Did Lee have a beard when he went to DC?

[reb64]

I just watched the film GOGs with my dad. he says Lee didn't have a beard when he met with officials in dc about the US command offer, but got it later in W Va. Is he right? I am reading a book where it says lee got his grey in W Va "In the footsteps of lee" it could mean turned grey. My dad says he was mustached only until then. Is he right? Not to criticize movie, just to learn the facts is all.

[sbl]

......did he wear a "comb-over?"


http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/lincpix/lee.jpg

[LibertyHallVols]

In his book, "A Rebel's Recollections", John (?) Eggleston recalls seeing Lee early in the war and describes him has having "a dark mustache".

That is the only reference of which I am aware that describes Lee's appearance during that time period. However, I am sure there are probably more out there.

[hanktrent]

The Confederate Image by Neely, Holzer and Boritt, U of NC Press, makes the point that

the Confederacy failed to produce a single separate-sheet print portrait of [Lee] during the entire course of the war... Lee did not emerge as a pictorial subject until after he had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant. The explanation for this dearth lay not only in the short-lived Confederate printmaking industry but also in the sluggish growth of Lee's fame... In addition, Lee's appearance changed so rapidly during the war that desk-bound Southern printmakers would have faced problems depicting him even had they enjoyed the resources to do so...

Robert E. Lee seemed to age twenty years in twenty months of service in the field. At the outset of the war, he probably had dark hair and a black moustache. By 1862, some of his hair had fallen out, what remained had turned gray and later would turn white, and he had grown a magnificent white beard. Even more difficult for printmakers who were dependent on accurate photographic models, Lee left behind no representations of his new appearance. The most recent photograph of him available during the war was more than ten years old.

The authors say that newspapers were the primary southern outlet for pictures of Lee, but even those images were rare and based on old information. The Southern Illustrated News first published an engraving of Lee based on an 1850 photo in January 1863, but admitted "We are told that the General now looks somewhat different from the picture herewith presented, his face at present being covered with a heavy, snowy beard..."

It wasn't until October of 1863 that the News published an updated image of Lee as we usually think of him, with a gray beard.

This is the 1850 photo of Lee that early-war illustrators used: http://www.aztecclub.com/biopix/Lee-1850b.jpg

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[sbl]

...and I mean that in a manly way.

G & G gave us the 1865 Lee the way we get the "Yorktown" George Washington.

[MStuart]

I just watched the film GOGs with my dad. he says Lee didn't have a beard when he met with officials in dc about the US command offer, but got it later in W Va. Is he right? I am reading a book where it says lee got his grey in W Va "In the footsteps of lee" it could mean turned grey. My dad says he was mustached only until then. Is he right? Not to criticize movie, just to learn the facts is all.

"Lee" by Douglas S. Freeman. Vol. 1, Chapter 26, Page 448 (quite possibly the definitive work on Robert E. Lee)

"His hair was black, with a sprinkle of gray; his short mustache was wholly black."

This is from someone who saw him in April 1861.

Your Pa was right. Pa's are always right!!

Mark

[sbl]

Thanks Mark. Movie makers and reenactor artists take note.

[tompritchett]

Pa's are always right!!

Always?????

Remind me to tell you about the half-bull that bred my father's heifers sometime.

[Memphis]

At least one pre-war image had Lee sporting a moustache well before his hair grayed. The famous photograph of his death mask could give a number of clues to his very late life appearance. Truly a post mortem appearance, but that would be splitting hairs.

No pun intended.

[Spare_Man]

...Lee didn't have a beard when he met with officials in dc about the US command offer...

This raises another question. Was Lee even offered command of U.S. troops prior to Virginia seceeding? I've heard that some historians now dispute this as a mere legend invented during the post-war years.