Lee’s finest hour, in his entire life, came on October 2, 1865. On that day in front of a notary public in Lexington, Lee signed an amnesty oath to the United States, his first U.S. oath since March 1861.100 By signing the oath, Lee applied for a pardon from President Andrew Johnson. The U.S. attorney general, James Speed, wrote that “the acceptance of a pardon is a confession of guilt.” Lee might not have believed Speed, but he knew many southerners did. They would see his oath as evidence that secession was wrong.101 Yet he took it anyway. I Robert E. Lee of Lexington Virginia
