"Letter to His Son" - Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee's "Letter to His Son" is a great political examination of how a loyalist to the Union feels about the United States before the Civil War. He wants the Union to stay together, but unfortunately he knows it will not and he will have to maintain the Union with, "swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take place of brotherly love and kindness" (Lee 385).

This letter from a Union leader to his son is also a great look into the world of realism in the government. Lee is very afraid of the condition of the government which he is living in. He states, "As far as I can judge by the papers, we are between a state of anarchy and civil war.... I fear that mankind will not got years be sufficiently Christianized to bear the absence of restraint and force" (Lee 385). He does not cut any thing out for his son. He wants his son to know everything that is happening and how he feels about it. "I feel the aggression and am willing to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle I contend for, not individual or private benefit..... Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will" (Lee 385). These are just great words describing what is happening in the nation and how he feels about it.

I believe this work could also fit underneath of the regionalism subset of realism. This applies directly to a loyal Unionist who wants to see the Union remain as one. So this would only apply to the states who are in the Union and not the other eight who have already seceded or are going to. There is only a small mention of religion in "Letter to His Son." It says, "mankind will not be sufficiently Christianized to bear the absence of restraint and force" (Lee 385). This is just saying that people in the world were not ready to not have a government; they just are not good enough people as the image of Christians are. Government plays a huge role in the creation of this letter. It is because of the states seceding that this letter was even written. The southern states were not happy with the way the Union was handling the government and so they broke off from the government and formed their own, the Confederacy. This just gets Lee's attention and Lee has to tell someone all the feelings he has of secession and he chooses his son. This letter reflects the society of this pre-civil war time period because it is all about the events that led up to the Civil War. It is talk of secession, the Union, the Confederacy, brotherhood, and things like this that were what this time period before the Civil War was all about. Lee mentions all of these things in his letter and it directly relates to the time period that he is writing in.




Kasraie, Mary Rose. "local color." In Barney, Brett, and Lisa Paddock, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature: The Age of Romanticism and Realism, 1816–1895, vol. 2, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Feb 12, 2011.


Lee, Robert E. "Letter to His Son." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 385. Print.


Werlock, Abby H. P. "realism." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. Feb 12, 2011.