Henry Heth ( / ˈ h iː θ / not / ˈ h ɛ θ / ) (December 16, 1825 – September 27, 1899) was a career United States Army officer who became a Confederate general in the American Civil War .
118-555: He came to the notice of Robert E. Lee while serving briefly as his quartermaster, and was given a brigade in the Third Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia commanded by A. P. Hill , whose division he commanded when the latter was wounded at Chancellorsville . He is generally blamed for accidentally starting the Battle of Gettysburg by sending half his division into the town before the rest of
236-571: A brigade commander in Maj. Gen. A. P. Hill 's division. He fought in the Battle of Chancellorsville , showing aggressive, but misguided, qualities in his first large-scale combat, attacking without reserves against a Union force emerging from the Wilderness. Heth assumed command of Hill's division after Hill assumed corps command after Stonewall Jackson 's wounding. Following the death of Jackson, Lee reorganized his army into three corps , promoting Hill to
354-512: A first lieutenant of engineers in 1837, he supervised the engineering work for St. Louis harbor and for the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Among his projects was the mapping of the Des Moines Rapids on the Mississippi above Keokuk, Iowa , where the Mississippi's mean depth of 2.4 feet (0.7 m) was the upper limit of steamboat traffic on the river. His work there earned him
472-635: A prisoner exchange between the Confederacy and the Union when the Union demanded that black Union soldiers be included. Lee did not accept the swap until a few months before the Confederacy's surrender. He also called the Emancipation Proclamation "a savage and brutal policy...which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death". As the war dragged on and Lee's losses mounted, he eventually advocated enlisting enslaved people in
590-482: A "primacy of slave law". She wrote that Lee's private views on race and slavery, In 1857, George Custis died, leaving Robert Lee as the executor of his estate, which included nearly 200 slaves. In his will, Custis said the enslaved people were to be freed within five years of his death. On taking on the role of administrator for the Parke Custis will, Lee used a provision to retain them in slavery to produce income for
708-411: A calm and rational manner, overtly physical domination of slaves, unchecked by law, was always brutal and potentially savage." Lee biographer Elizabeth Brown Pryor concluded in 2008 that "the facts are verifiable", based on "the consistency of the five extant descriptions of the episode (the only element that is not repeatedly corroborated is the allegation that Lee gave the beatings himself), as well as
826-409: A collection of talented subordinates, most notably James Longstreet , Stonewall Jackson , and J. E. B. Stuart , who along with Lee were critical to the Confederacy's battlefield success. In spite of his successes, his two major strategic offensives into Union territory both ended in failure. Lee's aggressive and risky tactics, especially at Gettysburg, which resulted in high casualties at a time when
944-657: A company of mounted infantry against the Lakota . In 1858, he created the first marksmanship manual for the Army. Heth served at Camp Floyd during the Utah War . Camp Floyd had the largest concentration of US Troops at any post prior to the Civil War. While stationed in the desolate Utah Territory, he and others petitioned the Freemason 's Grand Lodge of Missouri to establish a Masonic Lodge in
1062-649: A daughter, Josephine, who married Robert James Harlan in 1852. Kentucky politician James Harlan enslaved Harlan, who may have been James' son. In the 1850s, Robert Harlan lived free in Cincinnati, Ohio. Admitted to the Virginia bar in 1828, Floyd practiced law in his native state and at Helena, Arkansas , where he lost a large fortune and his health in a cotton-planting venture. In 1839, Floyd returned to Virginia and settled in Washington County . Voters elected him to
1180-641: A difficult time for Lee, with his long absences from home, the increasing disability of his wife, troubles in taking over the management of a large slave plantation, and his often morbid concern with his personal failures. In 1852, Lee was appointed Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point . He was reluctant to enter what he called a "snake pit", but the War Department insisted and he obeyed. His wife occasionally came to visit. During his three years at West Point, Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee improved
1298-567: A few days earlier and any available shoes would have been taken at that time. They also consider sending two brigades on such a mission would have been wasteful. The brigades made contact with Union cavalry under Brig. Gen. John Buford and spread out into battle formation. Lee had ordered A. P. Hill to avoid a general engagement with the enemy before he could assemble his full army, but Heth's actions had now rendered that order moot. They were engaged, and Union reinforcements started arriving quickly. Heth's decision to deploy his two brigades before
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#17330845223271416-495: A friend "There is not a word of truth in it ... No servant, soldier, or citizen, that was ever employed by me can with truth charge me with bad treatment." Foner writes that "Lee's code of gentlemanly conduct did not seem to apply to blacks" during the War. He did not stop his soldiers from kidnapping free black farmers and selling them into slavery. Princeton University historian James M. McPherson noted that Lee initially rejected
1534-404: A general way only at some unspecified future date as a part of God's purpose. Slavery for Lee was a moral and religious issue, and not one that would yield to political solutions. Emancipation would sooner come from Christian impulse among slave masters before "storms and tempests of fiery controversy" such as was occurring in " Bleeding Kansas ". Countering Southerners who argued for slavery as
1652-503: A great-great-grandson of Richard Bland . Fitzhugh Lee (1835–1905), a Confederate general and later a United States Army general in the Spanish–American War , was Lee's nephew. Lee was a second cousin of Helen Keller 's grandmother, and was a distant relative of Admiral Willis Augustus Lee . On May 1, 1864, General Lee was present at the baptism of General A. P. Hill 's daughter, Lucy Lee Hill, to serve as her godfather. This
1770-428: A greater calamity to both. I should therefore prefer to rely upon our white population to preserve the ratio between our forces and those of the enemy, which experience has shown to be safe. But in view of the preparations of our enemies, it is our duty to provide for continued war and not for a battle or a campaign, and I fear that we cannot accomplish this without overtaxing the capacity of our white population." After
1888-645: A house on Oronoco Street. In 1812 Lee's father moved permanently to the West Indies . Lee attended Eastern View, a school for young gentlemen, in Fauquier County, Virginia , and then at the Alexandria Academy, free for local boys, where he showed an aptitude for mathematics. Although brought up to be a practicing Christian , he was not confirmed in the Episcopal Church until age 46. Anne Lee's family
2006-408: A matter of principle, and Lee adhered to the precedent. He considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service, and Lee did not speak out publicly on the subject of slavery prior to the Civil War. Before the outbreak of the War, in 1860, Lee voted for Southern Democratic nominee and incumbent Vice President John C. Breckinridge , who was the pro-slavery candidate in
2124-603: A member of the United States House of Representatives from 1817 to 1829 and as governor of Virginia from 1830 to 1834. Young Floyd, who was of English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish heritage, graduated from South Carolina College in 1826 (by some accounts 1829), where he was a member of the Euphradian Society . He married his cousin, Sarah (Sally) Buchanan Preston (1802–1879), daughter of Francis Preston , on June 1, 1830. They had no children. Some claimed Floyd had
2242-496: A paternalistic master. There are various historical and newspaper hearsay accounts of Lee's personally whipping a slave, but they are not direct eyewitness accounts. He was definitely involved in administering the day-to-day operations of a plantation and was involved in the recapture of runaway slaves. One historian noted that Lee separated families of enslaved people, something that prominent enslaving families in Virginia such as Washington and Custis did not do. On December 29, 1862,
2360-501: A philosophical perspective, he supported its legality and held hundreds of slaves. When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command. During the first year of the Civil War, he served in minor combat operations and as a senior military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis . Lee took command of
2478-494: A positive good , Lee in his well-known analysis of slavery from an 1856 letter ( see below ) called it a moral and political evil. While both Lee and his wife were disgusted with slavery, they also defended it against abolitionist demands for immediate emancipation for all enslaved. Lee argued that slavery was bad for white people, claiming that he found slavery bothersome and time-consuming as an everyday institution to run. In an 1856 letter to his wife, he maintained that slavery
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#17330845223272596-779: A promotion to captain . Around 1842, Captain Robert E. Lee arrived as Fort Hamilton 's post engineer. While Lee was stationed at Fort Monroe, he married Mary Anna Randolph Custis (1807–1873), great-granddaughter of Martha Washington by her first husband Daniel Parke Custis , and step-great-granddaughter of George Washington , the first president of the United States. Mary was the only surviving child of George Washington Parke Custis , George Washington's stepgrandson, and Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis , daughter of William Fitzhugh and Ann Bolling Randolph . Robert and Mary married on June 30, 1831, at Arlington House , her parents' house just across
2714-486: A staff officer; he found routes of attack that the Mexicans had not defended because they thought the terrain was impassable. He was promoted to brevet major after the Battle of Cerro Gordo on April 18, 1847. He also fought at Contreras , Churubusco , and Chapultepec and was wounded at the last. By the end of the war, he had received additional brevet promotions to lieutenant colonel and colonel, but his permanent rank
2832-479: A thing." In 2000, Michael Fellman, in The Making of Robert E. Lee , found the claims that Lee had personally whipped Mary Norris "extremely unlikely", but found it not at all unlikely that Lee had ordered the runaways whipped: "corporal punishment (for which Lee substituted the euphemism "firmness") was [believed to be] an intrinsic and necessary part of slave discipline. Although it was supposed to be applied only in
2950-631: A will providing for the manumission of the slaves he owned, "a woman and her children inherited from his mother and apparently leased to his father-in-law and later sold to him". Lee's father-in-law, G. W. Parke Custis , was a member of the American Colonization Society , which was formed to gradually end slavery by establishing a free republic in Liberia for African-Americans, and Lee assisted several formerly enslaved people to emigrate there. Also, according to historian Richard B. McCaslin, Lee
3068-569: Is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia . Heth served as the first Commander of the Centennial Legion of Historic Military Commands when it was founded in 1876. Heth was portrayed by Warren Burton in the 1993 film Gettysburg , based on Michael Shaara's novel, The Killer Angels . Robert E. Lee Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870)
3186-560: Is referenced in the painting Tender is the Heart by Mort Künstler . He was also the godfather of actress and writer Odette Tyler , the daughter of Brigadier General William Whedbee Kirkland . Lee distinguished himself in the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). He was one of Winfield Scott 's chief aides in the march from Veracruz to Mexico City. He was instrumental in several American victories through his personal reconnaissance as
3304-482: The National Anti-Slavery Standard . Norris said that after they had been captured, and forced to return to Arlington, Lee told them that "he would teach us a lesson we would not soon forget". According to Norris, Lee had the overseer tie the three of them firmly to posts, and ordered them whipped: 50 lashes for the men and 20 for Mary Norris. Norris claimed that Lee encouraged the whipping, and that when
3422-674: The 1860 presidential election and had supported the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas , rather than Constitutional Union Party nominee John Bell , the Southern Unionist candidate who won Virginia and voted against the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution as the United States Senator from Tennessee . Lee himself enslaved a small number of people in his lifetime and considered himself
3540-454: The Alexandria jail, Lee decided to remove these three men and three female house slaves from Arlington, and sent them under lock and key to the slave-trader William Overton Winston in Richmond , who was instructed to keep them in jail until he could find "good & responsible" enslavers to work them until the end of the five-year period. By 1860, only one family of slaves was left intact on
3658-564: The Battle of Sutherland's Station . Heth led the remainder of his troops in the Appomattox Campaign , fighting at Cumberland Church and retreating to Appomattox Court House , where he surrendered with Lee on April 9, 1865. After the war, Heth worked in the insurance business and later served the government as a surveyor and in the Office of Indian Affairs . He died in Washington, D.C. , and
Henry Heth - Misplaced Pages Continue
3776-559: The Pony Express . In December 1860, on ascertaining that Floyd had honored heavy drafts made by government contractors in anticipation of their earnings, the president requested his resignation. Several days later, Floyd was indicted for malversation in office, although the indictment was overruled in 1861 on technical grounds. No proof was found that he profited from these irregular transactions; in fact, he left office financially embarrassed. Although he had openly opposed secession before
3894-677: The Utah Expedition . Floyd is implicated in the scandal of the "Abstracted Indian Bonds", which broke at the end of 1860 as the Buchanan administration was reaching its end. His wife's nephew Godard Bailey, who worked in the Interior Department and removed bonds from the Indian Agency safe during 1860, was also implicated. Among the recipients of the money was Russell, Majors, and Waddell, a government contractor that held, among its contracts,
4012-593: The Abingdon town council in 1843 and the Virginia House of Delegates in 1847, and he won re-election once, then resigned in 1849 upon being elected governor of Virginia . As governor, Floyd commissioned the monument to President George Washington in Virginia Capitol Square, and laid the cornerstone in the presence of President Zachary Taylor on February 22, 1850. The second Governor Floyd also recommended
4130-567: The Arlington plantation as a punishment; however, they disagree over the likelihood that Lee flogged them, and over the charge that he personally whipped Mary Norris. In 1934, Douglas S. Freeman described the incident as "Lee's first experience with the extravagance of irresponsible antislavery agitators" and asserted that "There is no evidence, direct or indirect, that Lee ever had them or any other Negroes flogged. The usage at Arlington and elsewhere in Virginia among people of Lee's station forbade such
4248-564: The Army a year after graduation). Lee did not incur any demerits during his four-year course of study, a distinction shared by only five of his 45 classmates. In June 1829, Lee was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. After graduation, while awaiting assignment, he returned to Virginia to find his mother on her deathbed; she died at Ravensworth on July 26, 1829. On August 11, 1829, Brigadier General Charles Gratiot ordered Lee to Cockspur Island , Georgia . The plan
4366-910: The Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862 during the Peninsula Campaign following the wounding of Joseph E. Johnston . He succeeded in driving the Union Army of the Potomac under George B. McClellan away from the Confederate capital of Richmond during the Seven Days Battles , but he was unable to destroy McClellan's army. Lee then overcame Union forces under John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run in August. His invasion of Maryland that September ended with
4484-487: The Civil War. Robert E. Lee was at both events. Lee initially remained loyal to the Union after Texas seceded. John Brown led a band of 21 abolitionists who seized the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry , Virginia, in October 1859, hoping to incite a slave rebellion. President James Buchanan gave Lee command of detachments of militia, soldiers, and United States Marines , to suppress the uprising and arrest its leaders. By
4602-572: The Confederacy had a shortage of manpower, have come under criticism. His legacy, and his views on race and slavery, have been the subject of continuing debate and historical controversy. Lee was born at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia , to Henry Lee III and Anne Hill Carter Lee on January 19, 1807. His ancestor, Richard Lee I , emigrated from Shropshire , England , to Virginia in 1639. Lee's father suffered severe financial reverses from failed investments and
4720-505: The Confederate army in exchange for freedom. However, he came to this position with great reluctance. In an 1865 letter to his friend Andrew Hunter , he wrote: "Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert
4838-597: The Confederate left flank at the Battles of North Anna and Cold Harbor . Heth also participated in the Siege of Petersburg , playing direct roles in the battles of Globe Tavern ; Second Ream's Station ; Peebles' Farm ; Boydton Plank Road ; and Hatcher's Run . Following the death of Gen. A.P. Hill on April 2, 1865, Heth briefly took over command of the Third Corps. Heth's troops, now led by Gen. John R. Cooke , were pushed back at
Henry Heth - Misplaced Pages Continue
4956-536: The Confederate loss at the Battle of Carnifex Ferry, stating that Wise refused to come to his aid. Virginia Delegate Mason Mathews , whose son Alexander F. Mathews was Wise's aide-de-camp , spent several days in the camps of both Wise and Floyd to seek resolution to an escalating feud between the two generals. Afterward, he wrote to President Jefferson Davis urging that both men be removed, stating, "I am fully satisfied that each of them would be highly gratified to see
5074-510: The Court at Washington on the ground—first, that there was no evidence of fraud on his part; and second, that the charge of malfeasance in the matter of the Indian bonds was precluded from trial by the act of 1857, which forbids a prosecution when the party implicated has testified before a Committee of Congress touching the matter. After the secession of Virginia, Floyd was commissioned a major general in
5192-489: The Norrises whipped, and that the overseer refused to whip the woman but that Lee took the whip and flogged her personally. Lee privately wrote to his son Custis that "The N. Y. Tribune has attacked me for my treatment of your grandfather's slaves, but I shall not reply. He has left me an unpleasant legacy." Wesley Norris himself spoke out about the incident after the war, in an 1866 interview printed in an abolitionist newspaper,
5310-537: The Potomac from Washington. The 3rd U.S. Artillery served as honor guard at the marriage. They eventually had seven children, three boys and four girls: All the children survived him except for Annie, who died in 1862. They are all buried with their parents in the crypt of the University Chapel at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Lee was a great-great-great-grandson of William Randolph and
5428-596: The Provisional Army of Virginia, but on May 23, 1861, he was appointed a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army (CSA). He was first employed in some unsuccessful operations in the Kanawha Valley of western Virginia under Robert E. Lee , where he was both defeated and wounded in the arm at the Battle of Carnifex Ferry on September 10. General Floyd blamed Brigadier General Henry A. Wise for
5546-616: The Secretary of War, scattered the army so that much of it could be captured when hostilities should commence, and distributed the cannon and small arms from Northern arsenals throughout the South so as to be on hand when treason wanted them. After his resignation, a congressional commission in the summer and fall of 1861 investigated Floyd's actions as Secretary of War. His records of orders and arms shipments from 1859 to 1860 were examined. In response to John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry , he bolstered
5664-540: The Third Corps. Heth retained his division command and was promoted to major general on May 24, 1863. Heth's division made history by inadvertently starting the Battle of Gettysburg . Marching east from Cashtown on July 1, 1863, Heth sent two brigades ahead in a reconnaissance in force. His memoirs referred to sending them in a search of shoes in Gettysburg, but some historians consider this an apocryphal story; they say Heth knew that Jubal A. Early had been in Gettysburg
5782-428: The U.S. Army had arrived, becoming the third post commander within a week. Fort Donelson protected the crucial Cumberland River , and indirectly, the manufacturing city of Nashville and Confederate control of Middle Tennessee . It was the companion to Fort Henry on the nearby Tennessee River , which, on February 6, 1862, was captured by United States Army Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and river gunboats. Floyd
5900-563: The U.S. Army, turned his command over to Pillow, who immediately turned it over to Buckner. Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest and his entire Tennessee cavalry regiment escaped while Pillow escaped on a small boat across the Cumberland. The next morning, Floyd fled by steamboat with the 36th Virginia and 51st Virginia Infantry regiments, two artillery batteries, and elements of the other units from his old command. He safely reached Nashville, escaping just before Buckner surrendered to Grant in one of
6018-483: The U.S. forces surrounded the fort and the town of Dover , the Confederates launched an assault on February 15 to open an escape route. Although successful initially, indecision on General Pillow's part left the Confederates in their trenches, facing growing reinforcements for Grant. General Floyd, the commanding officer, who was a man of talent enough for any civil position, was no soldier, and possibly, did not possess
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#17330845223276136-622: The Utah Territory. It was granted on March 6, 1859, for Rocky Mountain #205 under dispensation from Missouri; Heth served as the last Senior Warden of the first Masonic Lodge in Utah, after which the Army was called away from Utah Territory to fight the American Civil War. After the war began at Fort Sumter , Heth resigned from the U.S. Army and joined the Confederate States Army , where he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. His initial assignment
6254-754: The Virginia General Assembly pass a law taxing imports from states that refused to surrender fugitives from Virginian enslavers, which would have violated the Interstate Commerce Clause . When he left statewide office in 1852, Washington County voters again elected him to the Virginia House of Delegates. Floyd also bought the Abington Democrat from Leonidas Baugh when the paper's founder won appointment as postmaster, and he had J.M.H. Brunet of Petersburg publish it, but Brunet died, and
6372-457: The War Department he could not maintain laborers without the facilities of the fort. In 1834, Lee was transferred to Washington as General Gratiot's assistant. Lee had hoped to rent a house in Washington for his family, but was not able to find one; the family lived at Arlington, though Lieutenant Lee rented a room at a Washington boarding house for when the roads were impassable. In mid-1835, Lee
6490-420: The War, Lee told a congressional committee that blacks were "not disposed to work" and did not possess the intellectual capacity to vote and participate in politics. Lee also said to the committee that he hoped that Virginia could "get rid of them", referring to blacks. While not politically active, Lee defended Lincoln's successor Andrew Johnson 's approach to Reconstruction, which according to Foner, "abandoned
6608-696: The army was fully prepared. Later in the day, Confederate troops succeeded in routing two Union corps, but at a heavy cost in casualties. Heth continued to command his division during the remainder of the war and briefly took command of the Third Corps in April 1865 after the death of General Hill. Heth surrendered with the rest of Lee's army on April 9. Henry Heth was born at Black Heath in Chesterfield County, Virginia , son of United States Navy Captain John Heth , and Margaret L. Pickett, sister of Robert Pickett, who
6726-588: The army was spread too far north in Kentucky to consolidate with Bragg's portion in time for the Battle of Perryville . Bragg ordered the withdrawal of Confederate forces back to Tennessee, and Smith was subsequently transferred to the Trans-Mississippi Department , his forces again missing a vital battle at Stones River . In March 1863, Lee, commanding the Army of Northern Virginia , then positioned at Fredericksburg, recalled Heth to Virginia to serve as
6844-413: The arrival of the rest of his division was an error as well; they were repulsed in hard fighting against an elite division of the Army of the Potomac 's I Corps , including the famously tenacious Iron Brigade . After a lull in fighting, Heth brought two more brigades into the fray in the afternoon and the Union forces were driven back to Seminary Ridge , but principally because the XI Corps ' right flank
6962-444: The assignment and returned to his post in Washington, finding his wife ill at Ravensworth. Mary Lee, who had recently given birth to their second child, remained bedridden for several months. In October 1836, Lee was promoted to first lieutenant. Lee served as an assistant in the chief engineer's office in Washington, D.C. from 1834 to 1837, but spent the summer of 1835 helping to lay out the state line between Ohio and Michigan . As
7080-445: The attack when a bullet struck him in the head. However, he was wearing a hat that was too large and stuffed with papers to make it fit. The papers probably deflected the bullet to avoid a fatal wound, but Heth was knocked unconscious and effectively out of the battle. Parts of his division, under the command of Brig. Gen. Johnston Pettigrew , saw more action two days later in Pickett's Charge , and Heth recovered enough to command during
7198-409: The buildings and courses and spent much time with the cadets. Lee's oldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, attended West Point during his tenure. Custis Lee graduated in 1854, first in his class. Lee was enormously relieved to receive a long-awaited promotion as second-in-command of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Texas in 1855. It meant leaving the Engineering Corps and its sequence of staff jobs for
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#17330845223277316-510: The college, he supported reconciliation between the North and South. Lee accepted the termination of slavery provided for by the Thirteenth Amendment , but opposed racial equality for African Americans . After his death in 1870, Lee became a cultural icon in the South and is largely hailed as one of the Civil War's greatest generals. As commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, he fought most of his battles against armies of significantly larger size, and managed to win many of them. Lee built up
7434-439: The combat command he truly wanted. He served under Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston at Camp Cooper , Texas; their mission was to protect settlers from attacks by the Apache and the Comanche . In 1857, his father-in-law George Washington Parke Custis died, creating a serious crisis when Lee took on the burden of executing the will . Custis's estate encompassed vast landholdings and hundreds of slaves but also massive debts;
7552-467: The contradictory nature of Lee's beliefs and actions concerning race and slavery. While Lee protested he had sympathetic feelings for blacks, they were subordinate to his own racial identity. While Lee held slavery to be an evil institution, he also saw some benefit to blacks held in slavery. While Lee helped assist individual slaves reach freedom in Liberia, and provided for their emancipation in his own will, he believed slaves should be eventually freed in
7670-516: The couple's first son, Custis Lee was born at Fort Monroe. Although the two were by all accounts devoted to each other, they were different in character: Robert Lee was tidy and punctual, qualities his wife lacked. Mary Lee also had trouble switching from being a rich man's daughter to having to manage a household with only one or two enslaved people. Beginning in 1832, Robert Lee had a close but platonic relationship with Harriett Talcott, wife of his fellow officer Andrew Talcott . Life at Fort Monroe
7788-464: The delay. In May 1858, Lee wrote to his son Rooney, "I have had some trouble with some of the people. Reuben, Parks & Edward, in the beginning of the previous week, rebelled against my authority—refused to obey my orders, & said they were as free as I was, etc., etc.—I succeeded in capturing them & lodging them in jail. They resisted till overpowered & called upon the other people to rescue them." Less than two months after they were sent to
7906-436: The election of Abraham Lincoln , his conduct after the election, especially after his breach with Buchanan, fell under suspicion. Despite the fact that he had been ordered to reinforce Southern forts by Buchanan, the press accused him of sending large stores of government arms to federal arsenals in the Southern United States in anticipation of the Civil War. Ulysses Grant , in his postwar Personal Memoirs , wrote: Floyd,
8024-499: The elements of one. He was further unfitted for command for the reason that his conscience must have troubled him and made him afraid. As Secretary of War, he had taken a solemn oath to maintain the Constitution of the United States and uphold the same against all enemies. He had betrayed that trust. Early in the morning of February 16, at a council of war , the generals and field officers decided to surrender their army. Floyd, concerned that he would be arrested for treason if captured by
8142-443: The enemy to Lewisburg , where Heth was forced to withdraw (May 23, 1862). The actions were critical to keeping federal forces tied up and out of the southern Shenandoah Valley while Stonewall Jackson was conducting his own campaign 120 miles to the north. Despite the small size of his force, Heth submitted his reports as an army commander and had his regimental commanders write their own as "brigade" commanders, possibly assisting in
8260-438: The estate to retire debt. Lee did not welcome the role of planter while administering the Custis properties at Romancoke, another nearby the Pamunkey River and Arlington; he rented the estate's mill. While all the estates prospered under his administration, Lee was unhappy at direct participation in slavery as a hated institution. Even before what Michael Fellman called a "sorry involvement in actual slave management", Lee judged
8378-474: The estate. Some of the families had been together since their time at Mount Vernon. In 1859, three slaves at Arlington—Wesley Norris, his sister Mary, and a cousin of theirs—fled for the North, but were captured a few miles from the Pennsylvania border and forced to return to the plantation. On June 24, 1859, the anti-slavery newspaper New York Daily Tribune published two anonymous letters (dated June 19 and June 21 ), each claiming to have heard that Lee had
8496-526: The eventual promotion of Heth to major general. He was then sent west to the Department of East Tennessee , to serve under Edmund Kirby Smith . During the Kentucky Campaign , he was sent by Smith to take a division north from Lexington, Kentucky , to make a demonstration on Cincinnati . Although this caused a great commotion in the city's defenses, only a few skirmishes occurred. Smith's portion of
8614-448: The existence of an account book that indicates the constable received compensation from Lee on the date that this event occurred". In 2014, Michael Korda wrote that "Although these letters are dismissed by most of Lee's biographers as exaggerated, or simply as unfounded abolitionist propaganda, it is hard to ignore them [...] It seems incongruously out of character for Lee to have whipped a slave woman himself, particularly one stripped to
8732-442: The experience of white mastery to be a greater moral evil to the white man than blacks suffering under the "painful discipline" of slavery which introduced Christianity, literacy and a work ethic to the "heathen African". Columbia University historian Eric Foner notes that: By the time of Lee's career in the U.S. Army, the officers of West Point stood aloof from political-party and sectional strife on such issues as slavery, as
8850-530: The federal arsenals in some Southern states by over 115,000 muskets and rifles in late 1859. He also ordered heavy ordnance to be shipped to the federal forts in Galveston Harbor, Texas, and the new fort on Ship Island off the coast of Mississippi. He intended to send these heavy guns in the last days of his term, but the President revoked his orders. His resignation as secretary of war on December 29, 1860,
8968-433: The former slaves to the mercy of governments controlled by their former owners". According to Foner, "A word from Lee might have encouraged white Southerners to accord blacks equal rights and inhibited the violence against the freed people that swept the region during Reconstruction, but he chose to remain silent." Lee was also urged to condemn the white-supremacy organization Ku Klux Klan , but opted to remain silent. In
9086-470: The generation following the war, Lee, though he died just a few years later, became a central figure in the Lost Cause interpretation of the war. The argument that Lee had always opposed slavery, and freed the people enslaved by his wife, helped maintain his stature as a symbol of Southern honor and national reconciliation. Both Harpers Ferry and the secession of Texas were monumental events leading up to
9204-521: The inconclusive Battle of Antietam , after which he retreated to Virginia. Lee won two major victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville before launching a second invasion of the North in the summer of 1863, where he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg by the Army of the Potomac under George Meade . He led his army in the minor and inconclusive Bristoe Campaign that fall before General Ulysses S. Grant took command of Union armies in
9322-674: The last day he was allowed to legally retain them, Lee finally freed all the enslaved people his wife had inherited from George Custis (in accordance with the Custis will). Before this, Lee had petitioned the courts to keep people enslaved by Custis longer than the five years allotted in Custis' will, since the estate was still in debt, but the courts rejected his appeals. In 1866, one of the people formerly enslaved by Lee, Wesley Norris, charged that Lee personally beat him and other slaves harshly after they had tried to run away from Arlington. Lee never publicly responded to this charge, but privately told
9440-552: The latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence. Before leaving to serve in Mexico, Lee had written
9558-409: The most significant strategic defeats of the Civil War. A short time before daylight the two steamboats arrived. Without loss of time the general (Floyd) hastened to the river, embarked with his Virginians, and at an early hour cast loose from the shore, and in good time, and safely, he reached Nashville. He never satisfactorily explained upon what principles he appropriated all the transportation on to
9676-451: The negroes, will be firm & make them do their duty." But Lee failed to find a man for the job, and had to take a two-year leave of absence from the army to run the plantation himself. Lee's more strict expectations and harsher punishments of the slaves on Arlington plantation nearly led to a revolt, since many of the enslaved people had been given to understand that they were to be made free as soon as Custis died, and protested angrily at
9794-565: The number of participants involved in the raid. John B. Floyd John Buchanan Floyd (June 1, 1806 – August 26, 1863) was an American politician who served as the 31st Governor of Virginia . Under president James Buchanan , he also served as the U.S. Secretary of War from 1857 to 1860. Floyd is also known as the Confederate general in the American Civil War who lost the crucial Battle of Fort Donelson . John Buchanan Floyd
9912-529: The other annihilated." Davis subsequently removed Wise from his command of the western Virginia region, leaving Floyd as the region's unquestioned superior officer. In January 1862, he was dispatched to the Western Theater to report to General Albert Sidney Johnston and was given command of a division. Johnston sent Floyd to reinforce Fort Donelson and assume command of the post there. Floyd took command of Fort Donelson on February 13, just two days after
10030-458: The overseer refused to do it, called in the county constable to do it instead. Unlike the anonymous letter writers, he does not state that Lee himself whipped any of the enslaved people. According to Norris, Lee "frequently enjoined [Constable] Williams to 'lay it on well', an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine , which
10148-479: The paper was sold at auction to pay the debts incurred by its next printer, Stephen Pendleton, in 1857. Active in Democratic Party politics, the former governor was a presidential elector for James Buchanan after the presidential election of 1856 . In March 1857, Floyd became Secretary of War in Buchanan's cabinet, where his lack of administrative ability was soon apparent, including the poor execution of
10266-581: The people enslaved by Custis, including Wesley Norris, after the end of the five-year period in the winter of 1862, filing the deed of manumission on December 29, 1862. Biographers of Lee have differed over the credibility of the account of the punishment as described in the letters in the Tribune and in Norris's personal account. They broadly agree that Lee sought to recapture a group of slaves who had escaped, and that, after recapturing them, he hired them out off of
10384-527: The remainder of 1861 in the Kanawha Valley in western Virginia in the 5th and 45th Virginia Infantry regiments. He was promoted to brigadier general on January 6, 1862. In the spring of 1862 Heth was in command of the "Army of the New River," (in actuality the 22nd and 45th Virginia Infantry regiments, with attached cavalry and artillery). Heth's diminutive force held off the forces of General Jacob D. Cox at Giles (County) Courthouse (May 10, 1862) and pursued
10502-474: The retreat back to Virginia and the minor engagements of the fall of 1863. Harry Heth commanded his division through the 1864 Overland Campaign . At the Battle of the Wilderness , his men were on the front line of A.P. Hill's corps, which blunted Union attacks on the Orange Plank Road. In the subsequent Battle of Spotsylvania Court House , his division was held primarily in the rear, and was positioned on
10620-539: The rural areas of Hertfordshire , Hampshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire and Surrey . Heth was wounded at West Point in 1846 with a bayonet stab to his leg. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at the bottom of his class in 1847 (like his cousin George the year before). He was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant and assigned to the 1st Infantry Regiment . His antebellum career
10738-567: The spring of 1864. Grant engaged Lee's army in bloody but inconclusive battles at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania before the lengthy Siege of Petersburg , which was followed in April 1865 by the capture of Richmond and the destruction of most of Lee's army, which he finally surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House . In 1865, Lee became president of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University , in Lexington, Virginia ; as president of
10856-469: The summer of 1825. At the time, the focus of the curriculum was engineering; the head of the United States Army Corps of Engineers supervised the school and the superintendent was an engineering officer. Cadets were not permitted leave until they finished two years of study and were rarely allowed off the academy grounds. Lee graduated second in his class behind Charles Mason (who resigned from
10974-406: The summer of 1829, Lee had apparently courted Mary Custis whom he had known as a child. Lee obtained permission to write to her before leaving for Georgia, though Mary Custis warned Lee to be "discreet" in his writing, as her mother read her letters, especially from men. Custis refused Lee the first time he asked to marry her; her father did not believe the son of the disgraced Light-Horse Harry Lee
11092-429: The time Lee arrived that night, the militia on the site had surrounded Brown and his hostages. At dawn, Brown refused the demand for surrender. Lee attacked, and Brown and his followers were captured after three minutes of fighting. Lee's summary report of the episode shows Lee believed it "was the attempt of a fanatic or madman". Lee said Brown achieved "temporary success" by creating panic and confusion and by "magnifying"
11210-559: The use of his particular command. Floyd was relieved of his command by Confederate President Davis, without a court of inquiry, on March 11, 1862. He resumed his commission as a major general of the Virginia Militia. However, his health soon failed, and he died a year later at Abingdon, Virginia , where he was buried in Sinking Spring Cemetery. Floyd County in northwest Georgia, home to the cities of Rome and Cave Spring,
11328-410: The waist, and that charge may have been a flourish added by the two correspondents; it was not repeated by Wesley Norris when his account of the incident was published in 1866 [...] [A]lthough it seems unlikely that he would have done any of the whipping himself, he may not have flinched from observing it to make sure his orders were carried out exactly." Several historians have noted what they consider
11446-537: The will required people formerly enslaved by Custis "to be emancipated by my executors in such manner as to my executors may seem most expedient and proper, the said emancipation to be accomplished in not exceeding five years from the time of my decease". The estate was in disarray, and the plantations had been poorly managed and were losing money. Lee tried to hire an overseer to handle the plantation in his absence, writing to his cousin, "I wish to get an energetic honest farmer, who while he will be considerate & kind to
11564-401: Was a Confederate general during the American Civil War , toward the end of which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army . He led the Army of Northern Virginia , the Confederacy's most powerful army, from 1862 until its surrender in 1865, earning a reputation as a skilled tactician. A son of Revolutionary War officer Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee III , Lee
11682-489: Was a gradual emancipationist, denouncing extremist proposals for the immediate abolition of slavery. Lee rejected what he called evilly motivated political passion, fearing a civil and servile war from precipitous emancipation. Historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor offered an alternative interpretation of Lee's voluntary manumission of slaves in his will, and assisting slaves to a life of freedom in Liberia, seeing Lee as conforming to
11800-425: Was a great evil, but primarily due to adverse impact that it had on white people: In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of
11918-465: Was a suitable man for his daughter. She accepted him with her father's consent in September 1830, while he was on summer leave, and the two were wed on June 30, 1831. Lee's duties at Fort Monroe were varied, typical for a junior officer, and ranged from budgeting to designing buildings. Although Mary Lee accompanied her husband to Hampton Roads , she spent about a third of her time at Arlington, though
12036-576: Was a top graduate of the United States Military Academy and an exceptional officer and military engineer in the United States Army for 32 years. He served across the United States, distinguished himself extensively during the Mexican–American War , and was Superintendent of the United States Military Academy . He married Mary Anna Custis , great-granddaughter of George Washington 's wife Martha . While he opposed slavery from
12154-491: Was as incapacitated for the work he had undertaken as I would have been to lead an Italian opera." Under Floyd, Heth led his regiment in the battles of Kessler's Cross Lanes and Carnifex Ferry . His brief service as General Robert E. Lee 's quartermaster in the Virginia Provisional Army led to a close friendship between the two officers, Heth being one of the few generals whom Lee called by his first name. He spent
12272-421: Was assigned to assist Andrew Talcott in surveying the southern border of Michigan. While on that expedition, he responded to a letter from an ill Mary Lee, which had requested he come to Arlington, "But why do you urge my immediate return, & tempt one in the strongest manner[?]... I rather require to be strengthened & encouraged to the full performance of what I am called on to execute." Lee completed
12390-685: Was born on June 1, 1806, on the Smithfield plantation near Blacksburg, Virginia . He was the eldest son of the former Laetitia Preston and her husband, Governor John Floyd (1783–1837). His brother, Benjamin Rush Floyd (1812–1860), served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly but failed to win the election to the U.S. Congress. His sister Nicketti (1819–1908) married U.S. Senator John Warfield Johnston ; his sisters Letitia Preston Floyd Lewis (1814–1886) and Eliza Lavallette Floyd Holmes (1816–1887) also survived their brothers. The elder Floyd served as
12508-399: Was crushed by Richard S. Ewell 's corps coming in from the north. Finally, Heth attacked again in conjunction with the division of Maj. Gen. Robert E. Rodes and the Union corps were routed, retreating back through town to Cemetery Hill , but Confederate losses were severe. Heth should have better coordinated his attack with the division of Maj. Gen. Dorsey Pender . Heth was wounded during
12626-488: Was done." The Norris men were then sent by Lee's agent to work on the railroads in Virginia and Alabama . According to the interview, Norris was sent to Richmond in January 1863 "from which place I finally made my escape through the rebel lines to freedom". But Federal authorities reported that Norris came within their lines on September 5, 1863, and that he "left Richmond ..with a pass from General Custis Lee." Lee freed
12744-473: Was interrupted by other duties, among them surveying and updating maps in Florida. Cuban revolutionary Narciso López intended to forcibly liberate Cuba from Spanish rule. In 1849, searching for a leader for his filibuster expedition, he approached Jefferson Davis, then a United States senator. Davis declined and suggested Lee, who also declined. Both decided it was inconsistent with their duties. The 1850s were
12862-426: Was marked by conflicts between artillery and engineering officers. Eventually, the War Department transferred all engineering officers away from Fort Monroe, except Lee, who was ordered to take up residence on the artificial island of Rip Raps across the river from Fort Monroe, where Fort Wool would eventually rise, and continue work to improve the island. Lee duly moved there, then discharged all workers and informed
12980-485: Was not an appropriate choice to defend such a vital point, having political influence but virtually no military experience. General Johnston had other experienced, more senior generals ( P.G.T. Beauregard and William J. Hardee ) available and made a severe error in selecting Floyd. Floyd had little military influence on the Battle of Fort Donelson itself, deferring to his more experienced subordinates, Brigadier Generals Gideon Johnson Pillow and Simon Bolivar Buckner . As
13098-505: Was often supported by a relative, William Henry Fitzhugh , who owned the Oronoco Street house and allowed the Lees to stay at his country home Ravensworth . Fitzhugh wrote to United States Secretary of War , John C. Calhoun , urging that Robert be given an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Fitzhugh had young Robert deliver the letter. Lee entered West Point in
13216-549: Was precipitated by the refusal of Buchanan to order Major Robert Anderson to abandon Fort Sumter , which eventually led to the start of the war. On January 27, 1861, he was indicted by the District of Columbia grand jury for conspiracy and fraud. Floyd appeared in criminal court in Washington, DC, on March 7, 1861, to answer the charges against him. The indictments were thrown out. THE INDICTMENTS AGAINST FLOYD QUASHED. The indictments against Ex-Secretary Floyd have been quashed in
13334-434: Was put in debtors' prison . Soon after his release the following year, the family moved to the city of Alexandria which at the time was still part of the District of Columbia , which retroceded back to Virginia in 1847, both because there were then high quality local schools there, and because several members of Anne's extended family lived nearby. In 1811, the family, including the newly born sixth child, Mildred, moved to
13452-482: Was served primarily in western posts, some as a quartermaster . He was serving as a first lieutenant in the 6th Infantry when John C. Symmes III refused a captaincy in the new 10th Infantry on March 3, 1855, and Heth was appointed in his place. He played a prominent role in the 1855 Battle of Ash Hollow (also known as the Harney Massacre due to the large number of Lakota women and children killed), leading
13570-666: Was still captain of engineers, and he would remain a captain until his transfer to the cavalry in 1855. For the first time, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant met and worked with each other during the Mexican–American War. Close observations of their commanders constituted a learning process for both Lee and Grant. The Mexican–American War concluded on February 2, 1848. After the Mexican War, Lee spent three years at Fort Carroll in Baltimore harbor. During this time, his service
13688-753: Was the father of Confederate general, George Pickett . He usually went by "Harry", the name also preferred by his grandfather, American Revolutionary War Colonel Henry Heth , who had established the Heth family in the coal business in the Virginia Colony after serving in the American Revolution . (The name Heth is pronounced like "Heath".) Henry Heth was born and raised in Virginia, as were both of his parents, all four of his grandparents and all eight of his great-grandparents. All sixteen of his great-great-grandparents came to Virginia from England, specifically from
13806-613: Was to build a fort on the marshy island which would command the outlet of the Savannah River . Lee was involved in the early stages of construction as the island was being drained and built up. In 1831, it became apparent that the existing plan to build what became known as Fort Pulaski would have to be revamped, and Lee was transferred to Fort Monroe at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula (today in Hampton, Virginia ). While home in
13924-456: Was to muster and drill regiments of state militia in southwestern Virginia. In June, he was promoted to colonel. Born in Virginia's Tidewater region, Heth was unpopular with the mountain farmers and was known as a strict disciplinarian. In turn, Heth was frustrated by the illiteracy and lack of discipline of his men, as well as General John B. Floyd 's actions as commanding officer in the region. Heth wrote of Floyd, "I soon discovered that my chief
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