Tuesday, November 12, 2013

General Robert E. Lee to [Mary Custis Lee?], February 23, 1862

Savannah, Georgia, February 23, 1862.

The news from Tennessee and North Carolina is not at all cheering. Disasters seem to be thickening around us. It calls for renewed energies and redoubled strength on our part. I fear our soldiers have not realized the necessity of endurance and labor, and that it is better to sacrifice themselves for our cause. God, I hope, will shield us and give us success. I hear the enemy is progressing slowly in his designs. His gunboats are pushing up all the creeks and marshes to the Savannah, and have obtained a position so near the river as to shell the steamers navigating it. I am engaged in constructing a line of defense at Fort Jackson which, if time permits and guns can be obtained, I hope will keep them out.

SOURCE: John William Jones, Life and Letters of Robert Edward Lee: Soldier and Man, p. 159

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