Robert E. Lee enslaved a man freed by Washington’s compensated emancipation law

Evidence

One exception was the case of Philip Meredith. The thirty-year-old had been allowed to live as a free man in Washington, where he worked as a waiter and supported his wife and eight children. His former enslaver was none other than Robert E. Lee, general in chief of the Confederate Army, who in fact had given Meredith his blessing to leave his servitude. James Eveleth, a former legal agent of Lee’s, testified on Meredith’s behalf, explaining, “He has been here for years with masters knowledge—When Gen Lee went south he left servant in District.” Eveleth added that in the past, he had “frequent conversations with Gen Lee in which Gen Lee expressed regret that he owned servant. Wished he was free.” Meredith’s petition against his enslaver on the grounds of disloyalty to the Union was easily approved. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 105

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to the Fictional Confederacy narrative of Lee as reluctant enslaver — Eveleth’s testimony of Lee’s ‘regret’ shows the self-exculpatory legend being constructed even contemporaneously.
• CANDY: Lee, the Confederate hero, quietly lost his enslaved waiter to the very pro-Union law he was fighting, and had even wished him free — a compact ironies-loaded fact for conversation.