Periodically on Great Task, we check in with possibly the best known Gettysburg general, Robert E. Lee.  It is interesting to look at how Lee’s career evolved during the first years of the war, and 150 years ago today he was still commander of the Confederate Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.  While he became famous on battlefields in Virginia, in the early part of 1862 Lee’s department was where much of the action was happening.  With McClellan and Johnston virtually motionless in Virginia, Lee’s front was being pressed by vastly superior Union naval and land forces.  His two main concerns were the important cities of Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina, the defense of which he addressed in a letter to fellow general John C. Pemberton 150 years ago today.

In Lee’s letter he describes the Union forces around Charleston with what seems like great concern.  While in hindsight we know that the Union moved relatively slowly in the area around Charleston when the war in the East began to sharply focus on Virginia in the spring of 1862.  Lee perhaps gave the federals too much credit and simply thought about what he would do if he was given the same task of capturing Charleston from the sea.  A statement which shows well Lee’s pessimism in his situation is in the second paragraph.  His language suggests that he had little faith in his department’s ability to keep the federals out, and that nothing should be left for them when they do come in.  When Savannah and Charleston did not fall under his tenure, it may have provided experience for him to reflect on his opponent’s lack of willingness to use their superior might in swift decisive movements. This could have shaped his strategy the following summer when he began a string of campaigns at the head of the Army of Northern Virginia which depended considerably on the gamble that federal forces would not exploit their advantage of manpower and guns.