rusty as a soldier. Unconsciously to him and to his Government, it was
shaping him and fitting him for the great drama just ahead.

For slowly but surely the North and the South were drifting apart. At
first the discussion had been political, but now it was growing more
and more personal and bitter. The disputed questions were slavery and
States' Rights. A preliminary cloud in the sky was the fanatical raid
of John Brown, who, in 1859, tried to stir up the negroes of northern
Virginia against their masters. This raid was promptly crushed at
Harper's Ferry, and Lee with his regiment of cavalry assisted in
restoring order, but though

"John Brown's body lay a'mouldering in the grave.
His soul went marching on."

While many Southerners did not own slaves and did not believe in
slavery, the question of States' Rights found them with undivided
front. Had not this doctrine been expressly implied in the Federal
Constitution? Had not this right been invoked more than once in the
North--by the staunch State of Massachusetts, for example, as early as
1809, and as lately as 1842? Thus they reasoned, and when matters at
last reached a breaking point in 1861, the Southern States, following
South Carolina's lead one by one, felt that they were acting only
within their recognized rights.

The actual call to arms brought a heart-breaking time to many homes.
In some it actually parted father and son, or brother and brother.
While it created no such chasm in the Lee family, it brought to Robert
E. Lee the bitterest and most trying decision of his whole life.

Lee had loved his country. He had served her faithfully for thirty-two
years. His actions rather than his words had proved his entire
devotion, but the words too were not lacking, as references to his
letters will show. One such glimpse of his heart is seen in a letter
written from Texas, in 1856. In telling his wife about his Fourth of
July celebration, he says: "Mine was spent after a march of thirty
miles, on one of the branches of the Brazos, under my blanket, elevated
on four sticks driven in the ground, as a sunshade. The sun was fiery
hot, the atmosphere like a blast from a hot-air furnace, the water
salt, still my feelings for my country were as ardent, my faith in her
future as true, and my hope for her advancement as unabated, as they
would have been under better circumstances."

When finally the choice had to be made, between State and Nation, L