The Union Offered Lee Command of Their Whole Army — He Said No

Just before the Civil War, the Union offered Robert E. Lee command of their entire army. He turned it down — and joined the other side.

It's April 1861. Lee is one of the most respected soldiers in America — a hero of the Mexican-American War and a former superintendent of West Point. As the Southern states secede, Lincoln's advisor Francis Preston Blair makes Lee an extraordinary offer: lead the entire Union Army.

Lee had called secession 'nothing but revolution.' But when Virginia — his home state — voted to leave the Union, he chose it over the country he'd served for 32 years. Historians are blunt about why: Lee said he felt 'aggrieved by the acts of the North' — and those acts were the threat to slavery. He owned enslaved people himself. The romantic idea that he fought only for Virginia, untouched by the cause, is largely a later invention.

Lee declined the Union command, resigned his commission, and within days accepted command of Virginia's forces — soon the heart of the Confederate army. The soldier Lincoln wanted to end the war quickly would instead become the Union's most dangerous opponent for four brutal years.

It's tempting to imagine how much shorter the war might have been had Lee said yes. But we don't have to guess what he chose. He took up arms against the nation he'd sworn to defend — and before it ended, more than 620,000 Americans were dead.

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