Sold – The Letter That Helped Create the Robert E. Lee Legend as Post-War Reconciliator

“My opinion would have no influence in correcting the misunderstanding which has existed between the North and South, and which I fear is still destined to involve the country in greater calamities.”

Lee’s greatest postwar legacy was toward national reconciliation. Although he had ostensibly retired from the national spotlight, in his correspondence he became a voice of moderation and unity. In one letter he urged that “all should unite in honest efforts to obliterate the effects of war and to restore the blessings of peace.” In another he stated, “I think it the duty of every citizen, in the present condition of the Country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony, and in no way to oppose the policy of the State or General Government directed to that object.” Positions such as this were very influential in the South and largely contributed to Southerners accepting the verdict of the war rather than hungering for a rematch. They were also noted approvingly in the North.

After Lee’s death, and as the years increasingly passed, he became the symbol of the Lost Cause in the South and of the noble adversary and peacemaker in the North. History made his life into legend, myth, and image, and so rendered Lee both more and less than he in fact was. Yet it is his own words which both show the reality of his life and opinions and also contribute to his iconic status.

Autograph Letter Signed, Lexington, Va., April 20, 1867, to Frank Fuller, Governor of Utah during the Civil War and a friend of both Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain. “I hasten to return my thanks for your invitation to deliver a lecture before the Peabody Institute of New York and Brooklyn, and am much indebted to you for the motives which prompted it. For reasons which I am sure you can appreciate, I have felt great reluctance to appear before the public in any manner, and do not think i could accomplish any good by departing from this course. My opinion would have no influence in correcting the misunderstanding which has existed between the North and South, and which I fear is still destined to involve the country in greater calamities. Apart from these considerations, my present duties occupy all my time, and I am unable to neglect them without inconvenience to others…”

We see Lee choosing to label the root causes of the catastrophic Civil War, in which he played a leading role, as a “misunderstanding,” a word he would have selected with care to promote his hope for reconciliation. After all, it is easier to resolve a misunderstanding than bridge a catastrophic gulf of hate and anger. But we also feel Lee’s deep concern that the reality of continued ill feelings between the North and South might yet lead to additional “calamities,” and his related fear of having any statement of his be interpreted or misinterpreted to cause an exascerbation of such ill feelings. 

Author and Lee associate John William Jones considered this letter of great significance, and he included it in his classics, “Personal Reminiscences of General Robert E. Lee” and “The Life and Letters of Robert Edward Lee: Soldier and Man.” In the former book it appears in the chapter entitled “His Want of Bitterness Toward the North;” that book was published in 1875 “by authority of the Lee family, and of the faculty of Washington and Lee University.” In the latter book, published in 1906, it is found in the chapter, “After the War – Promoting the Peace.” This letter, with Jones’ interpretation of its meaning, contributed strongly to the Lee legend as unembittered post-war concilator and peace-seeker.          

This is the first letter of Lee we have had on reconciliation, and a search of records going back 40 years failed to turn up even one reaching the market. That it is such a famous one simply adds to the uniqueness.