As long as she remained in the Union he might remain in the United States Army.

When she seceded from the Union, and took part with the Gulf States, he must follow her fortunes, and do his part in defending her.
The struggle had been bitter, but brief.

"My husband has wept tears of blood," Mrs.Lee wrote to a friend, "over this terrible war; but he must, as a man and a Virginian, share the destiny of his State, which has solemnly pronounced for independence." The secession of Virginia, by a vote of the convention assembled at Richmond, decided Lee in his course.

He no longer hesitated.

To General Scott's urgent appeals not to send in his resignation, he replied: "I am compelled to.