Robert Edward Lee
1807 - 1870

Robert
Edward Lee was born on January 19, 1807 at "Stratford" in
Westmoreland County, Virginia, to Henry and Anne Hill Lee. Henry
Lee was a distinguished cavalry officer who participated in the
American Revolution where he gained the nickname "Light Horse
Harry". Due to declining political prospects and financial
problems, the elder Lee moved his family from Stratford to a
home in Alexandria, Virginia on the Potomac River across from
Washington. Robert E. Lee was raised there, attended school and
enjoyed outdoor activities along the river. In 1825, the young
Lee secured an appointment to West Point where he excelled in
his studies and in the military exercises. Appointed adjutant of
the cadet corps, he graduated in the number two position of his
class in 1829.
As a young second lieutenant, Lee served on many army outposts
and at several army forts. Lieutenant Lee married Mary Ann
Randolph Custis, a direct descendent of Mary Washington, in
1831. The couple had seven children. Lee was home only briefly
as he was assigned to engineer many projects in the midwest and
around Washington. With the outbreak of hostilities with Mexico,
Lee was assigned duty with the army and fought in many battles
under General John E. Wool and General Winfield Scott. Slightly
wounded at the Battle of Chapultepec, Lee distinguished himself
during the war and received several promotions in rank after the
war ended. In the 1850's, he briefly served as the
superintendent of West Point and then went on to a command in
the 2nd US Cavalry.
In 1859, Lee took part in a dramatic event that contributed to
the growing division between North and South. By chance he was
in Washington when the radical abolitionist John Brown and a
small band of followers raided the United States Arsenal at
Harper's Ferry, Virginia, seizing weapons and hostages with the
objective to spark an uprising among slaves in Virginia. Lee was
immediately sent with his troops to Harper's Ferry, where they
eventually cornered Brown in the arsenal engine house and took
him prisoner after a bloody shoot out. Within a year, the talk
of secession had become stronger throughout the south. As an
army officer, Lee was against secession and never entertained
the idea of a revolt against the government to which he had
sworn an oath. Only if Virginia would secede would he then have
to make a decision.
Lee continued his work in Washington, living at his wife's
ancestral home at Arlington. In 1861, the south did secede and
Virginia soon followed. Lee was offered a command in the Union
Army but declined to accept the assignment because of his
ancestry and loyalty to Virginia. It was a difficult decision
for Lee to give up his career and his country, but his personal
allegiance was to his family and his roots that were in
Virginia. With some regrets, Lee resigned his commission and
moved his family to Richmond, never see the home at Arlington
again. Lee offered his services to the state of Virginia and was
placed in command of all military forces from that state. He was
later assigned as personal military advisor to President
Jefferson Davis, which was a very difficult job. Lee had to
coordinate numerous operations involving officers who were very
sensitive about their command positions and obligations. It was
a difficult time for him and Lee suffered the brunt of heavy
criticism.
In the spring of 1862, the Union Army of the Potomac commanded
by General George McClellan was poised to strike the city of
Richmond. In a pitched battle at Seven Pines, General Joseph
Johnston, commanding the Confederate forces, was seriously
wounded. Lee was immediately assigned to replace Johnston and he
took command of the army, which he renamed the Army of Northern
Virginia. Despite some early difficulties, General Lee undertook
the new assignment with vigor and spirit. Co-ordinating his
troops near Richmond with those of General "Stonewall" Jackson
in the Shenandoah Valley, Lee met the Union threat on two
fronts. Quickly driving back Union forces in the Valley, General
Jackson rushed his troops to Richmond and joined with General
James Longstreet's Corps in attacking McClellan's army.
Together, Lee and his officers were able to throw back the Union
threat during the Seven Days Battles.
What followed was a set of victories against seemingly
insurmountable odds. General Lee's army was always outnumbered,
out gunned, and often in a poor position to attack or defend.
Yet General Lee was a practical strategist with an engineer's
sense, who was willing to take risks to outmanoeuvre his
opponents. The support of excellent commanders contributed to
repeated victories against the Union Army again and again. Lee
suffered several setbacks during the Maryland Campaign in 1862,
which resulted in the Battle of Antietam. Still, Lee's thin line
held most of the battlefield at the end of a single day of
fighting, giving him a strategic victory, though one he could
not take advantage of. He was forced to retreat across the
Potomac River and back to Virginia. After the Battle of
Fredericksburg that December, Lee spent the winter rebuilding
his battered army. The Union Army rebuilt itself as well and
opened the spring of 1863 with a surprise move against Lee's
forces. The Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia turned out to
be Lee's greatest victory, but at a very high cost when
"Stonewall" Jackson, his most trusted officer, was mortally
wounded. Despite the loss of his beloved corps commander, Lee
carried on and invaded the North once again. His troops
successfully marched through Maryland and southern Pennsylvania
until they came together at Gettysburg. The Battle of Gettysburg
was a costly defeat for the Army of Northern Virginia and Lee
felt a great personal responsibility for the loss, but the
Confederate government displayed great confidence in the
commander of so many men and refused to allow him to resign.
General Lee faced a new antagonist in the spring of 1864. After
a succession of Union victories in Tennessee and Mississippi,
General Ulysses S. Grant arrived in Washington where President
Lincoln placed him in overall command of Union land forces.
Knowing that Lee must be defeated to end the war, Grant chose to
make his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac in Virginia
where his challenge with Lee in a strategic duel began in the
spring of 1864 in the "Overland Campaign", also known as the
"Wilderness Campaign" by its participants. Starting with the
Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864, the two armies grappled
continuously for many weeks through middle Virginia and the
fighting was bitter and brutal. Lee was able to block every
manoeuvre Grant made and though Lee's forces inflicted heavy
losses on the Union army, he knew that time was running out for
his own. His losses could not be easily replaced, material
shortages became more acute, and, despite his best efforts,
Grant had succeeded in continually marching Meade's Union army
southward, right to the outskirts of Richmond, where Lee also
had to contend with the Union Army of the James.
In mid-June, General Grant shifted his forces around Richmond to
Petersburg, Virginia, an important junction for southern
railroads through the Carolinas into southern Virginia. Once
again, Lee's army arrived in the city to halt the Union attacks.
Trenches and forts were constructed by both armies, and the
battle became a siege of the city. In an attempt to break this
stalemate, Lee sent part of his army northward to invade
Maryland and hopefully draw off a portion of Grant's forces
around the Richmond-Petersburg line. This Confederate force
under General Jubal Early succeeded in reaching the outskirts of
Washington before they were forced to retire into Virginia.
Later defeated in the Shenandoah Valley, Early's troops gave up
the valley and rejoined Lee's main force around Petersburg.
Lee knew that his army could not last through a long siege but
he tenaciously held on against the relentless pressure of two
Union armies. In March 1865, Lee ordered one last desperate
gamble to break the Union siege of the city, an attack on the
center of the Union siege line. Though initially successful, the
attack was repulsed by overwhelming Union firepower and Grant
renewed his efforts to take Petersburg by force. The Battle of
Five Forks gave the Union control of the last southern railroad
into Petersburg and the Richmond-Petersburg line was doomed.
With time and odds against him, Lee ordered his army to abandon
both cities. He moved his dwindling army west hoping to
eventually move south to join up with Confederate forces under
General Joseph Johnston in North Carolina.
Disaster followed Lee with every step of the march. Despite his
best efforts, Lee knew that the end was at hand when his
surviving forces were blocked near Appomattox Court House,
Virginia on April 9, 1865. Dressed in his finest Confederate
gray uniform, General Lee met with General Grant that afternoon
to sign the terms of surrender to save the lives of his last
7,500 remaining soldiers. Lee left Appomattox and his army
forever and returned to Richmond.
It was a bleak time for the general. Branded a traitor by many
who wished to see him imprisoned and hanged, Lee quietly
remained at his home in Richmond caring for his ailing wife. Yet
there were many who held a high regard for Lee and responded
with generous offers of financial help and employment. In the
autumn of 1865, Lee accepted a position as president of
Washington College (today called Washington and Lee University)
in Lexington, Virginia. With the help of an enthusiastic
faculty, Lee brought the school up to a high standard of
education. He also set an example for the south, working to
rebind the wounds of a divided nation by obedience to civil
authority. He quietly encouraged his veterans to return to their
homes and rebuild their lives as Americans.
The aged Lee never discussed the war nor wrote about his
war-time experiences. He was given many offers of money for his
memoirs, which an adoring public wished to read, but turned
everyone down. Lee was sincere in his feelings in not discussing
the war or the results of it, letting the record of his army
speak for itself. On October 12, 1870, General Lee died after a
short illness and is buried in the chapel of the university that
bears his name.
======================================
"With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty
and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up
my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my
home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army, and
save in defense of my native State, with the sincere hope that
my poor services may never be needed, I hope I may never be
called on to draw my sword....." Lee in a letter to his sister,
April 20, 1861
The idol of the South to this day, Virginian Robert E. Lee had
some difficulty in adjusting to the new form of warfare that
unfolded with the Civil war, but this did not prevent him from
keeping the Union armies in Virginia at bay for almost three
years. The son of Revolutionary War hero "Light Horse" Harry
Lee-who fell into disrepute in his later years attended West
Point and graduated second in his class. During his four years
at the military academy he did not earn a single demerit and
served as the cadet corps' adjutant. Upon his 1829 graduation he
was posted to the engineers. Before the Mexican War he served on
engineering projects in Georgia, Virginia, and New York. During
the war he served on the staffs of John Wool and Winfield Scott.
Particularly distinguishing himself scouting for and guiding
troops, he won three brevets and was slightly wounded at
Chapultepec.
Following a stint in Baltimore Harbor he became superintendent
of the military academy in 1852. When the mounted arm was
expanded in 1855, Lee accepted the lieutenant colonelcy of the
2nd Cavalry in order to escape from the painfully slow promotion
in the engineers. Ordered to western Texas, he served with his
regiment until the 1857 death of his father-in-law forced him to
ask for a series of leaves to settle the estate.
In 1859 he was called upon to lead a force of marines, to join
with the militia on the scene, to put an end to John Brown's
Harper's Ferry Raid. Thereafter he served again in Texas until
summoned to Washington in 1861 by Winfield Scott who tried to
retain Lee in the U. S. service. But the Virginian rejected the
command of the Union's field forces on the day after Virginia
seceded. He then accepted an invitation to visit Governor John
Letcher in Virginia. His resignation as colonel, 1st Cavalry-to
which he had recently been promoted-was accepted on April 25,
1861.
His Southern assignments included: major general, Virginia's
land and naval forces (April 23, 1861); commanding Virginia
forces (April 23 July 1861); brigadier general, CSA (May 14, 186
1); general, CSA (from June 14, 186 1); commanding Department of
Northwestern Virginia (late July-October 1861); commanding
Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida (November 8,
186 1-March 3, 1862); and commanding Army of Northern Virginia
June 1, 1862-April 9, 1865).
In charge of Virginia's fledgling military might, he was mainly
involved in organizational matters. As a Confederate brigadier
general, and later full general, he was in charge of supervising
all Southern forces in Virginia. In the first summer of the war
he was given his first field command in western Virginia. His
Cheat Mountain Campaign was a disappointing fizzle largely due
to the failings of his superiors. His entire tenure in the
region was unpleasant, dealing with the bickering of his
subordinates-William W. Loring, John B. Floyd, and Henry A.
Wise. After this he became known throughout the South as "Granny
Lee. " His debut in field command had not been promising, but
Jefferson Davis appointed him to command along the Southern
Coast.
Early in 1862 he was recalled to Richmond and made an advisor to
the president. From this position he had some influence over
military operations, especially those of Stonewall Jackson in
the Shenandoah Valley. When Joseph E. Johnston launched his
attack at Seven Pines, Davis and Lee were taken by surprise and
rode out to the field. In the confusion of the fight Johnston
was badly wounded, and that night Davis instructed Lee to take
command of what he renamed the Army of Northern Virginia. He
fought the second day of the battle but the initiative had
already been lost the previous day. Later in the month, in a
daring move, he left a small force in front of Richmond and
crossed the Chickahominy to strike the one Union corps north of
the river. In what was to be called the Seven Days Battles the
individual fights-Beaver Dam Creek, Gaines' Mill, Savage
Station, Glendale, White Oak Swamp, and Malvern Hill-were all
tactical defeats for the Confederates. But Lee had achieved the
strategic goal of removing McClellan's army from the very gates
of Richmond.
This created a new opinion of Lee in the South. He gradually
became "Uncle Robert" and "Marse Robert." With McClellan
neutralized, a new threat developed under John Pope in northern
Virginia. At first Lee detached Jackson and then followed with
Longstreet's command. Winning at 2nd Bull Run, he moved on into
Maryland but suffered the misfortune of having a copy of his
orders detailing the disposition of his divided forces fall into
the hands of the enemy. McClellan moved with unusual speed and
Lee was forced to fight a delaying action along South Mountain
while waiting for Jackson to complete the capture of Harpers
Ferry and rejoin him. He masterfully fought McClellan to a stand
still at Antietam and two days later recrossed the Potomac.
Near the end of the year he won an easy victory over Burnside at
Fredericksburg and then trounced Hooker in his most creditable
victory at Chancellorsville, where he had detached Jackson with
most of the army on a lengthy flank march while he remained with
only two divisions in the immediate front of the Union army.
Launching his second invasion of the North, he lost at
Gettysburg. On the third day of the battle he displayed one of
his major faults when at Malvern Hill and on other fields-he
ordered a massed infantry assault across a wide plain, not
recognizing that the rifle, which had come into use since the
Mexican War, put the charging troops under fire for too long a
period. Another problem was his issuance of general orders to be
executed by his subordinates.
Returning to Virginia he commanded in the inconclusive Bristoe
and Mine Run campaigns. From the Wilderness to Petersburg he
fought a retiring campaign against Grant in which he made full
use of entrenchments, becoming known as "Ace of Spades" Lee.
Finally forced into a siege, he held on to Richmond and
Petersburg for nearly 10 months before beginning his retreat to
Appomattox, where he was forced to surrender. On January 23,
1865, he had been named as commander in chief of the Confederate
armies but he found himself too burdened in Virginia to give
more than general directives to the other theaters.
Lee returned to Richmond as a paroled prisoner of war, and
submitted with the utmost composure to an altered destiny. He
devoted the rest of his life to setting an example of conduct
for other thousands of ex-Confederates. He refused a number of
offers which would have secured substantial means for his
family. Instead, he assumed the presidency of Washington College
(now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia, and
his reputation revitalized the school after the war. Lee's
enormous wartime prestige, both in the North and South, and the
devotion inspired by his unconscious symbolism of the "Lost
Cause" made his a legendary figure even before his death. He
died on October 12 1870, of heart disease which had plagued him
since the spring of 1863, at Lexington, Va. and is buried there.
Somehow, his application for restoration of citizenship was
mislaid, and it was not until the 1970's that it was found and
granted.
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