Robert Edward Lee, né le 19 janvier 1807 à la plantation de Stratford Hall et mort le 12 octobre 1870 à Lexington, est un militaire américain.
Diplômé de l'Académie militaire de West Point, il est officier du Génie pendant plus de trente ans dans l'armée des États-Unis avant que n'éclate la guerre de Sécession où il s'illustre d'abord comme commandant de l'armée de Virginie du Nord, puis comme général en chef des armées des États confédérés.
Fils d'Henry Lee III, un officier révolutionnaire pendant la guerre d'indépendance des États-Unis, Robert Lee participe à la guerre américano-mexicaine. Lorsque la Virginie fait sécession de l'Union en avril 1861, Lee choisit de combattre pour son État d'origine, en dépit de son souhait de voir le pays rester intact et malgré l'offre d'un commandement dans l'Union. Au cours de la première année de la guerre, Lee sert de conseiller militaire au président confédéré Jefferson Davis.
Une fois qu'il prend le commandement de la principale armée de campagne en 1862, il apparaît vite comme un tacticien habile et un excellent commandant sur le champ de bataille, remportant la plupart de ses batailles contre des armées de l'Union numériquement bien supérieures. Les stratégies sur le long terme de Lee sont plus discutables et ses deux grandes offensives dans le Nord finissent en défaites.
Ses tactiques agressives, qui entraînent de lourdes pertes à un moment où la Confédération manque d'hommes, ont fait l'objet de critiques au cours des dernières années. Les campagnes du général de l'Union Ulysses S. Grant mettent à mal la Confédération en 1864 et en 1865. Malgré de lourdes pertes infligées à l'ennemi, Lee est incapable de changer le cours de la guerre. Il se rend à Grant à Appomattox le 9 avril 1865. Comme Lee avait pris le commandement suprême des armées confédérées restantes, les autres forces confédérées capitulent rapidement après sa reddition. Lee appelle par la suite à la réconciliation entre le Nord et le Sud.
Après la guerre, il devient président de l'université de Washington, qui fut rebaptisée Washington and Lee University après sa mort. Il soutient le programme du président Andrew Johnson prônant la reconstruction, tout en s'opposant aux propositions des Républicains radicaux pour donner aux esclaves libérés le droit de vote et de retirer le droit de vote aux ex-Confédérés. Il exhorte à reconsidérer leur position entre le Nord et le Sud en favorisant la réinsertion des anciens Confédérés dans la vie politique de la nation. Lee est devenu le grand héros sudiste de la guerre et une icône après-guerre de la « Cause perdue » pour certains. Mais sa popularité grandit surtout après sa mort en 1870, et ce même dans le Nord.
Wikipedia
“Heureusement que la guerre est une chose horrible — sinon nous pourrions l'apprécier.”
It is well that war is so terrible — we should grow too fond of it.
Robert Lee, commentaire à James Longstreet lors de la bataille de Fredericksburg ( [13, décembre, 1862] ).
en
Remark to General Henry Heth, as quoted in R. E. Lee : A Biography, Vol. 3 (1935) by Douglas Southall Freeman
Letter purportedly written to his son, G. W. Custis Lee (5 April 1852); published in The New York Sun (26 November 1864). Although the “Duty Letter” was presumed authentic for many decades and included in many biographies of Lee, it was repudiated in December 1864 by “a source entitled to know.” This repudiation was rediscovered by University of Virginia law professor Charles A. Graves who verified that the letter was inconsistent with Lee's biographical facts and letter-writing style. Lee's son also wrote to Graves that he did not recall ever receiving such a letter. “The Forged Letter of General Robert E. Lee”, Proceedings of the 26th annual meeting of the Virginia State Bar Association 17:176 http://books.google.com/books?id=EMkDAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA176 (1914)
Misattributed
Supposedly made to Governor Fletcher S. Stockdale (September 1870), as quoted in The Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, pp. 497-500; however, most major researchers including Douglas Southall Freeman, Shelby Dade Foote, Jr., and Bruce Catton consider the quote a myth and refuse to recognize it. “T. C. Johnson: Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, 498 ff. Doctor Dabney was not present and received his account of the meeting from Governor Stockdale. The latter told Dabney that he was the last to leave the room, and that as he was saying good-bye, Lee closed the door, thanked him for what he had said and added: "Governor, if I had foreseen the use these people desired to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox, no, sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand." This, of course, is second-hand testimony. There is nothing in Lee's own writings and nothing in direct quotation by first-hand witness that accords with such an expression on his part. The nearest approach to it is the claim by H. Gerald Smythe that "Major Talcott" — presumably Colonel T. M. R. Talcott — told him Lee stated he would never have surrendered the army if he had known how the South would have been treated. Mr. Smythe stated that Colonel Talcott replied, "Well, General, you have only to blow the bugle," whereupon Lee is alleged to have answered, "It is too late now" (29 Confederate Veteran, 7). Here again the evidence is not direct. The writer of this biography, talking often with Colonel Talcott, never heard him narrate this incident or suggest in any way that Lee accepted the results of the radical policy otherwise than with indignation, yet in the belief that the extremists would not always remain in office”.
Misattributed
Letter to trustees, as quoted in "Honoring Lee Anew" http://wluspectator.com/2014/07/15/cox-honoring-lee-anew/ (15 July 2014), by David Cox, A Magazine of Student Thought and Opinion
As quoted in A Life of General Robert E. Lee (1871), by John Esten Cooke
As quoted in The American Soul: An Appreciation of the Four Greatest Americans and their Lessons for Present Americans (1920) by Charles Sherwood Farriss, p. 63
“Tell Hill he must come up … Strike the tent.”
Reported as his last words. There are suggestions that Lee's biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman embellished Lee's final moments; as Lee suffered a stroke on September 28, 1870. Dying two weeks later, on October 12, 1870, shortly after 9 a.m. from the effects of pneumonia. Lee's stroke had resulted in aphasia, rendering him unable to speak. When interviewed the four attending physicians and family stated "he had not spoken since 28 September..."
Misattributed
Speech in the Senate (3 March 1854); Quoted in Douglas Southall Freeman (2008) Lee, p. 93
1850s
"Memoirs of Robert E. Lee" by A. L. Long (1886)
1870s
Letter to former Virginia governor John Letcher (28 August 1865), as quoted in Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee (1875) by John William Jones, p. 203
1860s
Testimony to the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction (17 February 1866) responding to a question on relocating freed slaves to other states as quoted in Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction at the First Session Thirty-Ninth Congress https://books.google.com/books?id=dUgWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1866), pp. 135-6.
1860s
"Memoirs of Robert E. Lee" by A. L. Long (1886)
1870s
“Teach him he must deny himself.”
Lee to a mother who asked him to bless her son, as quoted in R. E. Lee : A Biography, Vol. 4 (1935) by Douglas Southall Freeman, p. 505
To Ulysses S. Grant on why black U.S. soldiers were not be repatriated by the Confederacy, as quoted in Liberty, Equality, Power: Enhanced Concise Edition https://books.google.com/books?id=1w5Qp4qYfE0C&pg=PA433#v=onepage&q&f=false (2009), California: Cengage Learning, p. 433
1860s
Letter to General P.G.T. Beauregard (3 October 1865)
1860s
Amnesty oath to the United States http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/publications/prologue/2005/spring/images/lee-amnesty-l.jpg&c=/publications/prologue/2005/spring/images/lee-amnesty.caption.html (2 October 1865)
1860s
Not verified. The apparent source is this op-ed in the Roanoke Times http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/commentary/cox-honoring-lee-anew/article_08d2e9a7-f33b-577d-9b55-2caf94a5083e.html|, dated 14 July 2014, by David Cox (who was rector of R. E. Lee Memorial (Episcopal) Church in Lexington from 1987-2000):
"Someone wrote me of a woman asking Lee what to do with an old battle flag. Lee supposedly responded, 'Fold it up and put it away.' Though I’ve not verified the account, it is consistent with his letters and acts of his last years. He was always looking ahead."
Attributed
“I should NOT be trading on the blood of my men.”
On refusing requests to write his memoirs, as quoted in Gentlemen of Virginia (1961) page 188 by Marshall William Fishwick; also cited as possibly apocryphal in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (2004) edited by Elizabeth M. Knowles
“I am glad to see one real American here.”
To Ely S. Parker at Appomattox Court House (9 April 1865), as quoted in The Life of General Ely S. Parker: Last Grand Sachem of the Iroquois and General Grant's Military Secretary Buffalo, by Arthur C. Parker, New York: Buffalo Historical Society, 1919, p. 133
1860s
Statement to John Leyburn (1 May 1870), as quoted in R. E. Lee: A Biography (1934) by Douglas Southall Freeman.
1870s
Letter regarding war monuments https://www.google.com/search?q=%22to+commit+to+oblivion+the+feelings+it+engendere%22&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1#tbm=bks&q=%22to+commit+to+oblivion+the+feelings+it+engendered%22 (1869), as quoted in Personal reminiscences, anecdotes, and letters of gen. Robert E. Lee https://books.google.com/books?id=VikOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA234 (1874), by John William Jones, p. 234. Also quoted in "Renounce the battle flag: Don't whitewash history" http://www.newsleader.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/07/01/renounce-battle-flag-whitewash-history/29574721/ (26 June 2015), by Petula Dvorak, The Washington Post, Washington, D.C. This quote is also given as: "I think it wisest not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered." https://books.google.com/books?id=x7OOraQWi5wC&pg=PA299&dq=%22i+think+it+wiser+moreover%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAGoVChMIxZSVnqTyxgIVw9SACh39bQbx#v=onepage&q=%22i%20think%20it%20wiser%20moreover%22&f=false
1860s
“The only question on which we did not agree has been settled, and the Lord has decided against me.”
To Marsena Patrick, as quoted in "Honoring Lee Anew" http://wluspectator.com/2014/07/15/cox-honoring-lee-anew/ (15 July 2014), by David Cox, A Magazine of Student Thought and Opinion
1860s
Life and Campaigns of General Robert E. Lee https://books.google.com/books?id=BDkDAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (1866) page 30. Responding to Francis Preston Blair relayed an offer to make him major-general to command the defense of Washington D.C.
1860s
“Ulysses S. Grant, you invite me to lunch then show up an hour late drunk?”
As quoted in General Robert E. Lee And the Origins of the American Civil War (1999), by Phoney Mc Ring-Ring, p. 117
