R. David Cox - The Religious Life of Robert E. Lee

LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY

Edited by Mark A. Noll and Heath W. Carter

The LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY is a series of original biographies on important religious figures throughout American and British history.

The authors are well-known historians, each a recognized authority in the period of religious history in which his or her subject lived and worked. Grounded in solid research of both published and archival sources, these volumes link the lives of their subjects not always thought of as religious persons to the broader cultural contexts and religious issues that surrounded them. Each volume includes a bibliographical essay and an index to serve the needs of students, teachers, and researchers.

Marked by careful scholarship yet free of footnotes and academic jargon, the books in this series are well-written narratives meant to be read and enjoyed as well as studied.

LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY

William Ewart Gladstone: Faith and Politics in Victorian Britain David Bebbington

Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybodys Sister Edith L. Blumhofer

Her Heart Can See: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby Edith L. Blumhofer

Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat James D. Bratt

Orestes A. Brownson: American Religious Weathervane Patrick W. Carey

The Religious Life of Robert E. Lee R. David Cox

Thomas Merton and the Monastic Vision Lawrence S. Cunningham

Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America Lyle W. Dorsett

The Kingdom Is Always but Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch Christopher H. Evans

Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America Edwin S. Gaustad

Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography of Thomas Jefferson Edwin S. Gaustad

Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President Allen C. Guelzo

Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe

Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America Barry Hankins

Damning Words: The Life and Religious Times of H. L. Mencken D. G. Hart

The First American Evangelical: A Short Life of Cotton Mather Rick Kennedy

Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Spiritual Life Nancy Koester

Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief Roger Lundin

A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards George M. Marsden

The Puritan as Yankee: A Life of Horace Bushnell Robert Bruce Mullin

Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White Ronald L. Numbers

Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart Marvin R. OConnell

Occupy Until I Come: A. T. Pierson and the Evangelization of the World Dana L. Robert

Gods Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World David L. Rowe

The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism Harry S. Stout

Assist Me to Proclaim: The Life and Hymns of Charles Wesley John R. Tyson

Emblem of Faith Untouched: A Short Life of Thomas Cranmer Leslie Williams

The Religious Life of Robert E. Lee

R. David Cox

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive NE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

www.eerdmans.com

2017 R. David Cox

All rights reserved

Published 2017

23 22 21 20 19 18 171 2 3 4 5 6 7

ISBN 978-0-8028-7482-5

eISBN 978-1-4674-4688-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cox, R. David, author.

Title: The religious life of Robert E. Lee / R. David Cox.

Description: Grand Rapids : Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2017. | Series: Library of religious biography | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016050798 | ISBN 9780802874825 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Lee, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 18071870Religion. | GeneralsConfederate States of AmericaBiography. | United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Biography.

Classification: LCC E467.1.L4 C77 2017 | DDC 973.7/3092 [B] dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016050798

In thanksgiving for Don and Billie

Roberts mothers name is variously spelled with and without an e. This book will use Ann, as she is identified on her niche at Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University.

Contents

I n his new biography, American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant (Random House, 2016), Ronald White supplies telling details about a scene very well known to anyone with even basic knowledge of American history. The details flesh out the conversation between Grant and Robert E. Lee that took place as the commanding generals of the Union and the Confederacy met to arrange the surrender of Lees Army of Northern Virginia, which effectively ended the Civil War. It was Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865, at the home of Wilmer McLean who had moved to out-of-the-way Appomattox Court House, Virginia, after his earlier residence near Manassas, Virginia, had been destroyed four years earlier during the First Battle of Bull Run. The visuals of that momentous scene have been reproduced many timesGrant in a dusty privates blouse with muddy boots and no sword, Lee in a new uniform with full dress regalia complemented by a jeweled sword. Also well fixed in American lore is Grants magnanimity toward the defeated Confederatesgranting a full parole to all officers and men, and allowing the Confederates to leave with their horses so as to assist with spring plowing.

A particularly illuminating detail added by biographer White concerns the conversation that took place before the business of surrender got under way. After shaking hands, Grant and Lee reminisced about their service in the Mexican War where Grant remembered having met Lee once, but also told the Confederate general that he, no doubt, did not remember, since Grant was much younger and in a junior position of responsibility. Then comes the telling detail. Grant seemed eager to continue reminiscing about their joint service in that earlier war, but Lee brought the conversation up short by reminding the Union general about the purpose of their meeting. In a flash we glimpse the humanity of two individuals who so easily appear as only stock iconic figures.

Good biographers of well-known figures must of course present well-known factual information. But they also push their research into little-used or neglected sources in order to reveal fresh information, and therefore provide fresh insight about their subjects. Whites excellent biography performs that service for many aspects of Grants life, including the religious beliefs and practices that very few earlier biographers had noticed. As it happens, Grant was a life-long Methodist who enjoyed a warm relationship with the minister of the Methodist church in Galena, Illinois, that he attended with his wife before the Civil War began. Although he did not go to church regularly during his years as president in Washington D.C., Grant did faithfully serve a Methodist congregation there as a trustee and he did give special privileges to Quakers who took the lead in humane programs for Native Americans. According to White, Grants sensitivity to Christian values, which few historians have noted, may explain as much about his even-tempered, sagacious character as his supposed battle with alcoholism, which has been the subject of endless historical speculation.