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| Gen. Robert E. Lee |
Our history has a way of gradually passing over the lives and happenings of many of our famous people. This past Jan. 15 was one of those dates that we let slip by with little or no mention of its importance.
On this day, Jan. 15, 1807, Robert E. Lee was born. This man would later become the most famous general of our dreaded Civil War. This war would divide our country like no other. In this dreadful war, brother fought brother and in some instances, father fought son.
The battlefields of this horrible conflict would turn red with the blood of the dead and wounded of both sides as they fought and died for what each thought was right.
Robert E. Lee was no stranger to unusual circumstances. The day before his birth, his mother went into what is thought to have been a coma. Due to the limited medical knowledge of that time, it was thought that the expectant mother had passed from this life. Her body was prepared and placed in a coffin for burial.
Body moved
Due to the late arrival of a close relative, the coffin was opened for one last look at the remains. As the grieving relative viewed the remains of her kin, the body moved. Within a short time after the expectant mother was removed from the coffin, Robert E. Lee was born.
Lee’s father, “Lighthorse Harry” Lee, was a famous cavalry officer in the American Revolutionary War. After the war, he would later be elected the governor of the state of Virginia. But his father’s financial losses, and later his death when Robert was only 11, meant that he would be brought up in genteel poverty.
Through hard work and dedication, Robert was to earn a scholarship to West Point military academy. Here, he would graduate with the second highest scholastic score ever made at the academy. His high standing would earn him service in the Engineer Corps. For the next 17 years, he would serve in various states throughout the Union.
Then came the war with Mexico. Here, Lee distinguished himself in his combat assignments in an outstanding manner. Then in 1852, he returned to West Point as superintendent of the academy.
Robert E. Lee was also a decorated family man. Long before the war when Lee’s children were young, he liked to tumble them into bed with him and read stories aloud. They had, however, to take turns tickling the soles of his feet, which he enjoyed. When the little ones grew tired, or became lost in the tales, Lee would pause and say: “No tickling, no stories.”
Resigned his commission
As the clouds of the dreaded Civil War settled across the land, Lee was offered the command of the Union forces, but he declined. As his beloved state of Virginia seceded from the Union, he resigned his commission. Lee did not want to get involved in this dreaded conflict, but Jefferson Davis, the newly elected president of the Confederacy, insisted that he become involved.
Davis knew that an officer with Lee’s ability and experience would be an asset to Confederate forces. Thus, he was made commander of the armies of the South and President Davis’ adviser on military matters.
Gen. Lee loved animals, especially horses. In the heavy fighting of the opening battle of The Wilderness, a courier who dashed up to the general with a dispatch was startled when he was severely scolded for having mistreated his horse by riding him so swiftly. Gen. Lee then took a buttered biscuit from his saddlebag and gave it to the hungry animal before turning his attention back to the battle.
For months, at the height of the war, Gen. Lee had a pet hen that laid an egg each day under his cot. He never forgot to leave the tent flap open for the pet hen to come and go as she pleased. He also saw to it that the pet hen traveled with the army, even on so fateful a campaign as the invasion that ended at Gettysburg.
When he and his army began to retreat from this terrible battle, the pet hen was nowhere to be found. The commanding general of the Confederate army joined the search for his pet hen, not content until the hen had been found and was safely perched in his headquarters wagon.
Many of the officers of the Union army had been students at West Point when Gen. Lee was superintendent there. It is said that due to the many he had been associated with who now fought for the Union, Lee had thoughts at one time of committing suicide. Realizing the plight of the Southern people, he pushed this from his mind and vowed to give his all for the Southern cause.
After the horrible war had ended, Gen. Lee became president of Washington College in Virginia. The horrors of the terrible war were to haunt him for the remainder of his life. The memories of the many thousands who had given their lives fighting for what they thought was a just cause were ever present in his mind until his death on Oct. 12, 1870.
Those of his family and friends who were present at his beside just minutes before his death related how he slowly raised his head from the pillow and said: “Tell Hill he must move up.” Then he slowly lowered his head to his pillow as he uttered these final words: “Strike the tent.”
At the moment of Lee’s death, in a stable some distance from the house, his famous horse “Traveler” kicked down the stable door and charged across the yard and a nearby field. It would be hours later before the general’s mount would be caught and brought under control.
Flood in the hill country
Two days prior to the general’s death, a flood swept the hill country. The Lexington undertaker, C.M. Koones, was embarrassed to report that he had no coffins, since the three that he had lately imported from Richmond had been swept away from his river wharf by the flood waters.
Two young men, Charles H. Chittum and Henry Wallace, volunteered to search for a coffin for the general. They would search for hours before discovering one that had been swept over a dam and lodged on a small island some two miles down river. Thus was provided the coffin in which the Confederacy’s greatest figure was buried.
But the problems were not over. The coffin was too short for the general and he had to be buried without his boots. (Gen. Lee was a small man. His boot size was only 4-1/2.)
So passed from this life one of our history’s greatest figures. And, as I stated earlier in this article, his place in our history will have faded, as have so many others in the past who have been swept away on the winds of oblivion.
(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, was bitten at least twice by venomous snakes, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He also helped organize the Monroe County Museum and Historical Society and was also a past president of that organization. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)
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