He wasn’t a traitor.
Lee’s primary allegiance like that of so many people back then, was to his state - Virginia. Even in the Union army troops were organized on the state level.
Lee was in a very troubling position - fight with the North against his own state, neighbors and family or surrender his position in the U.S. Military.
I don’t think we should question his morality or ethics and I certainly would no more accuse him of being a traitor than I would accuse southerners who fought with the Union of being traitors to the south. It was a troubling time with few good answers.
I don’t question the morality of breaking your oath. It is unmistakably wrong. And when he did it he sacrificed any pretense to honor.
“He wasn’t a traitor.
Lee’s primary allegiance like that of so many people back then, was to his state - Virginia.”
It was not.
Many Virginians served in the Union. Lee was not bound by anything to fight for a breakaway government. In fact a chunk of the state stayed with the Union. Virginia wasn’t even for succession until the U.S. had the nerve to not surrender federal property to a mob with guns pointed at Ft. Sumter.
So to whom was his loyalty naturally supposed to fall?
He rightfully resigned his post, and had hoped that it didn’t have to come to that, but in the end he had to betray his nation to work for another. That’s just the logic of the situation.
But he handled himself with such dignity and professionalism that he was saved from a firing squad in the end.