I had a discussion with someone today regarding Robert E. Lee’s decision to side with the Confederacy. This gentleman told me that I must admire Lee; that Lee had agonized over his decision but felt compelled to be loyal to his state. He argued that most Americans considered themselves citizens of their state first before the war. I told him I disagreed with that assertion, and that I actually have a much greater admiration for George Thomas than for Lee. The following comes from the 1887 publication, The Volunteer Soldier of America by John A. Logan. Perhaps someone would like to explain to me why Logan was wrong.

     Upon entering the service of the Government, one and all alike took the oath of loyal support of that Government. Now, this Government was representative, not of any factional number of the States, but of the whole number of the States and Territories comprising the American Union. Theoretically, the money which went to construct the edifices at West Point and at Annapolis, to equip them as academies of instruction, to pay teachers, to support pupils, etc., etc., was contributed by all of the States in a certain proportion. The fact is, however, that the Northern States of the Union, being greatly more populous and wealthy than the Southern States, so called, paid the expense of these institutions in that excess directly represented by the greater revenues of the General Government, based upon the mere fact of their increased population and wealth. Putting this palpable circumstance – which represents the greater obligation of the alumni to one section than to another – entirely aside, it appears that all of the military and naval officials who received their special education at West Point and Annapolis were indebted for that education and for their personal maintenance through varying periods – generally from their early youth up to the year spoken of – to all of the States of the American Union. They were sworn by oath, and bound by every consideration of honor and principle, to the service of those States – not to one of them, nor yet to a dozen of them, but to one and all of them, representing the Government of the United States, whose bread they had eaten, whose money they had received, and from which they had obtained a technical or specific education in war that they had distinctly obligated themselves to use in defense of the Union of States constituting the Government.

     … Within a few years past, exculpation for the attempt to break up the Union has assumed a somewhat new form. It is urged that the right of a State to secede from the Union was, to put it in its best form, but an unsettled question; that the people who attempted secession were sincere believers in their legal right to pursue that course; that, being honest in the conviction, they owed a paramount duty to their State governments, and that for these reasons it is not right that they should be held responsible for violating a principle that has never been established under any binding constitutional interpretation. It is not the present intention to enter into a discussion of the questions growing out of this position, nor to inquire as to the extent of its justice, if any it have. The fact to be dealt with at this time is that, upon the inauguration of hostilities against the United States by a certain number of States composing the Union, there were a large number of citizens who, after having pledged themselves solemnly to support the Government, after having obtained as a bounty from it a military education, after having received a maintenance for a varying number of years, were wholly without justification for the course pursued by them; these citizens not being at all covered by the defense above stated in behalf of the general doctrine of secession.

     The individuals composing the army and navy of the United States – those of them, more particularly, who have received their education and maintenance from the Government – more nearly represent the Government, with a single exception (that of the judiciary), than any other individuals or class of people that compose it. They are permanently attached to it. This cannot be said of any other class of public servants in the whole Government service, except those belonging to its judicial branch. Presidents, Cabinet officers, Senators, members, foreign ministers, consuls, revenue officers, postmasters, clerks, and in short, the whole list of public employés, come and go; but the army and navy hold on forever. They are the only class, with the exception above noted, that are removed from direct responsibility and accountability to the people, at the polls. Changes of party do not affect them. They stand with the expounders of justice, as the representatives of a government that may change every official connected with it, except themselves, at short intervals of time.

     Under this view of the case, their relation to the Government is peculiar, not to say extraordinary. An ex-civil officer of the Government has no connection with it other than that of a simple citizen, with the privileges and obligations pertaining to the character of a citizen. Whatever claim may be made that, under the theory of a supreme allegiance to a State, individuals were justified in following their States in the secession movement, no such claim can be made in behalf of those members of the army and navy who not only deserted the Government, but went into the ranks of those attempting to destroy it. No State sovereignty claim can extend its mitigating influence over them. They belong to the Government per se, and they had no personality that was not distinctly and emphatically absorbed by the Government.

     ….. If it be possible to define different degrees of a crime as great as that of treason, those who, after having received a military or naval education from the Government, used it in an attempt to destroy that Government, were certainly guilty of the supreme infamy of the late Rebellion. The traitorous statesmen who had held high place under the Government might fulminate upon paper, with little other damage than that resulting from the destruction of writing-materials. It was the traitorous defenders of the Government that made the Rebellion practicable. Had they kept the faith of soldiers; had they been true to the obligations of honest men and citizens, there would have been no Rebellion, and the nation would not have been called upon to endure the sacrifices of blood and treasure which followed as a direct consequence of their treason.