I and others have stated before that Lee, because of his rank and position, had to have been, maybe not involved in the inner circles of the planning of the opperation, but at least knowledgeable of the plans to circumvent peace talks while planning a re-enforcement at Fort Sumter. By the time Lee was offered the Promotion to be the Commander of the Union Army by Lincoln, all the higher ranked officers such as Samuel Cooper, Albert S. Johnson and Joe E Johnston were already in the Confederate Army. Lee in effect was like Custer at the Little Big Horn so the story goes, he was the last man standing. This is never brought out in any evaluation of why Lee resigned.

All the men he a soldiered with from the Mexican War on had already made their decisions and I as sure that Lee was aware of why they had left also. Why did those men leave? They all had as promising a carrer ahead of them in the army as Lee had. Lee was not ever senior enough in the Confederate army to rate a field command at first. After his West Virginia campaign he was religated to being Jeff Davis' military advisor. He recieved command of the ANV after Joe Johnson was severely wounded at Seven Pines and no one else was near enough and capabile enough to command the army. Lee in fact was an unknown to most and his fighting ability was also questionable until after the Seven Days Battle, where he earned his reputation as a fighter in defeating "Little Mac".