Robert E. Lee’s Unpublished Advice to His Cousin on Survival in the Postwar South After Slavery

Its work ethic must change but its integrity must not: "We must all be contented with the bare necessities of life, if we can all maintain clean hands & clear consciences…We must persevere & continue to labor, & leave the rest to a kind Providence."
 

The youth must be the focus: "The young now require every stimulus to exertion & every tie to bind them to their country."

In a rare retrospective on the Civil War, Lee discloses the personal effect on him of the siege of Petersburg: "I had suffered so much in body & mind when our lines enveloped it, on account of its good people, that, since the night I was obliged to abandon it, I had always looked back upon it in sorrow & sadness. But, I find the inhabitants bearing their afflictions so cheerfully & struggling so manfully to repair their fortunes, that a heavy weight has been lifted from my mind."

Edward G.W. Butler, a ward of Andrew Jackson who inherited his correspondence, graduated from West Point in 1820. After a decade in service, he went home to Louisiana, where we owned a large sugar plantation. During the Mexican War, he resumed his service as a general in the Louisiana militia, and then served in the U.S. Army in command of the District of the Upper Rio Grande. After the war he returned to his plantation. He was offered a senior command in the Confederate Army in 1861, but declined. His son, however, was given a command and was killed in action soon after. Butler's wife was Frances Parke Lewis, a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington and great-cousin of George Washington. She was also a cousin of Mary Lee, wife of Robert E. Lee, as Frances and Mary's grandparents were brother and sister. Thus, Lee and Butler were cousins, which explains the candor of his comments and personal nature of his remarks about the family.

The siege of Petersburg lasted almost nine months, from June 1864 until April 1865. During that time, the Confederate Army was in and around the city, with the Union forces attempting to complete their encirclement, and blocking an ever-increasing number of routes of supply into that city. The army suffered from inadequate supplies, including shortages of food and clothing. But the civilian population was affected too, as the siege hurt living conditions for the inhabitants in the same way. In the winter, people were reduced to eating pigeons, rats, mice, and mules. The poor women and children were compelled to go among the soldiers and beg for bread to eat. Theft was rampant. Many went barefoot, some buying rough country shoes with leather strings and no lining for their children. Lines of trenches scarred the countryside, and soldiers were well on their way to deforesting the surrounding region by chopping down trees for firewood. Residents had a hard time getting any of that vital fuel for themselves. Moreover, Grant had his artillerymen pounding away at the Confederate trenches, and some Union bombs found their way into town. By the spring of 1865, Union gunfire had destroyed whole sections of the city. Lee saw his location there as a military necessity, required to protect the Confederate capital of Richmond, and recognized that the war had caused suffering everywhere. Lee was thoughtful, but not one to be overly introspective about the past. Once the war ended, he very seldom expressed his personal, human feelings about the hardships endured by civilians on account of his army.

The South had been broken by the war. Lands were devastated and proud plantations were in wrecks.  Billions of economic value in slaves had been wiped away by emancipation, and former slaveholders found they were left to do work themselves. Families were scattered or shattered, and most had lost men in the war. Banks had failed, factories and railroads were dismantled, and the structure of business and commerce had crumbled. In Atlanta, Columbia, Mobile, Richmond, and many other places, great havoc had been wrought by fire. A visitor to Louisiana wrote (as one could have written of Butler), "With the devil of slavery gone, sugar houses had been destroyed, fences burned, weeds and brush were taking possession, and not a plantation was in decent order. Planters were without money or credit, could not borrow, and had no means of hiring or maintaining hands. A Louisiana planter who in 1861 had a sugar crop worth $125,000 was brushing his own shoes and dispensing with house service in postwar days." Thus, essentially, the entire fabric of society had crumbled, and the South's men and women had to create a new society and then find their place in it.

The postwar prospects of Robert E. Lee and his family were no clearer than those of his men. His wife’s Arlington plantation had been confiscated by the U.S. government, and he was without income at the age of 58. His sons faced the need to earn their livings by their own exertions, a station for which nothing had prepared them. But Lee signed the Oath of Allegiance, and urged “the healing of all dissensions." He preached submission to authority, promoted political harmony between the sections, and became president of Washington College to prepare the next generation of Southern men to become useful citizens. He is remembered today for seeking reconciliation. This was Lee's public face. His private feelings and assessments on the breakdown of the South's society, its personal impact on him and his loved ones, and his conclusions on how to find a place in the new one, were seldom expressed in writing. And this is quite understandable, as his words often found their way into the press, and he wanted to avoid controversy, misunderstandings, and further invasion of his privacy.

However, he was frank with his family and trusted their discretion. Autograph Letter Signed, 4 pages, Lexington, Va., March 2, 1868, to Gen. Butler, giving a rare retrospective of the personal impact on him of the sufferings of civilians in the war, providing a view of the struggles of his family in the postwar years, and offering candid advice on how Southerners must find their way to build a new future. "Your kind Xmas letter, with its greetings & sympathies, has been before me for a long time, until days have ran into weeks & weeks into months. It has, however, been duly appreciated & only unacknowledged for want of ability. My correspondence is very large & my time much occupied, so that I can do little else than perform the routine of my regular duties. I had as you supposed a very pleasant visit to Petersburg. I had suffered so much in body & mind when our lines enveloped it, on account of its good people, that, since the night I was obliged to abandon it, I had always looked back upon it in sorrow & sadness. But, I find the inhabitants bearing their afflictions so cheerfully & struggling so manfully to repair their fortunes, that a heavy weight has been lifted from my mind.

"We are only tolerably well. Mary has been suffering more of late from the effects of cold, & I have been unwell from the same cause. My daughters Mary & Agnes are in Baltimore. Mildred is therefore our dependence. Curtis & two of my nephews who attend college also form part of our household… Your friends in Virginia are personally well, though we are all full of troubles. Wisdom, prudence & fortitude will, I hope, carry us through. R.E. Lee." He ends with a postscript signed with initials. "P.S. I regret that I have no copy of 'Old Churches of Virginia', & can get no more." With the original envelope. The young woman mentioned as his new daughter was Charlotte Wickham, who had become engaged to Lee's son William Henry Fitzhugh Lee. They married the following year.

This is truly one of the most significant letters Lee wrote after the war. It is published here, now, for the first time in its entirety.