north of the James River, the most likely aquatic approach to the Confederate
capital. Surrounded by two daughters, a daughter-in-law, her only grandson, relays of visiting relatives, a few servants,
and a thousand family associations, Mrs. Lee felt safe on the plantation, which provided a transitory sense of well-being.
She rode out the winter, writing letters, knitting socks, and collecting the news that drifted down from the Potomac. Most
of it was disheartening.
Letitia Corbin Jones, one of Mrs. Lee’s many cousins, had managed a recent reconnaissance at Arlington, probably gaining access
through her brother Roger, a Union officer. She reported to Mary Lee in an undated letter, which appears to be from early
in the war.“I write dear Cousin feeling that you would like to know what I could tell you about Arlington,” Miss Jones wrote.
She continued:
The Thefts & depredations there have been going on from the beginning … You may be sure that what ever we can do for your
interest, we will do, but I fear it will not be much … Everything had been ransacked—I suppose there was not a paper or
a letter, that had not been pried into—the Loft was in dire confusion—at one time the Soldiers used to sleep up there . .
. Selina [Gray, house keeper] searched in vain for your handsome parlor curtains—but they were gone—and now, no doubt they
are adorning some of the Yankee’s houses … The Union people say that they are in fine Spirits & that the South is nearly
subjugated & that the war will soon be ended.
She closed by reporting that federal authorities planned to use Mrs. Lee’s house as a hospital—a rumor never realized. 1
“I do not allow myself to think of my dear old home,” Mrs. Lee wrote a friend that spring. “Would that it had been razed to
the ground or submerged in the Potomac river than [to] have fallen into such hands … Poor Virginia is pressed on every
side.” 2
Indeed it was. The federal army had grown from 16,000 to 670,000 in the past year. Some 60,000 Union troops had interposed
themselves between Manassas and Washington, while others were scoring wins on the western front. Better equipped and numerically superior to the Confederates, the Union
had won recent victories in Kentucky under an obscure general named Ulysses S. Grant. About the same time, Rebels had been
forced to abandon western Tennessee, and they had lost Fort Columbus, their most advanced position on the Mississippi River.
In the East, Gen. George McClellan had been methodically amassing troops and supplies for his springtime advance on Richmond.
Then, according to Abraham Lincoln’s new secretary of war, the real fighting could commence.
“We have had no war,” Edwin M. Stanton told a sympathetic editor as 1862 began. “We have not even been playing war.” 3 That would change under Stanton, a shrewd, robust, snub-nosed, magnificently bearded Ohio native who spoke of sweeping aside
the rebellion with “fire & sword.” Stanton’s Old Testament combativeness, coupled with his superhuman work ethic, endeared
him to President Lincoln.
Stanton and Lincoln prodded the cautious Gen. George McClellan to move his troops down the Potomac River and out into the
Chesapeake Bay that April. The time had arrived for the Young Napoleon’s much-anticipated Peninsula Campaign. With a force
that grew to 100,000, McClellan slogged his way toward Richmond, rolling back a force of 800,000 Confederates as he went.
Rebels abandoned Yorktown on May 4, Williamsburg on May 5, and Norfolk on May 9. At the other end of the peninsula, Robert
E. Lee, monitoring developments from his office in Richmond, realized that the Union tide was aimed straight for Mrs. Lee’s
refuge on the Pamunkey River, where that tributary swirled into the York River.
“I do not pretend to know what they will attempt or what they can accomplish,” Lee wrote his wife that spring. “One of the
probable routes … is up the Pamunkey.
capital. Surrounded by two daughters, a daughter-in-law, her only grandson, relays of visiting relatives, a few servants,
and a thousand family associations, Mrs. Lee felt safe on the plantation, which provided a transitory sense of well-being.
She rode out the winter, writing letters, knitting socks, and collecting the news that drifted down from the Potomac. Most
of it was disheartening.
Letitia Corbin Jones, one of Mrs. Lee’s many cousins, had managed a recent reconnaissance at Arlington, probably gaining access
through her brother Roger, a Union officer. She reported to Mary Lee in an undated letter, which appears to be from early
in the war.“I write dear Cousin feeling that you would like to know what I could tell you about Arlington,” Miss Jones wrote.
She continued:
The Thefts & depredations there have been going on from the beginning … You may be sure that what ever we can do for your
interest, we will do, but I fear it will not be much … Everything had been ransacked—I suppose there was not a paper or
a letter, that had not been pried into—the Loft was in dire confusion—at one time the Soldiers used to sleep up there . .
. Selina [Gray, house keeper] searched in vain for your handsome parlor curtains—but they were gone—and now, no doubt they
are adorning some of the Yankee’s houses … The Union people say that they are in fine Spirits & that the South is nearly
subjugated & that the war will soon be ended.
She closed by reporting that federal authorities planned to use Mrs. Lee’s house as a hospital—a rumor never realized. 1
“I do not allow myself to think of my dear old home,” Mrs. Lee wrote a friend that spring. “Would that it had been razed to
the ground or submerged in the Potomac river than [to] have fallen into such hands … Poor Virginia is pressed on every
side.” 2
Indeed it was. The federal army had grown from 16,000 to 670,000 in the past year. Some 60,000 Union troops had interposed
themselves between Manassas and Washington, while others were scoring wins on the western front. Better equipped and numerically superior to the Confederates, the Union
had won recent victories in Kentucky under an obscure general named Ulysses S. Grant. About the same time, Rebels had been
forced to abandon western Tennessee, and they had lost Fort Columbus, their most advanced position on the Mississippi River.
In the East, Gen. George McClellan had been methodically amassing troops and supplies for his springtime advance on Richmond.
Then, according to Abraham Lincoln’s new secretary of war, the real fighting could commence.
“We have had no war,” Edwin M. Stanton told a sympathetic editor as 1862 began. “We have not even been playing war.” 3 That would change under Stanton, a shrewd, robust, snub-nosed, magnificently bearded Ohio native who spoke of sweeping aside
the rebellion with “fire & sword.” Stanton’s Old Testament combativeness, coupled with his superhuman work ethic, endeared
him to President Lincoln.
Stanton and Lincoln prodded the cautious Gen. George McClellan to move his troops down the Potomac River and out into the
Chesapeake Bay that April. The time had arrived for the Young Napoleon’s much-anticipated Peninsula Campaign. With a force
that grew to 100,000, McClellan slogged his way toward Richmond, rolling back a force of 800,000 Confederates as he went.
Rebels abandoned Yorktown on May 4, Williamsburg on May 5, and Norfolk on May 9. At the other end of the peninsula, Robert
E. Lee, monitoring developments from his office in Richmond, realized that the Union tide was aimed straight for Mrs. Lee’s
refuge on the Pamunkey River, where that tributary swirled into the York River.
“I do not pretend to know what they will attempt or what they can accomplish,” Lee wrote his wife that spring. “One of the
probable routes … is up the Pamunkey.
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