There seems to be a consensus among historians that Gen. Robert E. Lee never again saw his beloved Arlington estate after he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and went south to fight for the Confederacy. For example, in her classic “Reveille in Washington,” Margaret Leech writes of this time: “[I]n the afternoon he rode for the last time from Washington to his home on Arlington Heights.”
This may not be correct, however; he may have paid a last visit in 1866.
After the surrender of Fort Sumter on April 13, 1861, the time for temporizing clearly had ended. Those in service to the U.S. government had to make up their minds which side they were on. For instance, Gen. Winfield Scott, commanding the U.S. Army, was a Virginian but nevertheless stayed with the old flag. He hoped to persuade then-Col. Lee to stay also, and he wanted to offer him the command of the Union forces in the field.
On the morning of April 18, therefore, Lee took a half-hour ride from the family mansion in Arlington Heights across the Long Bridge to Scott’s downtown headquarters. Scott was unable to change Lee’s mind, however, and Lee returned home.
On April 20, Lee mailed in his resignation, and two days later, he left Arlington to offer his formidable services to the South. Union forces soon occupied his estate and began fortifying it. To make sure Lee could never again use it as a private home, the land was turned into a military cemetery, now Arlington Cemetery.
After the war, Lee became president of Washington College in Lexington, Va. He might have spent the rest of his days there, but Congress had other ideas. Early in 1866, he was called to testify before the newly formed Reconstruction Committee.
Accordingly, Lee packed his bags and arrived back in Washington on Friday, Feb. 16. He put up at the Metropolitan Hotel on Sixth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. When word got out, the curious gathered in and around the hotel, but Lee stayed to himself and saw just a few longtime friends.
On Saturday morning, Lee headed to the Capitol and testified there from about 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. His testimony probably would evoke mixed feelings from a modern audience. On the one hand, he was conciliatory, saying that white Virginians accepted the results of the war and were anxious to get back into the Union. On the other hand, he expressed doubts about whether black and white people had equal abilities.
The New York Herald of Feb. 19 described the general as “candid and dignified” and reported, “Most of the committee treated him cavalierly.”
Nothing came of Lee’s testimony, nor was he charged with anything. Perhaps Congress was merely flexing its muscles — after all, it had made even the famous Robert E. Lee show up. After his testimony ended in the afternoon, Lee began walking back to his hotel, again attended by a growing crowd.
Then, on Feb. 22, 1866, the local Daily National Intelligencer ran a tiny, easily overlooked snippet about Lee. Interestingly, it was next to another snippet about a group of Confederates who had decided to emigrate to Brazil, where their descendants still live today. The Lee item read: “GENERAL LEE AT ARLINGTON — a gentleman of this city having occasion to pass through Arlington at dusk on Saturday saw a lonely figure standing with folded arms at the foot of a tree. Struck with the sorrowful attitude of the person, he walked past him, and saw that it was Robert E. Lee standing in the street that passes through the middle of his old estate.”
Was the witness right? If Lee had indeed left the Capitol about 2:30 p.m., there was ample time for him to walk back to the nearby hotel, rest and freshen up and then ride or even walk to Arlington Heights for his evening appearance.
At this late date, there seems to be no way to be sure about this. Perhaps this incident should be remembered as a firm “maybe.”
• John Lockwood is a Washington writer.
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