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And we continue with our American stories. Up next, the story of one of the most controversial, beloved. and complex generals in American history. Here to tell the true story of Robert E. Lee is Alan C.
Gelso, author of Robert E. Lee. A life. We'd like to thank the folks at the Bill of Rights Institute for allowing us to use this audio, originally a part of their Scholar Talk series. Take it away, Alan.
Robert E. Lee, just to give you the basic skeleton outline, was born in 1807 at Stratford Hall on the northern neck of Virginia. which had been the ancestral home of many of the Lee family, a family which had roots in Virginia back into the seventeenth century. He attends West Point. He is class of eighteen twenty nine, graduates second in his class.
When I say second, he missed graduating first really by a couple of digits. It was like one of those batting average contests where you have to take it out to the fourth digit to determine who the winner is, and is posted to the elite corps of engineers. And he spends a good deal of the rest of his professional life. in the Army's Corps of Engineers doing Really, core of engineering things. He mainly is devoted to fortification construction.
And as a specialty within that, coastal fortification is something of a specialty within that kind of engineering, which requires a great deal of imagination. And it has to be said that Lee was a very good engineer and a very dedicated engineer. He also was a very frustrated engineer. Because promotion in the Army as a whole and in the Corps of Engineers was sclerotic. to say the least.
The great advantage of Army employment was that it was guaranteed and secure. The downside was that it was slow. And Lee experiences this, and it's a source of great frustration. He would like to move up. When the Mexican war comes, he sees this as an opportunity and he grabs it.
He's sent off on one engineering assignment, which doesn't look terribly promising. But then he is seconded to the staff of Winfield Scott. Winfield Scott is about to mount one of the most adventurous amphibious expeditions in American military history. And that is the Joint Army-Navy landing at Veracruz. on the eastern coast of Mexico.
Lee is immediately ticketed by Scott as an up-and-coming person. and becomes a major part of Scott's staff. as a major assistance to Scott in the capture of Veracruz. Accompanies Scott's Invasion of Mexico past the Battle of Saragordo. up to the battles around Mexico City, which eventually end in the surrender of Mexico City.
And the end of the Mexican War with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hitalgo. All through it, Lee is very much. Winfield Scott's right-hand man. And Scott would later say years later that all of the plaudits he, Scott, won in the Mexican War were really due to the advice that he garnered from Robert E. Lee.
But the war is over. Lee goes back to doing coastal fortification. with with Corps of Engineers is not terribly exciting. And in fact, it gets, it gets, if anything, it gets worse because in 1852, he's assigned to become superintendent of West Point.
Now, I know that sounds glamorous on the surface of it. In 1852, it wasn't. At this point, West Point is still very much a core of engineering school. Which means that even though Lee is the superintendent, he has virtually no discretion about what to do. He is micromanaged for three years by the chief engineer in Washington, D.C.
And finally, at the end of it, he is only too happy to grab an opportunity. To transfer out of the Corps of Engineers and accept a commission as Lieutenant Colonel of the 2nd Cavalry in Texas.
Now, Texas is not what you would call in those days an ideal posting. It gives you an idea of some degree of his frustration that he's willing to accept this, but off to Texas he goes. as Lieutenant Colonel of the 2nd Cavalry. And there he really does nothing more than chase Comanches and various outlaws around the countryside to no very particular purpose. He never really fires a shot in anger himself.
It is not until 1861 that things begin to warm up. In 1861, he's recalled to Washington by Winfield Scott. ostensibly to help rewrite. The Army regulations. But really Scott wants him in Washington because the country is splitting apart.
Seven Southern states have seceded from the Union. there is a possibility of conflict. Scott wants Lee in Washington. Because Scott's feeling is that if anyone should take command of federal forces in dealing with secession, it should be Robert E. Lee.
The firing on Fort Sumter takes place, and indeed, Abraham Lincoln puts into process. an invitation to Lee. It comes through old Francis Preston Blair. One of the great political wire pullers of Washington. Blair sits down with Lee and basically says to Lee: President Lincoln would like you to take command of the armies in the field.
And Lee says no. Which is a great surprise. But Lee explains it this way: I cannot raise my hand against my native state.
Now, Virginia at that point had not. Yet seceded. but it was hovering on the brink of doing so. And Lee simply says, I can't do that. What Lee does, in fact, is not only refuse that invitation, he then goes home and writes out a letter of resignation from the Army.
And he might have stopped right there, but at that same moment, he receives an invitation from the state authorities. the Virginia state authorities in Richmond to come there and help them. oversee the organization of state forces. And he agrees to do that.
So he goes to Richmond. He is commissioned as a brigadier general of Virginia forces. When Virginia joins the Confederacy, he's made a general in the Confederate Army. And from that point, he takes off. He becomes General Lee.
A lot of interpreters of Lee had wanted this to be, as Douglas Sothall Freeman once put it: the decision he had to make, the decision he was made to make. And I don't really think that's the case at all. I think that Lee. Found himself staring at not just one decision, but several decisions. And each one of them was a swamp.
For one thing, Robert E. Lee had been serving in the United States Army. For 30 years. when he confronted this crisis. And He understood.
that secession from the Union was a dodge. The Southern slave states, which couldn't abide the election of Abraham Lincoln and were determined to break up the Union rather than tolerate Lincoln's presidency, tried to explain what they were doing as secession. They argued Six Ways to Sunday that this is somehow constitutional. Nobody but they really believed that. And Robert E.
Lee didn't believe it. He characterized what they were doing, pretty frankly, as revolution. But characterizing it that way was the easy part. The hard part was going to come if he was expected to do something about it. And of course, that's what he was.
That's what the Francis Preston Blair offer was about. And that was where he had to make the first decision because Lee balks at that point. Lee makes it clear to Blair, he's not refusing this offer out of any interest in slavery. He says to Blair, if I could free all of the South slaves in order to avert the crisis being posed by secession, I'd do it. I would do it.
Yet he says I can't. draw my sword against my native state, against Virginia. Which is a little odd. And there are odd things about this decision process that poke out at every point. He says he couldn't raise his sword against Virginia.
That's odd because actually, Virginia had not yet seceded when he has this interview. with Blair? Not only had it not seceded, but the secession vote that the Virginia Secession Convention does take. actually has to go through a referendum process that will not conclude until the 25th of May.
So, strictly speaking, he is not in a position where he necessarily has to draw his sword against Virginia because Virginia is not out of the Union yet. The odder thing still is. Lee talks about Virginia as his native state, but the truth is he hadn't lived in Virginia for most of his life. In fact, if you add up. The exact amounts of time.
I think it's safe to say he probably spent more of his life in New York.
So that's an odd. Argument as well. How do you untangle these arguments? When we come back, more of this remarkable story. This complicated.
and rich story. of General Robert E. Lee. His story continues with Alan Gelso. Here.
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And we return to our American stories and with Alan Gelzo telling the story of Robert E. Lee. When we last left off, Lee had made a decision that would alter the course of his life. and history itself He rejected command of the Union Army and resigned from the military. His stated reasoning?
that he could not possibly raise his sword. against his home state of Virginia. And while that may be true, It's not the full story. Here again. is Alan Gelzer.
He says he couldn't raise his sword against Virginia. That's odd because actually, Virginia had not yet seceded.
So, strictly speaking, he is not in a position where he necessarily has to draw his sword against Virginia because Virginia is not out of the Union yet. The odder thing still is. Lee talks about Virginia as his native state, but the truth is he hadn't lived in Virginia for most of his life. How do you untangle these arguments? I think you untangled them this way.
First of all, He himself may not have lived all that long in Virginia, but he did have an enormous swathe of relatives in Virginia. These were relatives who had come to the rescue of his family when it was on hard times. in Alexandria. These were people he owed. Big time.
When I say relatives, I don't mean just someone that he exchanged a Christmas card with. And there were a lot of them. He had 80 first cousins. I think it could be safely said that if Robert E. Lee had thrown a brick down a street in Alexandria, he would have hit one of his relatives.
And When he says he can't raise his hand against Virginia, I think that's the Virginia he's talking about. It's the Virginia of that family. But there's another complication that also enters into this, and that's Arlington. Today, when we think of Arlington, we think of the National Cemetery. But before it was a National Cemetery, it was Arlington House.
And he called Arlington home for a lot of his adult life. Yet it was never actually his property. He is there because he married into the family of George Washington Park Custis, who did own Arlington. Mary was as wedded to Arlington, her parents' home, as she was to her husband. It's a really obsessive relationship.
What When Lee is put to this situation in 1861, what he has to calculate is. what is going to happen to my family? What is going to happen to the property if I make a decision in a certain way? If I decide to accept command of the Union armies, Doubtless, Virginia will confiscate Arlington. Sure it will, because Arlington sits on this bluff.
Overlooking the Potomac River. I mean, it's the perfect place to put artillery to bombard the national capital. People were calling in Richmond. for the seizure and fortification of Arlington.
So if he makes a move like that, kiss goodbye to Arlington. On the other hand, if he goes to Richmond. or if he declares neutrality. then maybe there won't be a war. There won't be a federal occupation of Arlington.
and he can squeeze through the cracks and preserve the property for his family. And in large measure, I think that's what he intends to do. A lot of the evidence suggests that Lee goes to Richmond with a view towards thinking that he's going to act as some kind of peacebroker. Because all along in this process, in the months prior, people had talked incessantly about the Union breaking up, about it organizing itself into one, two, three, four, five different confederacies. But then, after a period of time, everyone.
cooling off and getting together in a constitutional convention and reconstructing the union. By the way, that's where the term reconstruction first gets used. And there's evidence that Lee saw himself as being part of a process like that, that he would help to guide the reunification process once the secession fervor had worn off. And by May of 1861, it's clear there isn't going to be any reconciliation. It's clear that Virginia is going to unite itself to the Confederacy.
At that point, he actually writes to his wife and says, Well, maybe I should just resign now. Maybe I should just retire and wash my hands of all this. But by that point, it's too late.
So he finds himself now an advisor to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and a Confederate general. But it's the kind of process you watch him going through, and it looks like he's shadow walking. Always thinking that the result is going to be different. but the result never is different so it's not a one-off one-time dramatic movie edit decision. And it's certainly not as Freeman made it look.
The decision he was doomed to make from the very beginning in his life. It's an incremental step-by-step getting sucked further and further in kind of decision. When you watch Robert E. Lee in action as a general, Bear in mind that this man learned the practicalities. of real war.
under Winfield Scott in Mexico. And the primary lesson he learns from Scott in Mexico is the importance of the continuous offensive. even if the numbers are not on your side. Keep the initiative in your hands. Keep moving onwards.
because that is what will eventually demoralize an enemy and allow you to destroy the enemy army. That is the rule by which Lee took his Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac in 1862. and probably would have taken it into Pennsylvania at that point. There might have been a Battle of Gettysburg in September of 1862. Instead, there's the famous incident of the Lost Orders, the terrible intelligence coup, which allows the federal commander, General McClellan, to understand what Lee's plans are, results in the Battle of Antietam.
and Lee is forced to retreat into Virginia. But Lee never loses sight. of the need for taking the war northwards. Lee understood, and I think he understood this better almost than any other Confederate leader. That The Southern Confederacy's resources were too meager.
To last for a 15-round heavyweight bout with the North. He'd lived in the North quite long enough. To know what the North's resources were like. And he knew that the South's could not compare to those. If the South was to win its independence, it would need to score an early knockout.
In the early rounds, a surprise knockout. And the only way to do that would be. get across the Potomac, get up into Pennsylvania. and either win a battle there. Or even if you didn't fight a battle at all, just run around the countryside, showing how the Lincoln administration was incapable of defending its own home turf.
That would then have a political knock-on effect. It would convince Northerners that The Lincoln administration was incapable of defending them. and that the war really ought to be brought to an end because there was really no way to subdue the Confederates. In the fall elections of eighteen sixty two, Lincoln has just issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and he is punished for it. The Republican Party loses 34 seats in the House of Representatives.
It loses two key northern governorships in New York and New Jersey. That's 1862. In the summer of 1863, there are two more. Key northern governorships up for grabs. Pennsylvania.
and Ohio. and both have serious Democratic anti-administration contenders. Clement Vallandigham in Ohio, and George Woodworth in Pennsylvania. If Lee is able to score a victory in Pennsylvania, or even just use Pennsylvania as a base of operations that the Union Army can't nudge him from. Then, when the gubernatorial elections take place in Ohio and Pennsylvania, people will turn out and vote for Democrats to vote for the end of the war.
And if you have a core of states at the center of the North. New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, with Democratic, anti-Lincoln governors, they're going to fold their arms and say, we're not cooperating with this bloodshed anymore. This is a useless war which is being foisted on us by radical abolitionists. We want an end to this war. We're not sending any more troops.
We're not permitting any more supplies to go to Lincoln's army. You have to open negotiations with the Confederates.
Well, once you opened negotiations with the Confederacy, They weren't going to go back to shooting. and the independence of the Confederacy would virtually be conceded. When we come back, more of Alan Gelzo's storytelling. on Robert E. Lee.
here on Our American Stories. The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network, ESPN, and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus.
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Sunday for a smarter, healthier yard. GetSunday.com. This is Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronkin Jules. One thing I've learned over the years: before you head out on any adventure, you gotta be ready to stay hydrated because dehydration ruins the fun faster than you can spell it. Pretty sure there's a Y in there somewhere.
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Go to liquidiv.com and use the code NutHouse for 20% off your first purchase. And check us out on YouTube or listen to Dudes on Dudes on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcast. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt.
From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio.
That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor.
Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures. And we return to our American stories and the final portion of our story on Robert E. Lee, telling the story.
Alan Gelzo, author of Robert E. Lee, of life. When we last left off, Lee had determined that what the Confederacy needed to win, or at least draw even with the Union, was to plunge the Army of Virginia deep into the North to sow chaos that perhaps. would cause the governors in the area, Pennsylvania and Ohio, or Lincoln himself. to be voted out of office.
Let's return to the story. That was Lee's strategy, and he saw that that, making war in effect, on the political will of the North. Was the way for the South to win the Civil War. Lee crosses the Potomac substantially ahead of the Federal Army of the Potomac, and his army arcs northwards through the Cumberland Valley all the way up. to the Susquehanna River, just across from the Pennsylvania capital at Harrisburg.
But his real goal is not Harrisburg. His real goal is to make the Army of the Potomac chase him so far and so fast. that it becomes winded, exhausted, disorganized, and disconnected. And when it does, then he can turn and concentrate. Pick off pieces of the Federal Army one by one and defeat them in detail.
And that is what he has in view as a military plan. He puts his finger down on Gettysburg on a map and says, this is where we will probably meet. the Federal Army and defeat it.
Well, he was close. He planned to concentrate his army at Gettysburg on the 1st of July. And then wait for this straggling federal army to come up and get its nose bloodied piece by piece. What put that out of Kilter was that pieces of the Federal Army got to Gettysburg first. Got there on June 30th and were prepared to hold on to Gettysburg as tightly as they could until the rest of the Army of the Potomac could come up and support them.
This surprised and discomfited Lee. But there weren't that many Federals holding Gettysburg.
So he decides to push ahead with his plan and push the Federals out of Gettysburg, which he succeeds in doing. And in the process, he basically ruins two of the seven Army Corps. Of the Federal Army of the Potomac. He ruins the First Corps, he ruins the 11th Corps. He probably would have mopped them up completely, but for the fact that his army had been marching all day, fighting all day.
Dusk was coming on because it was an overcast day, dusk was coming in somewhat early. The Federal forces managed to regroup on Cemetery Hill, south of the town. And Lee's feeling is, all right, well, we're not going to try and push ahead now. Let's regroup and tomorrow morning we'll finish them off and be in a position to deal with the next parts of the Federal Army as it comes up the road.
Well That was a mistake. Because by the next day. the other parts of the Federal Army had in fact gotten to Gettysburg. And when he launches an attack on July 2nd, To his surprise, he finds out that there are three more pieces of the Army of the Potomac in place. in his path.
Even so, his attack almost succeeds on July 2nd. It really comes within inches. of a complete destruction. of the Army of the Potomac.
So his solution is that, all right, tomorrow we will finish them off, tomorrow, July 3rd. He wasn't entirely wrong either, because by the morning of July 3rd, of those seven infantry corps in the Federal Army of the Potomac, Basically, five of them were out of action. One of them was being held in reserve. And the other one. only had about parts of two divisions.
prepared to defend the rear of Cemetery Hill. Whereas Lee had an entirely fresh, untested division, that belonging to George Pickett.
So on July 3rd, he launches George Pickett's division along with some supporting troops. at these remnants holding on to Cemetery Hill. And it fails. It fails. against every expectation.
And at that point, Lee realizes he has no more wherewithal. to continue this fight. and begins a withdrawal. Back across the Potomac into Virginia. And Gettysburg, very much to many people's surprise.
turns out to be a union victory. People often asked. After the battle, and continue to ask to this day. What caused the Confederacy? What caused Robert E.
Lee to lose the Battle of Gettysburg when it seemed like he had everything going for him? George Pickett answered that question, and I think he gave probably the best answer that could be given. I think the Yankees had something to do with it. It was a tenacious fight on the part of the Army of the Potomac. Is really the best explanation I think that people can come up with.
It was pivotal, but it was also not pivotal. Let me at least do the pivotal part first. What if, in fact, Lee had been victorious at Gettysburg? If he had, I think there's a strong possibility that the Army of the Potomac. which had met with so many defeats.
Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg. I think the Army of the Potomac might very easily have gone to pieces, like Napoleon's Army after Waterloo. It had just been defeated so many times under so many generals that it just seemed like it was no longer worth it.
Some parts of it would have cohered, but other parts of it would simply have walked away as from a lost game. At that point, Lee would have been able to threaten Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia. There would probably have been political uprisings. in the north demanding an end of the war I mean, as it was only two weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg, there's a major draft riot in New York City that turns New York City upside down. New York City is not the only place where riots like that take place.
We call them riots.
Well, yeah, they were draft riots. They were also racial pogroms. But the fundamental message was: we're not going to be, we don't want to fight this war anymore. This war is hopeless. It's lost.
We might as well admit it. And if Lee had been victorious at Gettysburg, Lincoln might well have had no choice. politically speaking, either to resign. or to have opened those negotiations with the Confederacy. as it was.
Jefferson Davis had sent his vice president, Alexander Stevens, in a messenger boat into the Chesapeake with a request to come up to Washington.
Now, the ostensible request was to discuss prisoner exchanges. But a lot of people suspected that what Alexander Stevens had up his sleeve was some kind of document from Davis for Lincoln saying, all right, let's open negotiations. That might well have happened.
So that is a pivotal battle. and in fact the military fortunes of the Confederacy. go nowhere but into a slow slide downhill after that. But here's the other side of the coin. Yeah.
In some senses, it wasn't pivotal. Because the civil war is going to go on for another 22 months. And Gettysburg turns out not to be pivotal. Basically for two reasons. One is Lee does escape.
George Gordon Meade, the commander of the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg, was a cautious soul. He was a Democrat politically who was convinced that the Lincoln administration was interested in nothing but embarrassing him and taking credit for itself.
So he was not going to shinny out on any strategic limbs. He does not pursue Lee in the way that, let's say, The Duke of Wellington pursues Napoleon after Waterloo. There's none of this up guards and atom in George Meade. Meade is content to let Lee get across the Potomac, and that's the end of the campaign. This infuriates Lincoln, but there's not too much Lincoln could do about it because, look, here's a general who won a battle.
Here's a federal general finally won a battle. What is he going to do? Punish him?
So there's not too much, you know, there's not too much wiggle room, politically speaking, for President Lincoln at that point. But it does mean the war is going to go on. And it's going to drag on through 1864. It's going to drag on through the Overland campaign. It's going to drag on really right up until.
Lincoln is re-elected in November of 1864. And it's when Lincoln is re-elected that finally the handwriting is on the wall for the Confederacy. People often ask me what I think the turning point of the Civil War was, and they expect me to say Gettysburg. And I don't. I tell them, turning point of the Civil War?
Appomattox Courthouse. And I say this partly to be. Snarky, but also partly in a serious frame. Because In the summer of 1864. The campaigns that Lincoln was responsible for were going so poorly.
that Lincoln himself did not expect to be re-elected. If he was dumped. by the voters in November of 1864. The new president would be George McClellan. And McClellan would.
from a variety of forces operative on and from the Democratic Party. Have been forced to come to some kind of negotiations with the Confederacy. And as soon as you started those negotiations, that was the end. That would mean the independence of the Confederacy.
So even though Gettysburg is a pivotal battle in preventing something like that from happening in 1863, It's not quite pivotal enough to have prevented something like that from happening in 1864. And we really don't get The handwriting on the wall. Until after the election of Lincoln, and then it becomes clear that the Confederacy is really on the ropes. And a terrific job on the production and editing by our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to the Bill of Rights Institute for allowing us to use this audio, originally a part of their Scholar Talks series, which can be found on YouTube.
Simply look up Bill of Rights Institute Scholar Talks. to take a listen. The Story of Robert E. Lee. as told by Alan Gelzo.
Here. on our American stories. The countdown is on for the 2026 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network, ESPN, and ABC.
NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Visit nfl.com/slash draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL Plus.
Visit plus.nfl.com for terms. We've been duped, hoodwinked, conned for 50 years. The lawn care industry sold us toxins in a bag and made our yards more toxic than a bad relationship. Sunday helps you ditch the chemicals and feed your lawn the good stuff: soybean proteins, iron, seaweed, molasses, ingredients that get your soil giggling like an overserved mom at the block party. Sunday uses clean ingredients in real science for thicker, greener grass.
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