Her Governor, John Letcher, in his message to the General Assembly,
January 1861, said:
"Surely no people have been blessed as we have been, and it is
melancholy to think that all is now about to be sacrificed on the
Altar of Passion. If the judgments of men were consulted, if the
admonitions of their consciences were respected, the Union would yet
be saved from overthrow."
Three months later, however, in response to the call for Virginia's
quota of troops, he wrote to the authorities at Washington: "You have
chosen to inaugurate civil war; and, having done so, we will meet you in
a spirit as determined as the Administration has exhibited toward the
South."
Robert E. Lee, anticipating the event, in January, 1861, wrote:
"I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of
mankind. If the Union is dissolved and the Government disrupted, I
shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people,
and, save in defense, will draw my sword on none."[417]
Three months later, in accepting the command of Virginia's army of
defense, he said: "Trusting in Almighty God, an approving conscience and
the aid of my fellow-citizens, I devote myself to the service of my
native state."
Equally significant were the sentiments of the wife of this great
Virginian. Writing to General Winfield Scott, May 5th, 1861, Mary Custis
Lee said: "No honors can reconcile us to this fratricidal war which we
would have laid down our lives freely to avert ... Oh! that you could
command peace to our distracted country. Yours in sorrow and
sadness."[418]
John Janney, on accepting the Presidency of the Virginia Convention,
February 13th, 1861, said:
"Gentlemen, there is a flag ... which now floats over this Capitol on
which there is a star representing this ancient commonwealth and my
earnest prayer, in which I know every member of this body will
cordially unite, is that it may remain there forever, provided always
that its lustre is untarnished."
On the 23d of April, 1861, in notifying Robert E. Lee of his appointment
as chief in command of Virginia's militia, he said:
"Virginia having taken her position, as far as the power of this
Convention extends, we stand, animated by one impulse, governed by one
desire and one determination—and that is, that she shall be defended;
and that no spot of her soil shall be polluted by the foot of an
invader."[419]
Matthew F. Maury writing on the 11th of May, 1861, said: "I grant them
(certain of his Northern friends) sincere, but I cannot but lament in
the depths of my heart and in excruciating agony that their delusion is
such as to have already allowed the establishment of a military
despotism."
Again he wrote: "All of us are of one mind, very cool, very determined,
no desire for a conflict. We are on the defensive."[420]
John B. Baldwin, when asked after President Lincoln's proclamation what
would be the position of the Union men in Virginia, wrote:
"We have no Union men in Virginia now. But those who were Union men
will stand to their guns, and make a fight that will shine out on the
page of history as an example of what a brave people can do after
exhausting every means of pacification."[421]