at proposition; he explained to them that they
could not go without authority of the War Department, but it was
different with commissioned officers; they could resign, and when
their resignations were accepted could do as they pleased, while
the sergeant and his comrades were bound by their oaths to the term
of their enlistment.(14)

It might be hard to construct a more satisfactory constitutional
or moral theory than this for persons situated as were Captain
Longstreet and others, disposed as they were to desert country and
comrades for the newly formed slave Confederacy; yet if the secession
of the native State of an officer is sufficient to dissolve allegiance
he has sworn to maintain, it requires a delicate discrimination to
see why the common soldier might not also be absolved from his term
contract and oath for the same reasons.

There is a point of honor as old as organized warfare, that in the
presence of danger or threatened danger it is an act of cowardice
for an officer to resign for any but a good physical cause.

The better way is to justify, or if that cannot be done, to excuse
as far as possible, the desertion of the Union by army and navy
officers on the ground that the times were revolutionary, when
precedents could not be followed, and legal and moral rights were
generally disregarded. Such periods come occasionally in the
history of nations. They are properly called _rebellions_, when
they fail.

"_Rebellion_, indeed, appears on the back of a flying enemy, but
_revolution_ flames on the breastplate of the victorious
warriors."(15)

Robert E. Lee, born in Virginia, of Revolutionary stock, had won
reputation as a soldier in the Mexican War. He was fifty-four
years of age, a Colonel of the First Cavalry, and, though in
Washington, was but recently under orders from the Department of
Texas. There is convincing evidence that General Scott and Hon.
Frank P. Blair tendered him the command of the army of the United
States in the impending war. This is supposed to have caused him
to hesitate as to his course. In a letter (April 20, 1861) to a
sister he deplores the "state of revolution into which Virginia,
after a long struggle, has been drawn," saying:

"I recognize no necessity for this state of things, . . . yet in
my own person I had to meet the question whether I would take part
against my native State. With all my devotion to the Union, and
the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American