In the early days of the Southern Confederacy, General Robert E. Lee was severely criticized by General Whiting. It might have been expected that Lee would wait for a time when he could get even with Whiting. A day came when president Jefferson Davis asked General Lee to come for consultation. The President wanted to know what Lee thought of General Whiting. Without hesitation Lee commended Whiting in high terms and called him one of the ablest men in the confederate army. An officer present motioned Lee aside to suggest that he must not know what unkind things whiting had been saying about him. Lee answered: "I understood that the president desired to know my opinion of Whiting, not Whiting's opinion of me."