 On June 29, 1861, Fendall may have written an introduction letter for Henry May (Maryland) to meet Edward Bates, Lincoln's Attorney General.The letter was found when May was arrested on September 13, 1861 by military authority.Fendall's cousins, Gen. Robert Edward Lee (1807–1870) and Col. Richard Bland Lee II (1797–1875) resigned their commissions in the Army and took up with the Confederacy.