"I think it would be better for Virginia if she could get rid of them. That is no new opinion with me. I have always thought so, and have always been in favor of emancipation - gradual emancipation."
— Robert E. Lee

January 1, 1970

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Military leaders from the United StatesEpiscopalians from the United StatesUnited States Military Academy alumniPeople from VirginiaConfederate military leaders
Original Language: English

Sources

Testimony to the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction (17 February 1866) responding to a question on relocating freed slaves to other states as quoted in Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction at the First Session Thirty-Ninth Congress (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1866), pp. 135-6.