For a time Virginia resisted every effort to induce her to cast
her lot with the Confederacy. Indeed she actually voted against
secession when the question was first presented. But when Fort
Sumter resisted attack on April 12, 1861, and the President called
upon the various states to furnish troops to enforce the national
authority, practically all affection for the Union disappeared and
by a decisive vote Virginia determined to uphold the Southern cause.

At that crisis President Lincoln made a strong effort to induce
Lee to support the Union, for he actually offered him the command
of the United States Army which was about to take the field. The
full force of this remarkable tribute to his professional skill
was not lost upon Lee. He had devoted his whole life to the army,
and to be a successor of Washington in the command of that army
meant more to him than perhaps to any other soldier in the land.
Certainly, if he had consulted his own ambition or been influenced
by any but the most unselfish motives, he would have accepted the
call as the highest honor in the gift of the nation. But to do
so he would have been obliged to surrender his private principles
and desert his native state, and it is impossible to imagine that
a man of his character would, even for an instant, consider such a
course. Gravely and sadly he declined the mighty office, and two
days later he tendered his resignation from the service he had
honored for almost six and thirty years.

For this and his subsequent action Lee has been called a traitor and
severely criticized for well-nigh fifty years. But, when a nation
has been divided against itself upon a great issue of government,
millions upon one side and millions upon the other, and half a
century has intervened, it is high time that justice be given to