictates of reason, but referred to the decision of war, having been decided against us, it is the part of wisdom to acquiesce in the result, and of candor to recognize the fact.”

… Robert E. Lee, from a letter to former Virginia governor John Letcher on August 28, 1865.

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“The only question on which we did not agree has been settled, and the Lord has decided against me.”

… Robert E. Lee after the Civil War was over.

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“Sir, if you ever presume again to speak disrespectfully of General Grant in my presence, either you or I will sever his connection with this university.”

… Robert E. Lee’s words to a faculty member at Washington College in Lexington, Virginia after the faculty member had spoken insultingly of Ulysses S. Grant. Lee was the president of Washington College after the Civil War. Washington College would later honer Robert E. Lee by changing its name to Washington and Lee University.

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“I did only what my duty demanded; I could have taken no other course without dishonor & if all was to be done over again, I should act precisely in the same manner.”

… Robert E. Lee after the Civil War.

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“I prefer the Bible to any other book. There is enough in that, to satisfy the most ardent thirst for knowledge; to open the way to true wisdom; and to teach the only road to salvation and eternal happiness.”

… Robert E. Lee to his cousin Markie, December 1865.

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“I have fought against the people of the North because I believed they were seeking to wrest from the South its dearest rights. But I have never cherished toward them bitter or vindictive feelings, and I have never seen the day when I did not pray for them.”

… After the Civil War, Robert E. Lee practiced and wanted reconciliation between the North and the South.

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“I like whiskey. I always did, and that is the reason I never use it.”

… Robert E. Lee was an abstainer of Oh! Be Joyful.

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“Do your duty in all things like the old Puritan. You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less. Never let your mother or me wear one gray hair for any lack of duty on your part.”

… This is an excerpt from a letter Robert E. Lee wrote to his son, George Washington Custis Lee.

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“I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.”

… Robert E. Lee.

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