Why did lee side with the south?

Answer 1

Lee went north twice, in 1862 and again in 1863. In 1862 the movement culminated in the Battle of Antietam, and in 1863 at Gettysburg. When Lee went north in 1862 Britain and France were considering intervening in the war on behalf of the Confederacy, which would have meant an end to the war, a Confederate victory in the war and southern independence. Lee hoped to win a great battle on northern soil and encourage Britain and France to intervene. There was also a practical reason for the movement north in 1862. The Rebels had just won a tremendous victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run (Manassas). This battlefield was about 25 miles west of Washington DC. But the Rebels could not stay there. The railroads to the south had been destroyed, and so the Rebels had no way of obtaining sufficient supplies of ammunition and especially food if they stayed at Manassas. The area around Manassas had been devastated, the farmers fled, no crops were planted there, there was no food to go get from the people still living around there. The army had to move. If it went back south, it would look like a retreat, when they had just won a smashing victory. If they went west, there was food, but that would be taking the army away from the crucial area of action, and would leave open the road to Richmond to the Yankees. If they went east they would swiftly run into the extensive ring of earthworks and forts the Yankees had built around Washington. That left moving north, feeding the army from the food of Maryland farmers, as the best alternative.

In 1863 Lee hoped to "conquer a peace" (win the war) by moving into the north and fighting the Union Army of the Potomac and destroying it. Lee knew it was just a matter of time before attrition would so reduce southern manpower that the Yankees would win, so he hoped to win the war by active measures before that could happen. By this time the hope of foreign intervention was gone. Lee also wanted to "transfer the seat of war" (the area where the fighting was happening) into the north, to get the war away from the Virginia farmers long enough for them to harvest their crops, which fed his army. Lee was probably also motivated by the fact that there was talk of taking a large portion of his army and sending it west, to help lift the Yankee siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Lee is said by some to have had "tunnel vision" when it came to Virginia. Rather than stand idle, which would give him few excuses to resist this large transfer, Lee proposed to do something. This was quite a gamble, because going as far north as Lee did in 1863 meant that, if he did not win the war while he was there, sooner or later he was going to have to go back south of the Potomac, again because he would have no reliable means of obtaining supplies in the north. And when he did go back south, no matter what had happened in the north it would look like a retreat. Because the Rebels could not count on being able to remain in the north and sustain themselves, the movement in 1863 was really a gigantic raid rather than a true invasion.

Answer 2

He didn't want to - because he didn't want Virginia to secede.

But when they did, he went with his state.

Answer 3

He chose to put his sword at the disposal of his country, Virginia