Notes

He glanced toward Jefferson Davis. "Tell me, sir: If, earlier in the war, you
found us forced to the choice between returning to the United States with all
our institutions guaranteed by law and carrying on as an independent nation
at the cost of freeing our Negroes, which would you have done?"
"When the delegates of the Southern states met in Montgomery, General,
we made a nation," Davis said firmly; Lee gave him credit for not
hesitating. "To preserve that nation, I would at need have taken any steps
required, up to and including carrying on a guerrilla war in the mountains
and valleys of the interior against Federals occupying all our settled places.
Any steps required, sir, any at all." Lee nodded thoughtfully; no one who
once met President Davis could doubt that, when he said a thing, he meant
it. "I am relieved it did not come to that, Mr. President." He stroked his gray
beard. "I fear I am too old to have taken up the bushwhacker's trade."
"As am I, but at need I should have learned it," Davis said.
"Where now?" Judah Benjamin asked. "Shall Forrest continue unchecked
with fire and the sword, or will you offer the Negroes in arms against us an
amnesty during which they may peacefully return to our fold?"
"As what? As free men?" Davis shook his head. "That would create more
troubles than it solves, by offering our Negroes incentive to rise up against
us and, once risen, to continue their insurrection in the hope of so
impressing us by their spirit that we yield them what they seek. No, let them
first see that fire and the sword remain our exclusive province and that they
may not hope to stand against us. Once they grow convinced of that, a show
of leniency is likelier to produce the results we desire."
"As you think best, Mr. President," Benjamin replied.
Jefferson Davis turned to Lee. "How say you, sir?"
"I say that the prospect of armed Negroes stubbornly resisting so able an
officer as General Forrest, and the performance of the colored regiments
which confronted the Army of Northern Virginia, trouble me profoundly,"
Lee answered. "That the one group shall be defeated, as the other was, is
hardly open to doubt. But if the Negro makes a proper soldier, can he
continue to make a proper slave?" Davis tried to make light of what he'd
said: "Don't tell me you are turning abolitionist, sir?"
"That is not a word to use lightly to a Southern man, Mr. President," Lee
said, biting his lip. Thinking of General Cleburne's memorial that had urged
the arming and emancipation of certain black men, and also of General
Hill's loathing of the institution of slavery, he felt he had to add, "If I were, I
should hardly be the only Confederate officer to hold such sentiments."
Davis's mouth twisted, but after a few seconds he had to nod.
Page 173
Judah Benjamin sighed loudly. "We left the United States not least in the
hope that the Negro problem would vex us no further once we were free
and independent. And yet we have it with us still and now no one to blame
for it but ourselves-and the Negro, of course." That gnomic observation
effectively ended the meeting.
When Lee returned to the rented house on Franklin Street that evening, he
was in a dark and thoughtful mood. The sight of the black serving woman,
Julia, who opened the door for him, did nothing to ease his mind. "Evenin",
Marse Robert," she said, "Yo" wife and daughters, they already eat-they
don' ex-pec'
you be so late. Plenty o' chicken 'n' dumplings left over, though."
"Thank you, Julia." He stepped into the front hall, took off his hat, hung it
on the hat rack. Then, after taking a couple of steps toward the dining room,
he paused and turned back.
"Somethin1 wrong, Marse Robert?" Julia asked. The candle she held
highlighted the frown lines on her face. She said quickly, "Hope I ain't done
nothin' to displease you." He hastened to reassure her: "No, Julia, not at
all." But he still did not go in to have supper. When he spoke again, he was
as cautious as he had been while addressing President Davis: "Julia, have
you ever thought you would like to be free?"
The candlelight, with its exaggerated shadows, played up her shift of
expression, or rather her shift to the lack of expression slaves used to
conceal themselves from their masters. "Reckon everybody-everybody
colored, I mean-think about that now and again, sun." Her voice likewise
yielded him nothing. He persisted: "What would you do if you were free?"
"Don't rightly know what I could do, Marse Robert. Don't have much book
leamin'. Much? Don't have none." Julia kept studying Lee from behind the
cautious mask her face wore. She must have decided he meant what he said,
for after a moment she went on, "Wouldn't mind findin' out what free was
like, I tell you that, sun."
"I thought as much." It was the answer Lee would have given, were he in
Julia's shoes; it was, he thought, the answer anyone with spirit, black or
white, man or woman, would give. "If you were free, would you be willing
to stay on here with my family and work for wages?"
"That's what I got to do to be free, that's what I do," Julia answered at once.
Lee saw he had made a mistake. "No, no, Julia, you misunderstand. I aim to
free you, and will whether you say yes or no. But as you have no other
situation, I wanted you to know you could continue to find employment in
this house."
"God bless you, Marse Robert." The candle flame reflected from the tears in
Julia's eyes. Then, as the reality of what he'd promised sank in, she began to
think aloud: "If I be free soon, maybe I learn to read. Who knows what I do,
if I be free?"
Learning their letters was against the law for blacks in Virginia, as it was in
most of the Confederate States. Lee forbore to mention that. For one thing,
the law was observed less rigidly for free Negroes than for slaves. For
another, Julia's desire to learn bespoke the sort of drive she would need as a
freedwoman. What he did say was a commonplace: "I gather my ladies are
still in the dining room?" Page 174
"Yes, suh, Marse Robert. I go tell them you here." Julia turned and fairly
raced toward the back part of the house, her shoes clattering against the oak
floorboards. Lee followed more slowly. His wife and daughters were
chatting around the dining room table when he came in. Julia had already
hurried in and then out past him once more. Mischief in her voice, his
youngest daughter Mildred said,
"Good heavens, Father, what did you tell her: that you'd sell her South if
she didn't move quicker?" His daughter Mary and his wife smiled. Agnes
did not, but then Agnes seldom smiled. Normally, Lee would also have
smiled; he had trouble imagining the enormity Julia would have to commit
to make him even imagine selling her South. Good servants who worked for
good masters-which, without false modesty, he knew himself to be-did not
have to worry about such things. But that the joke could be made at all
spoke volumes about the institution of slavery.
Now he answered seriously, "Precious life, I told her I intended to free her."
Like her daughters, Mary Custis Lee stared at him. "Did you?" she said. Her
voice was sharp, and with some reason.
The money to buy Julia had been hers, income from the estates currently in
such disarray. Before the war, that income had been vastly more than his
own. Moreover, in her invalid state she required near constant care.
"Why on earth did you decide to do that, Father?" Mary Lee echoed her
mother.
"What shall I do without her?" Mary Custis Lee added.
Lee chose to respond to his daughter's question first: "Because, my dear, I
have seen that, try as we may, we cannot escape the conclusion that the day
for slavery is past. We fought our great war for independence just
completed so that our states could govern themselves as they thought best.
And we have won it, and so brook no interference in our institutions from
the North or Washington City. Well enough. But the world beyond our
borders has not ceased to be, nor to despise us, despite that independence."
He mentioned Lord Russell's remark to James Mason.
His eldest daughter bristled. "If Washington has no business meddling in
our affairs, still less does England."
"That may be so. Yet when virtually all the world abhors one's practices,
one has to wonder at the propriety of those practices. And the bravery the
Northern colored troops displayed made me wonder at the justice of
continuing to hold their race in bondage. But the final straw for me is the
struggle the former Yankee Negro regiments of Louisiana and the other
states of the Mississippi valley continue to wage against General Forrest."
"But Father, so many people think Forrest a hero for putting those black
men down," Agnes said.
"Let them think so who will. But the Negroes still underarms in Mississippi
and Louisiana must surely know their cause is doomed: General Forrest is a
most able commander and has behind him the full weight of the
Confederacy. Yet the Negroes continue to fight-as would I, in their place.
To show such spirit, they must be men like any others, from which it can
only follow that enslaving whites were as proper as doing so to blacks."
"No one would uphold that proposition," Mary Lee said. "This is all very
pretty and all very logical, Robert, but who shall care for me if Julia is set at
liberty?" Mary Custis Lee said.
Page 175
"I expect she will, but for wages," he answered. "Perry has served me so for
years." His wife sniffed, but said, "If your mind is quite made up-"
"It is," he said firmly. "I do not presume to judge others, but I find I cannot
in good conscience continue to own human beings who, I am become
convinced, are inferior to me by circumstance alone, rather than by birth."
"Very well." Mary Custis Lee surprised him with a smile. "My father would
have approved."
"I suppose he would." Lee reflected that his father-in-law had enjoyed the
services of a couple of hundred slaves while alive and emancipated them
only in his will, when he could make use of them no more. It was
magnanimity of a son, but to Lee's mind not enough.
He also thought of Jefferson Davis's remark that he would have pursued
Southern independence even if that meant going into the hills and fighting
for years, and of his own reply that he was too old to make a bushwhacker.
Plenty of desperate ex-Union Negroes were of a proper age to learn that
trade, and plenty more blacks who might not themselves fight would quietly
support those who did. Before the war, slave revolts in the South had been
few and small and soon stamped out. Those days were gone. The
Confederate States had won one civil war. No matter how fiercely Forrest
fought, another was just beginning.
He laughed at himself. He had never imagined taking up arms against the
United States of America. And now, having done so, he saw no better way
to serve the new country he had helped create than to become an
abolitionist.
Talks with the Federal commissioners dragged on. The smaller issues
resolved themselves: in exchange for the Confederates' abandoning claims
to New Mexico, the United States yielded the Indian Territory. Judah
Benjamin had predicted as much after the first meeting. Lee wondered why
what seemed so obvious took so long to decide.
"You will never make a diplomat, General Lee, despite your many
accomplishments and virtues," Benjamin said; his constant smile widened
slightly to show real amusement. "Had the United States quickly conceded
the Indian Territory to us, we should have been emboldened to press harder
on the issue of Missouri. By the same token, had we given up New Mexico
without a struggle, the Federals might well have perceived that as
weakness, and so been less inclined to see reason over the Indian Territory."
Put that way, the negotiations reminded Lee of a campaign of attrition, the
sort Grant seemed to have had in mind against him in the spring of 1864.
Attrition was not his style. Whether he faced an enemy in the field or a
difficulty in his life, he always aimed to overcome it with one bold stroke.
Though it had failed Grant, attrition worked, at least to a point, for Seward,
Stanton, and Butler. By making it clear that the United States were willing
to fight over Maryland and West Virginia, they convinced Jefferson Davis
to yield them. Lee concurred in that decision; having fought in both states,
he'd seen that their people favored the Union.
Kentucky and Missouri were something else again. The United States were
willing to fight to keep them, but the Confederacy was equally willing to
fight to acquire them. Tempers on both sides ran high. Lee looked for the
bold stroke that might cut through the knotty problem. At length, the idea
for such a stroke came to him. He set it before President Davis. Davis
generally preferred directness himself and, after Page 176
some initial hesitation, gave his assent. Then Lee waited for the proper
moment to let it loose. That moment came in late September, after a series
of fiery speeches by Fremont seemed to put Lincoln on the defensive, even
among Republicans. All three of the Federal commissioners came to a
negotiating session looking worn. Butler, who had begun the war as a
Democrat, these days had one foot and a couple of toes of the other in
Fremont's camp. Stanton, a Lincoln loyalist, was gloomy to find so hard a
road ahead of his patron. And Seward, who had first sought the Presidency
himself and then tried to dominate Lincoln while Secretary of State, had the
appearance of a man who wondered yet again how fate could have allowed
that gangling bumpkin to overcome him.
Seeing the men across the table from him in the Cabinet room thus
distracted, Lee said, "My friends, I think I have found a way to simply settle
our difficulties concerning the disputed states of Kentucky and Missouri.
Surely you will agree that our two great republics ought to be able to
resolve our problems in a spirit that accords with the principles we both
espouse."
"Which principles are those?" Stanton asked. "The ones which proclaim
that one man ought to be able to buy and sell another? We do not espouse
such principles, General Lee." Lee did not show the frown he felt. That he
privately agreed with Stanton only made more difficult the public position
he was required to maintain. He answered, "The principle that government
is based upon the consent of the governed."
"And so?" Ben Butler's voice was filled with a lawyer's professional scorn.
"I presume the Negroes of your dominions have consented to your
domination of them?"
"They have the same franchise among us as in most of the Northern states,"
Judah P. Benjamin replied. He gave Lee a courteous nod. "Pray continue,
sir."
"Thank you, Mr. Secretary." Lee looked across the table at the
commissioners from the United States.
"Gentlemen, here is what I propose: Let the citizens of the two states in
question decide the matter for themselves in a fair vote, not to be influenced
by force or the presence of troops of either the United or Confederate states.
President Davis will pledge the Confederate States to abide by the result of
such an election. It is his sincere hope that President Lincoln will also
concur with what is, after all, the most equitable solution possible to the
dilemma confronting us."
"Equitable?" William H. Seward accomplished more with a slightly raised
eyebrow than Butler had with ostentatious scorn. "How do you presume to
speak of equity, sir, when you call for the withdrawal only of Federal forces
and of none of your own?"
"How do you presume to speak of equity when, by holding down these
states through force of arms, you prevent them from exercising their
sovereign rights?" Lee returned.
Ben Butler sniffed, "Just another of the worthless schemes you
Confederates keep inventing and advancing."
"No, sir," Judah Benjamin said. "My predecessor as Secretary of State, Mr.
R. M. T. Hunter, set forth a similar proposal in letters of February 1862 to
Messrs. Mason and Slidell in London and Paris respectively. We have been
willing-indeed, eager-to put our faith in the will of the people most directly
affected by the choice involved. The United States continually proclaim
their adherence to democracy. Have they less affection for it when it might
bring a result contrary to their desires?" Page 177
"Certainly we do," Stanton said. "So do you, or you'd not have bolted the
Union when the last election went against you."
That shot had some truth to it. Vice President Stephens showed as much by
ignoring it in his reply:
"Gentlemen of the United States, in simple justice's name, we request that
you transmit to President Lincoln the proposal General Lee advanced, and
at your earliest convenience return to us his response."
"As you are aware, he has empowered us to act as his plenipotentiaries in
this matter," Seward said. Lee sensed that the Federal Secretary of State was
unwilling to do as Stephens had asked. Throughout the war, Lincoln had,
despite his determination to return the South to the United States,
occasionally shown flexibility as to how that return might come about. He
had also continued to believe, against all evidence, that considerable pro-
Union sentiment remained in the seceded states. If he also exaggerated the
two border states' affection for rule from Washington, Lee's was a notion to
which he might be inclined to listen. Lee had counted on that when he put it
forward.
Prodding, he said, "Surely you gentlemen cannot fear your President would
overrule you?" That earned him a glare from Stanton, a basilisklike gaze
from Butler, and Seward's usual imperturbability. Seward said, "Since this
appears to be a condition upon which you insist, we shall do as you
require." He got to his feet. "Accordingly, there seems little point in
continuing today's discussions. Would you be so kind as to prepare your
formulation in writing, in order to eliminate the risk of misapprehension on
our part of what you have in mind?"
Lee drew from an inside coat pocket a folded sheet of paper which he
presented to Seward. "I have taken the liberty of doing so in advance of
your gracious acceptance."
"Er-yes. Of course." Seeming faintly nonplused, Seward skimmed the paper
to make sure it was what Lee had said it was, then nodded and leaned
sideways to store it in the carpetbag that sat to the left of his chair.
As he did so, Alexander Stephens put in, "General Lee is too courteous a
gentleman to ask you to consider whether you find this proposition of his
preferable to the prospect of renewed conflict against repeating rifles, but I
would have you remember that possibility and the, from your perspective,
unfortunate results of the last such series of meetings.'.'
"Those results are seldom far from our thoughts, I assure you," Seward said
icily. Stanton ground his teeth. The sound was quite audible. Lee had heard
of such a thing, but never before actually heard the thing itself: yet another
surprise, if but a tiny one, in a year filled with marvels. But Ben Butler said,
"If you Southerners were so hot to return to the fray, Mr. Vice President,
you would have dispensed with these polite conversations and fired your
terms at us from the barrel of a gun. As you choose to do otherwise, I will
thank you to follow the example of your courteous general and refrain from
such threats henceforward."
Butler was so distinctly homely as to be a caricaturist's dream; so, in an
utterly different way, was his master, Abraham Lincoln. Lee found him
thoroughly repulsive. To say he was corrupt weakened the word, though
somehow he'd kept anyone from proving he had sticky palms. He made a
laughable soldier. But in a battle of wits, he was far from unarmed. And he
visibly heartened his fellow commissioners as they took their leave of
Benjamin, Stephens, and Lee.
Page 178
"Now we wait," Lee said. Having waited for the precise instant so often in
the field, having waited for the right day on which to present his proposal,
he remained prepared once more to quench his iron will in the tempering
bath of patience.