Hero Tales from History — The Noble Soul of Robert E. Lee
THE NOBLE SOUL OF ROBERT E.
LEE
Robert E. Lee’s father, Colonel Henry Lee, was a hero of the Revolutionary War.
He was commander of the famous company known as “Lee’s Legion.
” He was called “Light-Horse Harry” because he was so ready and alert with his cavalry regiment.
He was such a friend of the commander-in-chief that it was said: “General Washington loves Harry Lee as if he were his own son.
” Therefore, when the Father of his Country died, Robert E. Lee’s father was chosen by Congress to deliver the great oration in his memory.
It was in this brilliant address that Colonel Henry Lee used the now familiar words describing Washington as “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.
” Like George Washington, Robert Lee was born in Virginia, near the Potomac River, in a huge brick house which looked like a mansion, a castle, and a fort, all in one.
When Robert was four, his father moved to Alexandria, near the new city of Washington, to send the boy, with his brothers and sisters, to school.
The next year the War of 1812, often called the Second War for Independence, was declared.
The father’s rank was raised at once from Colonel to General Henry Lee.
But General Lee was badly hurt while defending a friend from a mob in Baltimore.
It was very hard for a brave man like “Light-Horse Harry” to be sent away for his health instead of leading in another fight for his country’s liberties.
The general did not become better and, after five years of absence and longing, he started home to die.
But the end came while he was on his way, and the Lee children were told, one sad day, that they would never see the dear father’s face again.
Robert was now eleven, the same age as George Washington when he lost his father.
Mrs. Lee was not left so poor as Washington’s mother, but she was an invalid.
The oldest Lee son was in Harvard College, and the next was a midshipman in the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
So Robert was left at home to take care of his mother.
He nursed her “With a hand as gentle as woman’s,” yet in his strong, manly arms he carried her out to the family coach, when she was well enough to go for a drive.
No mother ever had more reason to be proud of her tall, handsome son than the widow of Henry Lee.
Feeling that his mother could not afford to send him to college, young Robert studied hard to enter West Point Military Academy.
Because the country was still new and settlers had to defend their homes and lives from Indians, and also because the nations were always at war, such boys as George Washington and Robert Lee said to themselves, “When I’m a man I’ll be a soldier.
” When Robert was eighteen he became a West Point cadet.
After he left home his brave little mother exclaimed, “How _can_ I do without Robert?
He is both son and daughter to me!
” Cadet Lee’s life was without doubt the bravest any young man ever led at West Point.
Young Jefferson Davis, who was there at the same time, fell off a cliff and nearly lost his life while breaking the rules of the Academy.
Young Ulysses Grant wrote home ten years later that it was impossible to get through at West Point without demerits.
But Robert E. Lee went through the whole four years without a single “black mark”!
More than this, he did [Illustration: LEE’S INVASION OF THE NORTH.
_From the painting by J. Steeple Davis, © 1897, by The Woolfall Co_] not drink, though young gentlemen of that day thought the serving of wine necessary in polite society.
He did not even smoke.
It was a wonder that the other cadets did not hate a young man who seemed to feel that he must behave better than the rest of them.
What kept them all from calling him a “goody-goody boy,” a snob or a prig?
It was the love of his kind heart, which they could see shining through his strange courage.
Robert Lee fully realized that he had come to West Point to learn, at his country’s expense, how to be a soldier, and that the first duty of a soldier is to obey.
If he had left his post and sneaked off the Academy grounds to drink, or gamble, or break some other rule, he would have been a deserter who, in real army life, would have deserved to be shot.
But he never acted as if he felt above the rest, and so his fellow cadets did not sneer at Robert E. Lee.
One of them said of him afterward: “He was the only one of all the men I have known who could laugh at the faults and follies of others without losing their affection.
” At graduation, Lieutenant Lee was the most popular man at West Point; he ranked second in his class, and received the highest military honor in the course.
The physical courage of Robert E. Lee was put to the supreme test in the Mexican War.
On a dark night he found the way across a dangerous lava field cracked in all directions by deep crevices--“without light, without a companion or guide, where scarcely a step could be taken without fear of death.
” General Scott, then chief in command, reported this act to be “the greatest feat of physical and moral courage performed by any one in the campaign.
” In his official statement about the whole war, this general stated that the United States’ “success in Mexico was largely due to the skill, valor, and courage of Robert E. Lee, the greatest military genius in America.
” Colonel Lee’s high military reputation made it natural for President Lincoln to offer him the highest command of the United States army when the Civil War broke out.
But Colonel Lee did not accept the honor.
He did not believe in slavery, and did not think it was right for any of the states to secede, or leave the Union.
But he was a Virginian, and he could not bring himself to lead an army to burn his own home or to kill or drive out his relatives, friends, and neighbors.
He had heard his father, who was once governor of the state, say with deepest feeling, “Virginia is my country; her will I obey, no matter how sad my fate may be.
” So, when his native state went out of the Union, Robert E. Lee resigned as colonel in the United States army and went with her.
The southern people soon made Lee their general and it became, as he thought, his duty to defend the homes and lives of the people not only of Virginia, but also of the other states of the south.
General Lee soon proved that he was, as General Scott had said, “the greatest military genius in America.
” With smaller armies and poorer supplies and weapons than those of the north, he gained great victories--the second battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville.
He defeated five northern generals, one after another.
It took Grant, the sixth general sent against him, a whole year to “hammer” and surround Lee’s ragged, starving heroes, and capture them at last, when they were almost as helpless as a little flock of shorn sheep.
And so noble and dignified was his character that he was honored and admired by north and south alike.
