Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee by General Robert Edward Lee
page 30 of 473 (06%)
page 30 of 473 (06%)
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"Honourable Simon Cameron, Secretary of War.
"Sir: I have the honour to tender the resignation of my command as Colonel of the First Regiment of Cavalry. "Very respectfully your obedient servant, "R. E. Lee, "Colonel First Cavalry." To show further his great feeling in thus having to leave the army with which he had been associated for so long, I give two more letters, one to his sister, Mrs. Anne Marshall, of Baltimore, the other to his brother, Captain Sydney Smith Lee, of the United States Navy: "Arlington, Virginia, April 20, 1861. "My Dear Sister: I am grieved at my inability to see you.... I have been waiting for a 'more convenient season,' which has brought to many before me deep and lasting regret. Now we are in a state of war which will yield to nothing. The whole South is in a state of revolution, into which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn; and though I recognise no necessity for this state of things, and would have forborne and pleaded to the end for redress of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had to meet the question whether I should take part against my native State. "With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to |
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