Five years after the war, the beloved former general set out on a sentimental journey through the Southland.
Four years of unremitting war and five years of an uncertain peace had taken a cruel toll on Robert E. Lee. Vigorous in his youth and seemingly immune from fatigue, Lee marked New Year’s Day 1870 only too aware of his mortality. The 63-year-old veteran was in discomfort most of the time, and on a bad day had trouble walking more than the short distance to his office, as president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. He had accepted that position in August 1865, and except for some short summertime excursions had since devoted his time and dwindling energies to the school’s betterment.
While most of the world outside Lexington had no idea the great general was ailing, those close to him knew only too well his true condition. A few weeks into the new year Lee was visited by his son Robert Jr., who observed that his father “was constantly in pain and had begun to look on himself as an invalid.” An acquaintance who encountered him at this time took away the image of a man who “seemed weary and broken.”
Lee mused with close friends about resigning his post, citing, as one said, “his wish to rest, and, on some little farm, to enjoy the outdoor life of the country.” It finally took something of a conspiracy among his family, friends, doctors and the college faculty to convince him that he might be able to recoup his health by taking a vacation to the deep South, where the winter temperatures were far less harsh.
Once a decision had been made, Lee—as he had done on many a battlefield—moved quickly to execute a plan. He would be accompanied only by his daughter Agnes. His itinerary was loose, other than a firm desire to visit the grave of his eldest daughter Anne, who had died during the war and was buried in Warrenton Springs, N.C. (“I wish to see how calmly she sleeps away from us all, with her dear hands folded over her heart as if in mute prayer while her pure spirit is traversing the land of the Blessed,” Lee said.) The end point for his journey would be Florida, home to several wartime acquaintances. Lee avowedly hoped that he could make this journey “without meeting more people than he wanted to.”
Five years after the Rebel armies surrendered, the South was still in turmoil. Unlike with most civil wars, there had been no widespread slaughter of the losers after the combat came to an end. But there had been a focused effort to eradicate symbols of the rebellion. Confederate flags and uniforms were banned, and many of the prominent men who had led Southern societies before the war were barred from holding official positions.
For citizens of the seceded states, there had been no real closure to the tragic experiment in independence—only the grim reality of having to survive in an economy turned upside down. What Robert E. Lee could not have imagined, or perhaps even understood, was that his 1870 journey, undertaken for purely personal reasons, would in fact trigger an unprecedented outpouring of emotion by white Southerners toward one of the enduring figures of their lost cause.
During the first stage of Lee’s journey, he traveled by canal boat and train. He arrived in Richmond on the afternoon of Friday, March 25, and checked into the Exchange and Ballard House. A few friends called on him, along with a trio of doctors, who subjected him to a two-hour examination. Trying to put his best spin on the moment, Lee wrote his wife to assure her that he felt “better than when I left Lexington, certainly stronger, but am a little feverish. Whether it is produced by the journey, or the toddies that Agnes administers, I do not know.”
Members of the Virginia Senate learned of Lee’s presence and invited him to a formal reception. The general declined with a note, however, pleading that his health was “such as to require me to reach a milder climate as soon as practicable.” After resting for a day in his hotel room, Lee finally ventured out with Agnes. During one little foray, he encountered an ex-Confederate officer he knew very well, John S. Mosby. “The General was pale and haggard,” Mosby subsequently recalled, “and did not look like the Apollo I had known in the army.” Mosby promised to call on Lee in his hotel, which he promptly did. The two talked for a while about nothing in particular. Mosby later reflected that “while both of us were thinking about the war, neither of us referred to it.”
As he was leaving Lee’s hotel, Mosby encountered George E. Pickett and, in a decision he would later regret, convinced him to call on Lee. Pickett agreed to do so only if Mosby joined him. Pickett remained bitter about Gettysburg, while Lee hadn’t forgotten his subordinate’s poor performance during the war’s final campaign in Virginia. Their meeting was icily formal. Leaving with Mosby, Pickett muttered, “He had my division slaughtered at Gettysburg.” “Well,” Mosby replied, “it made you immortal.”
But another encounter proved quite fortunate. When James L. Corley, once Lee’s chief quartermaster, learned of the general’s vague travel arrangements, he offered to help manage the journey. Lee gratefully accepted the offer, and Corley agreed to join the party in Charlotte, N.C.
Lee and Agnes departed Richmond on March 28, catching a 2 p.m. train that took them to Warrenton, N.C., where they were met by some friends of Agnes who hosted them for the night. The next morning, using a borrowed buggy and supplied with flowers by their hosts, Agnes and her father went unaccompanied to the cemetery where Anne was buried. Afterward he told his wife, Mary, that his brief time at the grave “was mournful, yet soothing to my feelings.” Lee thanked the local women who tended to Anne’s resting place and, perhaps in a gesture of gratitude, allowed the daughters of one of them to take a lock of his hair. That night, March 29, he and Agnes left Warrenton, heading for Augusta via Raleigh.
Lee didn’t know it yet, but the cat was out of the bag. An inquisitive railroad telegrapher at the Warren Plains station had learned his identity, and the train had hardly disappeared from view when the news flashed along the wires to points south: “GENERAL LEE IS ABOARD.”
Since he hadn’t planned to alight at Raleigh, the general was sleeping when the train halted in the city. Waiting on the platform was a crowd chanting: “Lee! Lee!” He heard them but ignored their summons. Neither he nor Agnes even opened the curtains of their sleeping compartment. “We were locked up and ‘mum,’” she later wrote.
Their route to Augusta now carried them through the North Carolina towns of Salisbury and Charlotte, then on to Columbia, S.C. Soon Lee was receiving gifts of fruit from ex-Confederate soldiers on the train, and once restaurant proprietors learned that the general refused to leave his car, they even delivered meals to the honored travelers during rest stops. So many edibles were provided, in fact, that Agnes was moved to mock protest. “I think we were expected to die of eating,” she quipped.
Curious women poked their heads into the car window at every stop, hoping to glimpse Lee. A brass band offered a tribute at Salisbury, and there was another impromptu concert at Charlotte, where—good as his word—James Corley was waiting to meet them.
Much of Columbia had closed in anticipation of the general’s arrival. Even though it was raining heavily when the train pulled in, a multitude was patiently enduring a soaking as the engine huffed to a halt. Among the throng was Edward Porter Alexander, who had commanded the massive bombardment on the third day of fighting during the Battle of Gettysburg. This time Lee allowed himself to be led to the platform, where he bowed to the crowd but declined to make any public comments. The numbers waiting for him at Augusta were as large, if not larger than, those in Columbia. He later remarked to Agnes: “Why should they care to see me? I am only a poor old Confederate.”
The journey thus far had been anything but restful, and though Lee had intended to pass through Columbia after a short stopover, he accepted the offer of a room for the night. But if the general had hoped to avoid any more receptions after leaving the train station, he was disappointed. “Crowds came,” Agnes wrote. “Wounded soldiers, servants, and workingmen even. The sweetest little children—namesakes—dressed to their little eyes, with bouquets of japonica—or tiny cards in their little fat hands—with their names.” Among the crowd was a 13- old with a noteworthy future in store, Woodrow Wilson. Also greeting him were former comrades from the war, Ambrose R. Wright and Lafayette McLaws.
The following morning, April 1, there was no April Fools in store when Lee, Agnes and Corley took the train for Savannah, Ga. The citizens of that town might well have been forgiven for not turning out, however, since many had waited in vain to see him the previous evening, when the general had originally been expected. But the size of the crowd waiting at Savannah exceeded anything that Lee had seen this far. The crush in fact made it difficult for him and Agnes to get out of the station, even after he had acknowledged the crowd’s greetings with a bow.
More people congregated in front of the house where Lee was reportedly spending the night. Two brass bands alternated performances, to keep the music continuously playing. For once most of the demonstrations missed the target, however, since Lee’s host spirited him out a back door and settled him for the night with a neighbor.
Savannah held warm memories for Lee. His first official posting after graduating from West Point had been in the coastal town, where he helped direct the construction of what would become Fort Pulaski. So Lee had lots of friends and acquaintances there, all of whom expected him to call. He did so throughout April 2. One old friend later wrote that the general “made me laugh very heartily and laughed himself until the tears ran down his face.”
Joining him for dinner that evening was one of his West Point classmates and a senior peer during the war, Joseph E. Johnston. Neither man would leave any recollections of their meeting, though they did agree to be photographed together, sitting stiffly across a small table from each other. But Lee’s outward bonhomie masked continuing health problems. “If I attempt to walk beyond a very slow gait, the pain is always there,” he wrote to Mary at this point. His Savannah sojourn lasted until April 12, when—after a four-day delay because Agnes was ill—he boarded the steamer Nick King for the trip to Florida.
By arrangement the boat stopped at Cumberland Island, where the general’s father, “Light Horse Harry” Lee, had died in March 1818 and was buried. Lee had never known his father, except from a distance. He was only 6 when Harry left his family in a quixotic search for a fresh start in the Caribbean, and 11 when the family learned that he had died on the way back to Virginia and been interred on a friend’s plantation off the Georgia coast.
In many ways, Robert E. Lee had spent his life in the shadow of his briefly illustrious father. Harry’s reputation had helped his son get into West Point, while the father’s personal failings late in life had, some said, spurred Robert to take great risks during the Civil War. Soon after the conflict ended, Lee agreed to edit a reprinting of his father’s Revolutionary War memoir, and in the précis of Harry’s life took pains to expunge much that was unflattering or embarrassing. Although he wrote to his brother, Carter, of visiting their father’s grave, he shared none of his thoughts on that solemn occasion.
Lee’s journey was next interrupted by a halt at Jacksonville. This time so many veterans had showed up that he couldn’t greet them all personally. Instead he chose to stand on the steamer’s deck, acknowledging their salutations. It was a remarkably moving moment. As soon as Lee appeared, the formerly boisterous crowd fell reverently silent. “The very silence of the multitude,” noted one reporter, “spoke a deeper feeling than the loudest huzzas could have expressed.” Writing to her mother later, Agnes said, “I wish you could…see the affection and feeling shown toward him everywhere.”
Their journey’s outward leg ended at Palatka, Fla., where, as the guest of his old commissary chief, Lee enjoyed picking oranges from trees. But he didn’t stay long, beginning his return trip on April 14. Still afloat, he stopped first at Jacksonville and then Savannah. Since the general’s itinerary was completely improvised at this point, he was not expected at either place, so these visits were much more low key. Among the mail waiting for him in the latter town, however, were pressing invitations to visit from as far away as Kentucky. “Our kind people seem to think that I am running loose or have a roving commission to travel the country,” Lee complained.
For the reverse trip north from Savannah, Lee had decided not to retrace his stops. He would follow the coast back to Virginia, starting with a train ride to Charleston, S.C., which he reached on April 25. Since Corley had completed his job, only Agnes accompanied Lee, and she was not looking well. By now Lee’s hosts had gotten the word that he preferred no public demonstrations, so only a small group met him in Charleston and transported him to the home of W. Jefferson Bennett, two of whose sons were enrolled at Washington College. To one re porter, Lee commented that he was “astonished to see Charleston so wondrously recuperated after all her disasters.”
Despite all efforts to keep the ailing general’s visit relatively quiet, many people still wanted to see him. There was a small reception for ex-Confederate officers living in Charleston, followed by a crowd and brass band that laid siege to his host’s home. Their cheers and the band’s tooting finally brought Lee out to the portico, where he once again bowed in appreciation. When the audience clamored for a few comments, C.G. Memminger, once the Confederate secretary of the Treasury, tried to make Lee’s apologies. But this wasn’t good enough for some of the city’s firemen, who kept chanting “Just one word.” Finally Lee spoke briefly to the gathering, citing his poor health for not saying more. It would prove to be the only public statement he made during the entire journey.
On April 28, it was time to go. Outside Wilmington, N.C., Lee was persuaded to shift to a special train that would carry him into the city. Waiting on the platform in Wilmington was a formation of cadets from nearby Cape Fear Academy, who presented arms while ceremonial drums rolled. Lee spent two nights in the town, with barely a break in his schedule as notables paid their respects. Then he entrained again to Ports mouth, Va., where he planned to catch a ferry to take him to Norfolk.
Portsmouth’s citizens managed to outdo the Wilmingtonians’ welcome, greeting Lee with an antique fieldpiece that roared its salute while fireworks exploded overhead. The cries that greeted the general were, as one observer noted, “genuine old-fashioned Confederate yells.”
There was one very familiar face in the crowd there— Walter H. Taylor, who had served as one of Lee’s closest aides during the conflict. Just a few years in the future, Taylor would be asked to speak on the anniversary of Lee’s birth. On that occasion he would describe the general as a “great soldier, wise in counsel, patient in preparation, swift in decision, terrible in onset, tenacious of hold, sullen in retreat.” For this, their last visit together, their conversation remained private.
Lee departed Portsmouth on May 5, then at Norfolk transferred to a steamer that stopped at the major James River plantations. The flourishing garden at his first port of call caught his fancy. It “is filled with flowers and abounds in roses,” he wrote Mary. “The yellow jasmine is still in bloom and perfumes the atmosphere.” At his next halt, Shirley Plantation, his august presence overawed at least one young lady present. “We had heard of God,” she exclaimed, “but here was General Lee!”
On May 12 Lee arrived at White House, Va., home to his son “Rooney,” whom he often called by his birth name, Fitzhugh. Waiting for him and Agnes was Mary, who had come from Lexington to join them. The family mansion had been burned during the war, and Rooney was getting by in modest quarters.
At this point Lee decided to visit a family friend in Gloucester County, accompanied by his youngest son, Robert Jr. When they arrived, via steamer, and the boat docked, so many passengers crowded to one side to see the general off the vessel that the captain commanded half to the other side to keep it from capsizing. During that visit the general was introduced to an Army of Northern Virginia veteran who had served through to the end of the conflict, including the surrender at Appomattox Court House. “I stuck to the army,” the old soldier admitted, “but if you had in your entire command a greater coward than I was, you ought to have had him shot.” After reflection Lee said, “That sort of coward makes a good soldier.”
He spent four days in Richmond, consulting another doctor and also enduring being measured by a sculptor who was preparing a bust. Finally, two months and four days after leaving Washington College, Lee returned to what was now his home. Although the expedition had been undertaken in hopes it would help him recover his health, Lee said after his return, “I do not think traveling in this way procures me much quiet and repose.”
Given Lee’s generally reticent nature, it is difficult to assess his reaction to the public demonstrations that met him at nearly every stop during his travels. But it’s also hard to believe that he wasn’t touched by what he saw. His visits to cities along his route had drawn large, demonstrative crowds. And even outside the cities there was ample evidence that white Southerners honored his service. At small stations and lonely crossroads they had gathered, veterans with their families as well as curious bystanders, always ready to wave or shrill the Rebel Yell.
With the benefit of historical perspective, a strong sense of presentiment hovers over the entire journey. Within the year Lee would be gone. Beginning with his sentimental journeys to the graves of his deceased daughter and father, and ending with his tour of the James River plantations— which represented the starting point for his own family history—Lee, in the words of one of his biographers, “had completed the cycle of communication with the past.”
Yet it was more than just a personal pilgrimage that marked Lee’s final tour as special. Even as Lee was touching the bases of his life for the last time, many Southerners had the opportunity to see the one man whose service to the Confederate cause had come to symbolize the entire war effort. Their cheers and applause had been as much for him as for countless sons of the South who had never come back—or who did not come back whole.
It was a rare moment in time, when the intimate odyssey of a very private individual coincided almost perfectly with a society’s public need to close a chapter of its history. For two months in the spring of 1870, Robert E. Lee and the people of the South made their peace with the past and, for their own reasons, said goodbye.
Noah Andre Trudeau’s most recent book is Robert E. Lee: Lessons in Leadership, part of the “Great Generals Series” (September 2009).
Originally published in the February 2010 issue of Civil War Times. To subscribe, click here.
