DUANE
Duane's take
The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of Lee County, Texas — and the man it was named for. Now, Robert E. Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, and tucked inside that army was Hood's Texas Brigade — famed, the marker calls them, and the stories back that up.
Lee himself said about those Texans, "I never ordered that brigade to hold a position that they did not hold it." And then came the line that Texans have been repeating ever since: "The enemy never sees the backs of my Texans." Think about what it means to earn that kind of praise from that particular general. These were his shock troops — his words, or close to them. He considered them the best he had.
When furloughs came up, Lee once declined to grant them for the Texans. He needed their services. That's the kind of compliment that cuts both ways — honor on one side, hardship on the other.
But here's the moment that stops you cold. In the Battle of the Wilderness, Lee himself was set to lead a charge. The Texans saw it happening.
And something shifted in those men — this general they would follow anywhere, and now he was about to ride into the teeth of it himself. They halted. They started shouting, "General Lee to the rear." Shouting it, over and over, until he complied.
These were men who held every position he ever ordered them to hold, and the one position they refused to yield was his safety. That is a thing worth sitting with a moment. And when it all came apart — when Lee surrendered — a Texan put it this way: "I'd rather have died than surrendered; but if Marse Bob thinks that is best...
Marse Bob is bound to be right as usual." There's a whole world of loyalty and grief folded into those words. But before all of that, before the war and the brigade and the Wilderness, there was Texas itself. Robert E.
Lee spent twenty-five months on the Texas frontier — from 1857 to 1861. The marker calls it proving and seasoning grounds for great army leaders in the impending Civil War, and Lee was there, learning what that ground had to teach. He served with the 2nd U.S.
Cavalry at Camp Cooper. He led a sixteen-hundred-mile scouting expedition into Indian country. He commanded the 2nd, first at San Antonio — where he led the attempt to capture Mexican bandit Juan Cortina — and then on to Fort Mason.
Along the way he learned how to adapt himself and his men to outdoor life and adverse conditions, the very kind of conditions he would later face on battlefields. He came to know the ways of his fellow officers, men who would later hold high ranks in both armies. Texas shaped him.
And then, in a way that history doesn't always let you see coming, he came back to Texas — not in person, but in the devotion of the men who wore his colors and shouted him to the rear. A county named for a beloved Confederate general. The marker says "beloved," and after those quotes, you start to understand why.
What the marker says
Led army of Northern Virginia which included famed Hood's Texas Brigade. He said about them "I never ordered that brigade to hold a position that they did not hold it." "The enemy never sees the backs of my Texans." In the Battle of the Wilderness the Texans, seeing Lee set to lead the charge and fearing for his safety, halted, shouting, "General Lee to the rear," until he complied. Lee once declined furloughs for the Texans for he needed their services. He considered them his best shock troops. About Lee's surrender a Texan said, "I'd rather have died than surrendered; but if Marse Bob thinks that is best...Marse Bob is bound to be right as usual." COLONEL ROBERT E LEE IN TEXAS 1857-1861 Robert E. Lee spent 25 months on the Texas frontier, proving and seasoning grounds for great army leaders in the impending Civil War. With the 2nd U. S. Cavalry at Camp Cooper, he led a 1,600-mile scouting expedition into Indian country. He commanded the 2nd, first at San Antonio - leading the attempt to capture Mexican bandit Juan Cortina - next at Fort Mason. Lee learned how to adapt himself and his men to outdoor life and adverse conditions he later faced on battlefields. Knowledge of the ways of his fellow officers who later held high ranks in both armies...