The Lie About Lee: Addendum

Written By Matthew Miller, Andrew Johnson, & J.R. Dunmore

“In the late spring of 1859, three enslaved people at Arlington House, Wesley Norris, Mary Norris, and George Parks, made the bold decision to emancipate themselves by running to the free state of Pennsylvania. Upon their return, Col. Lee ordered them whipped. They were two men and one woman. The officer whipped the two men, and said he would not whip the woman, and Col. Lee stripped her and whipped her himself……[Pryor] believed Norrises’ 1866 account and noted that it ‘rings true.’ Based on the number of accounts and the fact that numerous parts of Wesley Norris’ statement can be verified, she believed it to be true” – The “official” established narrative, found here.

In my initial article entitled The Lie About Lee, I aimed to thoroughly address and debunk the factual inaccuracies presented by Mrs. Pryor in her portrayal of Robert E. Lee (stated above). There are numerous distortions throughout her account, including the alleged whipping of Mary Norris, the so-called escape of Wesley Norris, the fabricated existence of a whipping post, and the unfounded accusations that Mrs. Pryor claims Lee never responded to. These elements, when closely examined, reveal a story filled with inconsistencies that do not align with historical records.

In recent correspondence with a fellow compatriot, he commented on my earlier essay, The Lie About Lee, saying,

“That was a real nice demonstration of the flaws in Pryor’s arguments. But you know there are two ways to lie. Tell an outright falsehood or cover up and suppress exonerating evidence, something Pryor also did. So let me call your two cents and raise you three more.”

He proceeded to elucidate the truth of the matter to the further detriment of Pryor’s carefully constructed narrative.

To begin, the first Norris to accuse Lee was not Wesley, but his father Leonard (pictured below).¹ In 1863, a Union soldier wrote of a conversation with this Norris, in which Leonard made fiery claims about Robert E. Lee. In Leonard’s version of events, “all the slaves were assembled to see the flogging.” But what they allegedly saw was completely different from the Wesley Norris account. In his version of the story, five were whipped, not three. Also, the reason for the whipping was totally different as well—supposedly, the starving slaves were out fishing at night so that they could feed themselves after “a hard day’s work in the rain,” rather than an attempted escape from the plantation at Arlington. In addition to that, who whipped the woman was in question; Pryor’s account claims the overseer was the one giving the lashes, while Leonard Norris claims it was Lee himself.²³ The story was then spread by newspapers throughout the North.⁴

Leonard Norris

Additionally, it didn’t help the strength of his testimony that he made other false claims, like that he had seven children (The Raftsman Journal; May 27, 1863 claims he had “a score” or 20 by our modern usage)—which he alleged were taken in the middle of the night and sold South (Arlington records show he factually had four). One can only conclude that Pryor deliberately chose to cover up this eyewitness account because if it ever came under scrutiny, it would reveal her lie about Lee.

So, what motivated Wesley Norris, seven years after the fact, to abruptly make his accusation? Pryor doesn’t want you to know. Other historians have noted that his assertion came “at the very moment when the fate of the Civil Rights bill hung in the balance.”⁵ Since Lee was not fully on board, he needed to be discredited. They couldn’t use Leonard’s fabrication-filled account, so they enlisted a writer to give a more believable version from Wesley. For the Norris family, this development was most opportune. At the time, they and other Arlington slave families were petitioning Congress for land at Arlington.⁶ The possible sympathy generated could definitely help their prospects. So, the collaborators moved ahead. (Note, just over a month later, a bill was introduced in Congress to award the Syphax slave family acreage at Arlington. It was passed and signed into law shortly thereafter. The other slave families were not so lucky).⁷

Since all the slaves were assembled to see the flogging, there were some fifty eyewitnesses to confirm Wesley’s account. Many of these former slaves were living at the Freedmen’s Village not a mile away. Verification should have been simple. Yet no one came forward or was found to substantiate the claims.⁸ Things may have stayed that way, but decades later, the Arlington House planned a major renovation. As part of this plan, they sought out former slaves to tell of their experiences and remembrances. For our purposes, they could not have chosen better. They were the four nieces of the alleged whipping victim, Mary Norris. Additionally, at this time, a local newspaper interviewed James Parks, the brother of the third “runaway” who was allegedly whipped. So, what did they say of this troubling and possibly haunting event?

Nothing…

Instead, they said the Lees were good to them and especially to their mother, Selina Norris Gray, the sister of the infamous Wesley and Mary Norris of Pryor’s narrative.⁹ James Parks stated “he had always been well treated and knew nothing to the contrary with respect to the other slaves.”¹⁰ True to form, Pryor mentions none of this.

It is also worth mentioning that the National Parks Service directly states, regarding the relationship that the Lees had with Mrs. Gray: “Selina was the personal maid of Mrs. Robert E. Lee. In 1861, under the threat of Union occupation, the Lee family evacuated Arlington, and Mrs. Lee entrusted the household keys, symbolizing that the responsibility of the family’s material possessions was left to Selina Gray.”¹¹ Clearly, the Lee family held Mrs. Gray in high regard. They could have left those keys with any White man who was a loyal friend of the family, yet they chose her. Would Mrs. Gray have been so loyal to the Lee family if two of her siblings had really been brutally beaten as the NPS and Pryor claim? If so, then it would follow that she was a traitor to her family, but a reading of her history implies nothing of the sort, probably because there never was an event like that for competing loyalties in her life.

In fact, when the United States Army seized the Arlington Estate in May of 1861 and Federal officers occupied the house, Mrs. Gray discovered that some of the family’s treasures had been stolen. She confronted the bluecoats and ordered them "not to touch any of Mrs. Lee's things." The NPS article goes on to say, “Gray alerted General Irvin McDowell, commander of the United States troops, to the importance of the Washington heirlooms. The remaining pieces were sent to the Patent Office for safekeeping.”¹² This is not the behavior of a vindictive woman who one would assume would use the opportunity of Union occupation to get some kind of revenge on the family that allegedly abused her own.

As far as I am concerned, that about settles it. The more one delves into the factual evidence, the more it becomes painfully obvious that Mrs. Pryor’s narrative contains several significant holes that affect the credibility of her claims. What is particularly troubling is the fact that, despite these clear discrepancies, the National Park Service (NPS) continues to uphold and disseminate these misrepresentations as part of their official stance on Robert E. Lee—our Marble Man. This speaks volumes about the broader institutional commitment to promoting certain narratives, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Rather than prioritize the truth, as they are supposed to do, there seems to be a preference toward information that supports a preconceived agenda.

The sooner these facts come to light, the faster the lie about Lee will die. A special thanks to Andrew Johnson and J.R. Dunmore for providing this historical information.

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1. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/enslaved-man/ (photograph citation)

It should be noted that the entry about Leonard Norris (linked above) states, “Wesley Norris, perhaps a relative of Leonard Norris, recalled how Lee ordered that he be whipped, along with two other enslaved people, after they unsuccessfully attempted to self-emancipate from the Arlington House estate.” Even though the testimony of Leonard Norris himself contradicts the claims made by Wesley Norris.

2. https://www.nps.gov/arho/learn/historyculture/an-unpleasant-legacy.htm

3. “Putnam letter,” Samuel Putnam, Hartford Daily Courant on May 14, 1863, also published in the Raftsman Journal; May 27, 1863.

4. https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/book_viewer/commonwealth:5h742r282#?xywh=1821%2C706%2C1112%2C418&cv=1

5. Quote, historian Elizabeth Varon, Appomattox, 2014, p. 233. Also noted in William C. Davis, Crucible of Command, 2014, p.473: “Lee hardly expected his testimony to reawaken the old whipping story, but in March a deposition by Wesley Norris appeared in the press, probably to counter Lee’s public stance as a moderate with no special dislike of blacks.”

6. The slave families’ petition comes from an Arlington House profile on Thornton Gray: https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/arho/exb/slavery/medium/Image-of-Thornton-Gray.html

7. On May 16, 1866, Senator Harris from the Committee on Private Land Claims, reported a bill (S. No. 321) for the relief of Maria Syphax. On June 8, 1886 the bill first passed the House, then the Senate on June 11 and was signed by President Andrew Johnson the following day.

8. The former Arlington slaves who were heads of household at Freedmen's Village during the first years of its establishment included Margaret Taylor, Austin Brannen, Lawrence Parks, William Parks, Martha Smith, James Parks, Daniel Richardson, and members of the Syphax family Bettie Taylor, Sallie Norris and Louisa Bingham.

9. https://www.nps.gov/arho/learn/historyculture/the-many-voices-of-arlington-plantation.htm

10. The Leisening interviews with the Norris nieces are available at the Arlington House Archives. The quotes can be found at https://arlingtonblackheritage.org/history/life-of-gray-family/

11. https://www.nps.gov/arho/learn/historyculture/gray.htm

12. https://www.nps.gov/arho/learn/historyculture/gray.htm