1 of 5

Robert E. Lee’s piety, morality, and compassion were apparent to all who crossed his path. As one historian has written, “Robert Lee was one of the small company of great men in whom there is no inconsistency to be explained, no enigma to be solved. What he seemed, he was—a wholly human gentleman, the essential elements of whose positive character were two and only two, simplicity and spirituality.” 

A “low church” Episcopalian all his life, Lee received religious training at home. He observed that his mother, who influenced him greatly, was “singularly pious from love to Almighty God and love of virtue.” His father, “Light Horse Harry” Lee, had won fame in the Revolutionary War. 

At West Point, Lee accomplished a still-legendary feat: he graduated with the highest cadet rank and without a single demerit. 

After graduation, Lee married Mary Custis, whose piety rivaled his mother’s. They had seven children (all three sons served with high rank in the Confederate Army), and Lee was confirmed with two of his daughters in Christ Church, Alexandria, Virginia, in 1853. 

Lee served gallantly in the Mexican War and later became superintendent of West Point. After John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry, he led the Marines that stormed and retook the garrison. 

In 1861, as civil war broke out, Lee was offered chief command of the Union forces. He refused the offer, resigned his commission, and soon became a general for the Confederacy. 

Though Lee once described the master-slave relationship as “the best that can exist between the black and white races,” he advocated gradual emancipation of slaves. When he received slaves from his father-in-law’s will, in fact, he released them. But Lee would not succumb to the northern abolitionists’ determination to force the issue.
Throughout the war, Lee faced overwhelming Union forces. At first criticized as “Granny Lee” in the South, he soon displayed his military brilliance. At times during the war, his casualties were only about one-third of those in opposing units. 

Lee daily read the Bible and prayed, and these lifelong practices were not greatly altered during the war. Unlike his Union counterpart, General Grant, he was noted for self-denial and self-control. He disliked tobacco, hated whiskey, and drank wine only in small quantities on rare occasions. 

Lee conferred often with chaplains and attended their services frequently. Following victory, he offered prayers of thanksgiving to God. After the Seven Days’ Battles that saved Richmond in 1862, Lee said he was “profoundly grateful to the Giver of all victory for the signal success with which he has blessed our arms.…” 

More than once Lee was prevailed upon to lead the funeral service for dead soldiers. He often wrote to the widows of friends who had lost their lives in the war. “But what a cruel thing is war,” he said, “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 neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.” 

Following the Confederates’ defeat, Lee said, “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.” Lee applied for restoration of his U.S. citizenship, but the application was mislaid. Astoundingly, it was not found and granted until the 1970s. 

Lee became president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee) in Lexington, Virginia. He attended Grace Church there, though sometimes he dozed in services, and he led the church’s vestry (board). His son described his religion as “practical” and “everyday.” 

President Franklin Roosevelt once declared, “We recognize Robert E. Lee as one of our greatest American Christians and one of our greatest American gentlemen.” But Lee described himself as “nothing but a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation.”

next page... |  1 of 5

share this page

RSS Feed   RSS Help