ious blow. Lee hated slavery,
but, as he explained to me, he thought it wicked to give freedom
suddenly to some millions of people who were incapable of using it
with profit to themselves or the State. He assured me he had long
intended to gradually give his slaves their liberty. He believed the
institution to be a moral and political evil, and more hurtful to the
white than to the black man. He had a strong affection for the negro;
but he deprecated any sudden or violent interference on the part of
the State between master and slave. Nothing would have induced him to
fight for the continuance of slavery; indeed, he declared that had he
owned every slave in the South he would willingly give them all up if
by so doing he could preserve the Union. He was opposed to secession,
and to prevent it he would willingly sacrifice everything except honor
and duty, which forbade him to desert his State. When in April, 1861,
she formally and by an act of her Legislature left the Union, he
resigned his commission in the United States army with the intention
of retiring into private life. He endeavored to choose what was right.
Every personal interest bade him throw in his lot with the Union. His
property lay so close to Washington that it was certain to be
destroyed and swept of every slave, as belonging to a rebel. But the
die was cast; he forsook everything for principle and the stern duty
it entailed. Then came that final temptation which opened out before
him a vista of power and importance greater than that which any man
since Washington had held in America. General Long's book proves
beyond all further doubt that he was offered the post of
commander-in-chief of the Federal army. General Scott, his great
friend and leader, whom he loved and respected, then commanding that
army, used all his influence to persuade him to throw in his lot with
the North, but to no purpose. Nothing would induce him to have any
part in the invasion of his own State, much as he abhorred the war
into which he felt she was rushing. His love of country, his unselfish
patriotism, caused him to relinquish home, fortune, a certain future,
in fact, everything, for her sake.

He was not, however, to remain a spectator of the coming conflict; he
was too well known to his countrymen in Virginia as the officer in
whom the Federal army had most confidence. The State of Virginia
appointed him major-general and commander-in-chief of all her military
forces. In ope