One April afternoon in 1861, a proud man in his early fifties strode nervously across the portico of his home, too distracted to appreciate its sweeping view of the Potomac. He had an elegant military bearing and dark looks of a stage star, but on this day his genial face was shadowed by worry. His unsettled demeanor surprised several onlookers, accustomed to his normally composed nature. A family slave, Jim Parks, described his master pacing “backwa’d and fo’ward on de po’ch, steddyin’.” A young cousin puzzled as his relative circulated slowly through the garden, lost in uneasy reflection. The tension increased over the next two days: now the troubled footsteps could be heard treading across the upstairs chambers, punctuated by the sounds of fervent prayer. As his family gathered below in apprehension, Colonel R.E. Lee of the U.S. Army agonized over both his own future and that of the nation.
This is an enormously charged moment, a scene worthy of Shakespeare. Few decisions would carry more consequence than Lee’s determination to join the secessionists as the Union split apart. In the months following this anguish Lee would also begin a metamorphic journey, shedding long-held loyalties, his privacy—even his former identity. Once a respected, but little-known officer, he was now the object of public comment. Newspapers began calling him “Robert E. Lee”—a name neither he nor his family ever used. His appearance altered radically. By November 1861 the black curls and square chin were lost beneath a beard and rapidly whitening mane. His acquaintances later wrote that they were stunned by such marked changes in a man they thought they knew.
