Editing Robert E. Lee (section)

===Resignation from United States Army===
[[File:Robert E Lee in 1863.png|thumb|Lee in [[Confederate States Army]] uniform in 1863]]
Unlike many Southerners who expected a glorious war, Lee correctly predicted it as protracted and devastating.<ref name="pryor20110419">{{cite web |url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/the-general-in-his-study |title=The General in His Study  |website=Disunion |date=April 19, 2011 |access-date=April 19, 2011 |author=Pryor, Elizabeth Brown}}</ref> He privately opposed the new [[Confederate States of America]] in letters in early 1861, denouncing secession as "nothing but revolution" and an unconstitutional betrayal of the efforts of the [[Founding Fathers]]. Writing to George Washington Custis in January, Lee stated:
{{blockquote|The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of the North, as you say. I feel the aggression, and am willing to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle I contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an American citizen, I take great pride in my country, her prosperity and institutions, and would defend any State if her rights were invaded. But 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 everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for "perpetual union", so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled.<ref name="auto2">{{cite web |url=https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Lee_Evils_of_Anarchy.pdf |title=Robert E. Lee to George Washington Custis Lee |publisher=The Library of America, 2011 |website=The Civil War: The First Year Told By Those Who Lived It |date=1906 |access-date=19 November 2016 |author=[[J. William Jones]]}}</ref>}}

Despite opposing secession, Lee said in January that "we can with a clear conscience separate" if all peaceful means failed. He agreed with secessionists in most areas, rejecting the Northern abolitionists' criticisms and their prevention of the expansion of slavery to the new western territories, and fear of the North's larger population. Lee supported the [[Crittenden Compromise]], which would have constitutionally protected slavery.<ref name="test">{{cite web|url=http://www.americanheritage.com/content/robert-e-lee%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cseverest-struggle%E2%80%9D|first=Elizabeth Brown|last=Pryor|title=Robert E. Lee's 'Severest Struggle'|publisher=American Heritage|year=2008}}</ref>

Lee's objection to secession was ultimately outweighed by a sense of personal honor, reservations about the legitimacy of a strife-ridden "Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets", and his duty to defend his native Virginia if attacked.<ref name="auto2" /> He was asked while leaving Texas by a lieutenant if he intended to fight for the Confederacy or the Union, to which Lee replied, "I shall never bear arms against the Union, but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in the defense of my native state, Virginia, in which case I shall not prove recreant to my duty".<ref>{{harvnb|Freeman|1934|p=425}}.</ref><ref name="test"/>

Although Virginia had the most slaves of any state, it was more similar to Maryland, which stayed in the Union, than to the Deep South; a convention voted against secession in early 1861. Winfield Scott, commanding general of the Union Army and Lee's mentor, told Lincoln he wanted him for a top command, telling Secretary of War [[Simon Cameron]] that he had "entire confidence" in Lee. Lee accepted a promotion to colonel of the [[1st Cavalry Regiment (United States)|1st Cavalry Regiment]] on March 28, again swearing an oath to the United States.<ref>{{harvnb|Freeman|1934|pp=431–447}}.</ref><ref name="test"/> Meanwhile, Lee ignored an offer of command from the Confederacy. After Lincoln's call for troops to put down the rebellion, a second Virginia convention in Richmond voted to secede{{r|kearns}} on April 17, and a May 23 referendum would likely ratify the decision. That night Lee dined with his brother [[Sydney Smith Lee|Smith]] and cousin [[Samuel Phillips Lee|Phillips]], naval officers. Because of Lee's indecision, Phillips went to the War Department the next morning to warn that the Union might lose his cousin if the government did not act quickly.<ref name="test"/>

In Washington that day,{{r|pryor20110419}} Lee was offered by presidential advisor [[Francis P. Blair]] a role as major general to command the [[Civil War Defenses of Washington|defense of the national capital]]. He replied:
{{blockquote|Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?<ref name="kearns">{{cite book|first=Doris Kearns|last=Goodwin|title=Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln|url=https://archive.org/details/teamofrivalspoli00good|url-access=registration|year=2005|publisher=Simon and Schuster|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/teamofrivalspoli00good/page/350 350]|isbn=978-1416549833}}</ref>}}

Lee immediately went to Scott, who tried to persuade him that Union forces would be large enough to prevent the South from fighting, so he would not have to oppose his state; Lee disagreed. When Lee asked if he could go home and not fight, the fellow Virginian said that the army did not need equivocal soldiers and that if he wanted to resign, he should do so before receiving official orders. Scott told him that Lee had made "the greatest mistake of your life".<ref name="test"/>

Lee agreed that to avoid dishonor he had to resign before receiving unwanted orders. While historians have usually called his decision inevitable ("the answer he was born to make", wrote [[Douglas Southall Freeman]]; another called it a "no-brainer") given the ties to family and state, an 1871 letter from his eldest daughter, Mary Custis Lee, to a biographer described Lee as "worn and harassed" yet calm as he deliberated alone in his office. People on the street noticed Lee's grim face as he tried to decide over the next two days, and he later said that he kept the resignation letter for a day before sending it on April 20. Two days later the Richmond convention invited Lee to the city. It elected him as commander of Virginia state forces before his arrival on April 23, and almost immediately gave him George Washington's sword as symbol of his appointment; whether he was told of a decision he did not want without time to decide, or did want the excitement and opportunity of command, is unclear.<ref name=Davis21>{{harvnb|Davis|1999|p=21}}.</ref><ref name="test"/>{{r|pryor20110419}}

A cousin on Scott's staff told the family that Lee's decision so upset Scott that he collapsed on a sofa and mourned as if he had lost a son, and asked not to hear Lee's name. When Lee told family his decision, he said "I suppose you will all think I have done very wrong", as the others were mostly pro-Union; only Mary Custis was a secessionist, and her mother especially wanted to choose the Union, but told her husband that she would support whatever he decided. Many younger men like nephew [[Fitzhugh Lee|Fitzhugh]] wanted to support the Confederacy, but Lee's three sons joined the Confederate military only after their father's decision.<ref name="test"/>{{r|pryor20110419}}

Most family members, like his brother Smith, also reluctantly chose the South, but Smith's wife and Anne, Lee's sister, still supported the Union; Anne's son joined the Union Army, and no one in his family ever spoke to Lee again. Many cousins fought for the Confederacy, but Phillips and John Fitzgerald told Lee in person that they would uphold their oaths; [[John H. Upshur]] stayed with the Union military despite much family pressure; [[Roger Jones (Inspector General)|Roger Jones]] stayed in the Union army after Lee refused to advise him on what to do; and two of [[Philip Richard Fendall II|Philip Fendall]]'s sons fought for the Union. Forty percent of Virginian officers stayed with the North.<ref name="test"/>{{r|pryor20110419}}