autobiography of robert e lee

Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee was the leading Confederate general during the U.S. Civil War and has been venerated as a heroic figure in the American South.

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Who Was Robert E. Lee?

Robert E. Lee became military prominence during the U.S. Civil War, commanding his home state's armed forces and becoming general-in-chief of the Confederate troops toward the end of the conflict. Though the Union won the war, Lee earned renown as a military tactician for scoring several significant victories on the battlefield. He became president of Washington College and, renamed Washington and Lee University after he died in 1870.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Robert Edward Lee BORN: January 19, 1807 DIED: October 12, 1870 BIRTHPLACE: Stratford, Virginia SPOUSE: Mary Custis (1831-1870) CHILDREN: George Washington Custis, William “Rooney,” Robert Jr, Mary, Anne, Eleanor Agnes, and Mildred ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Capricorn

Early Years

A Confederate general who led southern forces against the Union Army in the U.S. Civil War, Robert Edward Lee was born on Jan. 19, 1807, at his family home of Stratford Hall in northeastern Virginia.

Lee saw himself as an extension of his family's greatness. At 18, he enrolled at West Point Military Academy, where he put his drive and serious mind to work. He placed second in his graduating class after four spotless years without a demerit and wrapped up his studies with perfect scores in artillery, infantry, and cavalry.

Wife and Children

After graduating from West Point, Lee married Mary Custis, the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington (from her first marriage before meeting George Washington) in 1831. The couple wed on Mary Custis’s family plantation in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. They would make the estate their primary home for the next 30 years. In 1857, Mary inherited the Arlington plantation outright following her father’s death. However, after the outbreak of the Civil War, Union troops occupied the plantation, and the federal government seized the land. In 1864, the government began constructing a new national cemetery to bury and honor the war’s military dead. After that, the former Custis/Lee home was transformed into one of the most hallowed places in American history— Arlington National Cemetery .

Together, they had seven children: four daughters (Mary, Annie, Agnes, and Mildred) and three sons (Custis, Rooney, and Rob) who followed their father to serve in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

Early Military Career

While Mary and the children spent their lives on Mary's father's plantation, Lee stayed committed to his military obligations. His loyalties moved him around the country, from Savannah to St. Louis to New York.

In 1846, Lee got the chance he had been waiting for his whole military career when the United States went to war with Mexico. Serving under General Winfield Scott, Lee distinguished himself as a brave battle commander and a brilliant tactician. In the aftermath of the U.S. victory over its neighbor, Lee was held up as a hero. Scott showered Lee with particular praise, saying that if the United States went into another war, the government should consider taking out a life insurance policy on the commander.

But life away from the battlefield proved difficult for Lee to handle. He struggled with the mundane tasks associated with his work and life. For a time, he returned to his wife's family's plantation to manage the estate following the death of his father-in-law. The property had fallen under hard times, and for two long years, he tried to make it profitable again.

Robert E. Lee and Slavery

Lee did not own slaves in his youth, but he and Mary Custis Lee inherited enslaved people from both his mother and her father, and it’s believed Lee himself owned between 10-15 enslaved people during his lifetime. His racial attitudes reflected much of his background, and while he wrote to Mary about the moral and political evils of slavery, he held views of white superiority. He saw slavery as necessary to maintain order between races. He opposed abolitionism, which he saw as a northern effort to inflict political will on the South.

When Lee’s father-in-law died in 1857, Lee became executor of his estate, tasked with managing the Arlington plantation. During this period, despite his father-in-law’s decree that his slaves be freed within five years of his death, Lee was accused of being a cruel and harsh overseer, with reports of beatings of some of the 200 enslaved people under his control, particularly those who had tried to escape.

In late 1862, to fulfill the terms of his father-in-law’s will, Lee signed deeds freeing some 150 of the enslaved workers at Arlington and other Custis plantations. Just a few months later, the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1863, freeing enslaved peoples in Confederate territory. Despite the Proclamation, Lee, during his Gettysburg campaign later that year, continued his practice of seizing freed Blacks in Union territory to be sent into slavery in the South. Towards the end of the war, with the Confederacy desperate for recruits, he supported the idea of allowing enslaved peoples to serve in the army in exchange for their freedom. Still, the war ended before the policy was enacted.

Confederate Leader

In October 1859, Lee was summoned to put an end to an enslaved person insurrection led by John Brown at Harper's Ferry. Lee's orchestrated attack took just an hour to end the revolt, and his success put him on a shortlist of names to lead the Union Army should the nation go to war.

But Lee's commitment to the Army was superseded by his commitment to Virginia. After turning down an offer from President Abraham Lincoln to command the Union forces, Lee resigned from the military and returned home. While Lee had misgivings about centering a war on the slavery issue, after Virginia voted to secede from the nation on April 17, 1861, Lee agreed to help lead the Confederate forces.

Over the next year, Lee again distinguished himself on the battlefield. On June 1, 1862, he took control of the Army of Northern Virginia and drove back the Union Army during the Seven Days Battles near Richmond. In August of that year, he gave the Confederacy a crucial victory at Second Manassas (also known as the Second Battle of Bull Run).

But not all went well. He courted disaster when he tried to cross the Potomac at the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, barely escaping the site of the bloodiest single-day skirmish of the war, which left some 22,000 combatants dead.

From July 1-3, 1863, Lee's forces suffered another round of heavy casualties in Pennsylvania. The three-day stand-off, known as the Battle of Gettysburg , wiped out a vast chunk of Lee's army, halting his invasion of the North while helping to turn the tide for the Union.

By the fall of 1864, Union General Ulysses S. Grant had gained the upper hand, decimating much of Richmond, the Confederacy's capital, and Petersburg. By early 1865, the fate of the war was clear, a fact driven home on April 2 when Lee was forced to abandon Richmond. A week later, a reluctant and despondent Lee surrendered to Grant at a private home in Appomattox, Virginia.

"I suppose there is nothing for me to do but go and see General Grant," he told an aide. "And I would rather die a thousand deaths."

Final Years and Death

Saved from being hanged as a traitor by a forgiving Lincoln and Grant, Lee returned to his family in April 1865. He eventually accepted a job as president of Washington College in western Virginia and devoted his efforts toward boosting the institution's enrollment and financial support.

In late September 1870, Lee suffered a massive stroke. He died at his home in Lexington, Virginia, surrounded by family, on Oct. 12. He was buried in a chapel at nearby Washington College. Shortly afterward, the college was renamed Washington and Lee University.

Disputed Legacy and Statue

In the decades after the Civil War, sympathizers regarded Lee as a heroic figure of the South. Several monuments to the late general sprung up before the end of the 19th century, notably in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Dallas, Texas. Lee’s birthday is commemorated in several southern states. Until 2020, Lee-Jackson Day (also commemorating Civil War General Stonewall Jackson ) was celebrated each January in Virginia. Texas celebrates Lee on his Jan. 19th birthday as part of Confederate Heroes Day. Mississippi and Alabama celebrate a combined state holiday in late January honoring both Lee and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr , while Florida commemorates Robert E. Lee Day as an unofficial state holiday.

Lee's complicated legacy became part of the culture wars that engulfed the country more than a century later. While some sought to have statues of Confederate leaders removed from public view, others argued that doing so represented an attempt to erase history. In 2017, after the City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia, voted to move a Lee statue from a park, Charlottesville became the site of several protests and counter-protests; in August, numerous demonstrators clashed, resulting in one death and 19 injuries.

In late October 2017, President Donald Trump 's chief of staff, John Kelly, further fanned the flames of the controversy with his appearance on Fox News. Addressing the topic of a Virginia church's decision to remove plaques that honored both Lee and Washington, Kelly called the Confederate general an "honorable man" and pointed to the "lack of an ability to compromise" as the cause of the Civil War. This analysis drew the ire of opponents.

Robert E. Lee in Movies

Robert E. Lee has been the subject of numerous biographies, documentaries, and novels, including several “alternative history” books depicting the South as winning the Civil War. Among the most popular books featuring Lee is a trilogy of novels . The first, written by Jeffrey Shaara, was the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Killer Angels, which became the basis for the 1993 film Gettysburg , starring Martin Sheen as Lee. After Jeffrey’s death, his son Michael completed the trilogy, publishing Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure , the former of which was adapted into a 2003 film of the same name, starring Robert Duvall—himself a descendant of Robert E. Lee—as the famed general.

• I suppose there is nothing for me to do but go and see General Grant. And I would rather die a thousand deaths.
• Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less.
• I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.
• Whiskey: I like it, I always did, and that is the reason I never use it.
• Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character.
• The education of a man is never completed until he dies.
• Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one.
• You cannot be a true man until you learn to obey.
• In this enlightened age, there are few, I believe, but what will acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any country.
• You see what a poor sinner I am and how unworthy to possess what was given me; for that reason, it has been taken away.
• Everybody kind of perceives me as being angry. It's not anger, it's motivation.
• It is good that war is so horrible, or we might grow to like it.

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Robert Edward Lee

January 19, 1807–October 12, 1870

Robert E. Lee was a prominent Confederate army officer who commanded the Army of Northern Virginia throughout most of the Civil War. He also served as General-in-Chief of Confederate forces near the end of the war.

Robert E. Lee was a prominent U.S. Army officer before the Civil War. When Virginia seceded from the Union, he resigned from his position and accepted the leadership of the Army of Northern Virginia. Near the end of the Civil War, he was named General-in-Chief of Confederate forces. Image Source: Wikipedia.

Early Life and Career of Robert E. Lee

Robert Edward Lee was born on January 19, 1807, at Stratford, a family plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He was the fifth child of Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee and Ann Hill Carter Lee. Lee’s father was a Revolutionary War hero, a delegate to the Continental Congress, the Governor of Virginia from 1791 to 1794, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Despite his military and political renown, the Panic of 1796-1797 financially ruined the elder Lee and by 1809 he spent a year in debtor’s prison. After his release, Lee moved his family to Alexandria, Virginia. While living there, Robert attended local schools. In 1812, Lee’s father traveled to the West Indies and never returned, dying there in 1818. Lee’s mother had to raise her children with the help of relatives.

U.S. Military Academy Cadet

In 1824, Lee’s uncle, William Henry Fitzhugh, secured an appointment for Lee to the United States Military Academy. Lee entered the academy in 1825, graduating second in his class in 1829.

U.S. Army Officer

After graduation, Lee received a brevet commission as a second lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers. When Lee returned home while awaiting assignment, his mother died on July 26, 1829.

While at home, Lee also began courting Mary Custis, great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. In August, the army stationed Lee in Georgia. When he was home on leave a year later, Mary accepted Lee’s second marriage proposal, and the two wed on June 30, 1831. Later that year, the army transferred Lee to Fort Monroe in Virginia. For the next fifteen years, Lee was away from his family, performing various engineering duties for the army, including helping to establish the state line between Ohio and Michigan in 1835. During the period, Lee received promotions to second lieutenant in 1832, to first lieutenant in 1836, and to captain in 1838.

Mexican-American War

During the Mexican-American War (1846 to 1848) , Lee first served as an engineer under General John Wool, primarily laying out transportation routes. In 1847, he transferred to the staff of General Winfield Scott , who later stated that Lee was “the greatest soldier I ever saw in the field.” Lee served with distinction at the battles of Veracruz (March 1847) , Cerro Gordo (April 1847) , and Chapultepec (September 1847) , where he was wounded. Lee received a brevet promotion to major after the Battle of Cerro Gordo on April 18, 1847.

Superintendent of the United States Military Academy

After the Mexican-American War, Lee resumed his peacetime engineering duties with the army. In 1852, U.S. Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis appointed him superintendent of the United States Military Academy, where he served until 1855. In March 1855, the army promoted Lee to lieutenant colonel and gave him command of the recently formed 2nd U.S. Cavalry in Texas. His unit’s primary task was to subdue the Comanche Indians.

Slaveholder

While serving in Texas, Lee’s father-in-law, George Washington Custis, died in 1857, and Lee returned to Alexandria, Virginia to serve as executor of the estate. Custis’s will stipulated that his slaves receive their freedom within five years of his death. The slaves erroneously believed that they became free at the time of Custis’s death. Lee disagreed, and when some slaves attempted to escape, Lee began hiring them out, sometimes breaking up their families. Lee also filed legal petitions to keep Custis’s chattel enslaved indefinitely. Only when the courts denied his petitions did Lee consent to his father-in-law’s wishes and free his slaves.

John Brown’s Raid

In October 1859, President James Buchanan ordered Lee to lead a detachment of U.S. Marines to Harpers Ferry, Virginia to suppress a raid on the federal arsenal led by Ohioan and abolitionist John Brown . On October 18, after failed negotiations with Brown, Lee ordered his marines to storm the building housing the insurrectionists. In a matter of minutes, Lee’s men crushed the foray and captured Brown. Later that year, Lee stood guard at Brown’s execution on December 2, 1859.

Robert E. Lee During the Civil War

Confederate officer.

When the session crisis escalated after Abraham Lincoln’s election to the U.S. Presidency in 1860, Lee struggled with performing his sworn duty as a soldier and preserving his allegiance to his home state of Virginia. Serving as the acting head of the Department of Texas during the winter of 1860, Lee refused to cede federal property to local secessionists. In March of the following year, the War Department recalled Lee to Washington and promoted him to full colonel. On April 17, 1861, Virginia seceded from the Union. The next day, Lee declined a promotion to major general in the army being assembled to suppress the Southern insurrection. On April 20, he resigned from his commission in the U.S. Army. Three days later Lee accepted the command of Virginia’s forces.

Rocky Beginning

The first year of the Civil War was not kind to Lee or his reputation. In an uncoordinated attack hampered by rain, fog, and mountainous terrain, Lee’s forces were defeated at the Battle of Cheat Mountain (September 12 to 15) in western Virginia. Confederate President Jefferson Davis relieved Lee of his field command and sent him east to supervise the construction of coastal defenses in Georgia and the Carolinas. Davis then recalled Lee to Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, where he served as a military adviser to the Confederate president. While acting in that capacity, Lee ordered his men to dig a network of defensive trenches around the Confederate capital. That operation earned him the derogatory sobriquet, “King of Spades.”

Army of Northern Virginia

The spring of 1862 marked a change in Lee’s military fortunes. By late May, Major General George McClellan had advanced the Federal Army of the Potomac to the outskirts of Richmond during his Peninsula Campaign . On June 1, General Joseph E. Johnston was severely wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines , and Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia .

Seven Days Battles

As McClellan planned for a siege of Richmond, Lee prepared to take the initiative. On June 25, he launched the first of six assaults on Federal troops in seven days, collectively known as the Seven Days Battles (June 25 to July 1, 1862) . Although the Battle of Gaines Mills was the only engagement in the series that produced a tactical Confederate victory, the offensive achieved Lee’s strategic objective of driving McClellan away from Richmond.

Northern Virginia Campaign

The Army of the Potomac retreated down the peninsula until U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and General-in-Chief-of-the-Army Henry Halleck recalled it on August 3, to support Major General Pope’s Army of Virginia operating near Washington. With McClellan’s army off of the peninsula, Lee turned his attention to Pope and scored a major victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run (August 28 to 30, 1862) , opening the way for a Confederate invasion of the North.

Maryland Campaign

In September 1862, Lee moved the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland. His Maryland Offensive had three major goals: relieve Virginia from the ravages of war, resupply his army through foraging in the North, and erode Northern morale enough to influence upcoming midterm elections in the North. McClellan dispatched the Army of the Potomac to Maryland to check Lee’s advance. The two armies met at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland. During the bloodiest day of fighting in the Civil War , the armies fought to a standoff. With his advance stalled and supplies running low, Lee withdrew to Virginia.

Fredericksburg Campaign

Disappointed with McClellan’s failure to pursue Lee’s retreating army, President Lincoln placed Ambrose Burnside in command of the Army of the Potomac on November 7, 1862, and urged him to mount an offensive. A reluctant Burnside crossed the Rappahannock River on December 12. The next day he ordered a disastrous series of frontal attacks against Lee’s well-positioned army near Fredericksburg, Virginia. After suffering more than 12,000 casualties , Burnside called off the offensive and re-crossed the river. Lee’s reputation and his army’s morale soared with the decisive Confederate victory at the Battle of Fredericksburg .

Chancellorsville Campaign

On January 26, 1863, Lincoln replaced Burnside with Major General Joseph (“Fighting Joe”) Hooker in his quest to find a Union officer who could out-general Lee. On April 27, Hooker led the Army of the Potomac back across the Rappahannock and Rapidan Rivers. He soon found one near Chancellorsville, Virginia on May 1. Outnumbering Lee’s army by a ratio of two to one , Hooker planned to use his numerical superiority to flank and entrap Lee’s army. However, Lee expected Hooker’s plan and split his outnumbered army to check the Federal flanking movements. After five days of intense fighting, Hooker withdrew his army from the field. Many consider the Battle of Chancellorsville to be the highlight of Lee’s military career. Once again he had fended off an advance by a much larger force, raising the already high morale of his army and prompting him to lobby for another invasion of the North.

Gettysburg Campaign

While Lee was defeating Hooker at Chancellorsville, Major General Ulysses S. Grant was besieging the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi on the Mississippi River. With Hooker’s army in retreat, many Confederate officials proposed sending some of Lee’s army west to relieve Vicksburg. Reluctant to reduce the number of troops protecting Virginia, Lee instead proposed another invasion of the North. With his stature at an all-time high, Lee’s views prevailed, and Jefferson Davis authorized him to launch another offensive.

On June 3, 1863, Lee began moving portions of his army northwest toward the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Rebels crossed the mountains and moved north through the Shenandoah Valley, capturing the Union garrison at Winchester, Virginia, in the Second Battle of Winchester (June 13 to 15, 1863) . Lee’s army then began moving into Maryland and Pennsylvania.

By that time, Hooker realized Lee’s movements and dispatched the Army of the Potomac to stop Lee’s advance. As the Federals sought to locate Lee’s forces, Hooker engaged in a heated dispute with his superiors and rashly offered to resign as commander of the Army of the Potomac. President Lincoln quickly accepted the resignation, and on June 28, he replaced Hooker with Major General George Meade. Three days later, Meade’s army engaged Lee at the Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg.

Battle of Gettysburg

From July 1 through July 3, the two armies clashed in the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest battle of the Civil War. Meade’s army arrived at Gettysburg ahead of the Rebels and secured the high ground on the first day of battle. Seeing that the Federals held the better ground, some of Lee’s lieutenant commanders, particularly James Longstreet , advised Lee to move the Confederate army around Gettysburg and face Meade’s army on another day at a place of the Rebels’ choosing. Fearing the effect that withdrawing might have on his army’s morale and, perhaps, placing too much stock in the illusory invincibility of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee instead ordered ill-advised attacks against the Federal lines on the second and third days of the battle.

The results were catastrophic, particularly the assault on the Union center on July 3, later known as Pickett’s Charge . As Lee watched the remnants of his army return from the failed assault on Cemetery Ridge, he acknowledged, “It is all my fault.” That evening, the shattered Army of Northern Virginia began an arduous ten-day march back to Virginia, bringing Lee’s offensive to an ignominious end. Meade did not pursue Lee as he withdrew, and for the rest of the season, both armies were content to recuperate from the battle.

A Formidable Opponent

Meade’s failure to pursue Lee immediately after Gettysburg, coupled with his subsequent inaction in 1863, again prompted President Lincoln to find a general who would use the Union’s dominant resources to defeat the Confederacy. On February 29, 1864, President Lincoln signed legislation restoring the rank of lieutenant general in the United States Army. On March 2, the president nominated Ulysses S. Grant, conqueror of Vicksburg and champion of Chattanooga, for the post. Congress confirmed the nomination on the same day. On March 3, Lincoln summoned Grant to Washington. A week later, on March 10, the president issued an executive order appointing Grant as General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States. On March 17, 1864, Grant issued General Orders, Number 12, taking command of the armies.

Overland Campaign

Grant immediately devised a plan to have all Union armies act in concert and then set his sights on defeating Lee. Making his headquarters with Meade’s Army of the Potomac, Grant launched his Overland Campaign in the spring, determined to go where Lee went. Although it took nearly a year, Grant’s strategy eventually prevailed. Against the better-equipped and much larger Union army , Lee held his own at the bloody Battles of the Wilderness (May 5-7, 1864) , Spotsylvania Court House (May 8-21, 1864) , and Cold Harbor (May 31 – June 12, 1864) , endured a prolonged Siege at Petersburg (June 9, 1864 – March 25, 1865).

General-in-Chief of Confederate Forces

By the end of 1864, the Confederacy’s military plight had become dire. Grant had Lee’s army bottled up in Petersburg and William T. Sherman captured Savannah on December 21 after making Georgia howl during his notorious March to the Sea . As the situation worsened, Southerners began questioning President Jefferson Davis’s effectiveness as commander-in-chief. Opposition to Davis reached a crescendo on January 23, 1865, when the Confederation Congress enacted legislation creating the post of General-in-Chief of Confederate forces. A week later, the bedeviled president appointed Robert E. Lee to the post. On February 6, the Confederate War Department issued General Orders, No. 3 announcing Lee’s appointment. On February 9, Lee issued his first general order as General-in-Chief announcing that he had assumed the post.

Surrender at Appomattox Court House

The change in leadership had little effect on the outcome of the war. In March 1865, Lee led his beleaguered forces in a desperate escape attempt that ended at Appomattox Court House. On April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Grant.

Robert E. Lee’s Life After the Civil War

The Civil War lingered on for several weeks after the surrender at Appomattox Court House, but it was over for Lee. He returned to Richmond to reunite with his family. On October 2, 1865, Lee became president of Washington University in Lexington, Virginia. On the same day, Lee signed an amnesty oath, swearing his allegiance to the Constitution and to the United States. On December 25, 1868, President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation that unconditionally pardoned those who “directly or indirectly” rebelled against the United States. Johnson’s pardon ensured that Lee would not face charges of treason. Still, the federal government did not restore Lee’s citizenship during his lifetime. On August 5, 1975, over 100 years after Lee’s death, President Gerald R. Ford signed legislation restoring Lee’s citizenship.

Lee served as president of Washington College for five years. During that time, he supported President Johnson’s Reconstruction plan and opposed the policies of so-called Radicals in Congress. He counseled compliance with federal authority but remained opposed to extending voting and civil rights to freed blacks.

Death of Robert E. Lee

On September 28, 1870, Lee suffered a stroke at his home in Lexington, Virginia. He died two weeks later on October 12. Lee’s remains were buried beneath the Lee Chapel on the campus of Washington University (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington.

• Written by Harry Searles

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Robert E. Lee

By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 29, 2022 | Original: October 29, 2009

Robert E. Lee was a Confederate general who led the South’s attempt at secession during the Civil War . He challenged Union forces during the war’s bloodiest battles, including Antietam and Gettysburg , before surrendering to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in 1865 at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, marking the end of the devastating conflict that nearly split the United States.

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Who Was Robert E. Lee?

Robert Edward Lee was born in Stratford Hall, a plantation in Virginia, on January 19, 1807, to a wealthy and socially prominent family. His mother, Anne Hill Carter, also grew up on a plantation and his father, Colonel Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, was descended from colonists and become a Revolutionary War leader and three-term governor of Virginia.

But the family hit hard times when Lee’s father made a series of bad investments that left him in debtors’ prison. He fled to the West Indies and died in 1818 while trying to return to Virginia when Lee was barely a teen.

With little money for his education, Lee went to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for a military education. He graduated second in his class in 1829—and the following month he would lose his mother. 

Did you know? Robert E. Lee graduated second in his class from West Point. He did not receive a single demerit during his four years at the academy.

Robert E. Lee's Children

After graduation, Lee’s military career quickly took off as he chose a position with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers .

A year later, he began courting a childhood connection, Mary Custis Washington. Given his father’s diminished reputation, Lee had to propose twice to win approval to wed Mary, the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington and the step-great-granddaughter of President George Washington .

The pair married in 1831; Lee and his wife had seven children, including three sons, George, William and Robert, who followed him into the military to fight for the Confederate States during the Civil War.

As the couple were establishing their family, Lee frequently travelled with the military on engineering projects. He first distinguished himself in battle during the Mexican-American War under General Winfield Scott in the battles of Veracruz , Churubusco and Chapultepec. Scott once declared that Lee was “the very best soldier that I ever saw in the field.”

Was Robert E. Lee a Slave Owner?

Lee did not grow up on a large plantation, but his wife inherited an enslaved worker in 1857 from her father, George Washington Park Custis.

Lee executed his father-in-law's will, which included Arlington House near Washington, D.C., a poorly managed plantation with debts and nearly 200 enslaved people, whom Custis wanted freed within five years of his death.

As a result of his father-in-law, Lee became owner of hundreds of enslaved workers. While historical accounts vary, Lee’s treatment of the enslaved peoples was described as being so combative and harsh that it led to revolts.

Lee at Harpers Ferry

During the 1850s, tensions between the abolitionist movement and slave owners reached a boiling point, and the union of states was near a breaking point. Lee entered the fray by halting a raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859, capturing radical abolitionist John Brown and his followers.

The following year, Abraham Lincoln was elected president, prompting seven Southern states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas — to secede in protest. U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis became the president of the Confederate States of America.

The first attack of the Civil War came on April 12, 1861, when Confederates took control of South Carolina’s Fort Sumter .

Lee’s home state of Virginia seceded less than a week later, creating the defining moment of his career. When he was asked to lead Union forces, he resigned from military service rather than fight against his Virginia friends and neighbors.  

General Robert E. Lee

Lee wasn’t a secessionist, but he immediately joined the Confederates and was named general and commander of the South’s fight for secession.

Lee has been widely criticized for his aggressive strategies that led to mass casualties. In the Battle of Antietam, on September 17, 1862, Lee made his first attempt at invading the North in the bloodiest single day of the war.

Antietam ended with roughly 23,000 casualties and the Union claiming victory for General George McClellan . Less than a week later, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation .

The battles continued through the cold, harsh winter and into the summer of 1863, when Lee’s troops challenged Union forces in Pennsylvania during the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, which claimed 28,000 Confederate soldiers’ lives and 23,000 casualties on the Union side.

The war dragged on for two more years until a victory for Lee became impossible. With a dwindling army, Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the Civil War.

Arlington House

At the start of the war, Lee and his family headed South, leaving Arlington House, but they did not reclaim their property.

The federal government seized the estate (now the site of Arlington National Cemetery ) and used it for military graves for thousands of fallen Union soldiers, possibly to prevent Lee from ever returning home.

The Lee family residence is now managed by the National Park Service as Arlington House: the Robert E. Lee Memorial , and is open to the public for tours.

As a well-educated man with considerable social and military experience, Lee is known for many of his quotes regarding slavery , duty and military service, including:

• In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral and political evil in any country.
• Whiskey — I like it, I always did, and that is the reason I never use it.
• It is well that war is so terrible — lest we should grow too fond of it.
• So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South.
• I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.
• The education of a man is never completed until he dies.
• Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less.

Robert E. Lee Day

In August of 1865, soon after the end of the war, Lee was invited to serve as president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University ), where he and his family are buried.

Since his death at age 63 on October 12, 1870, following a stroke, he has retained a place of distinction in most Southern states.

Lee’s January 19 birthday is observed (to varying degrees) on the third Monday in January as Robert E. Lee Day, an official state holiday in Mississippi and Alabama, and on January 19 in Florida and Tennessee.

Robert E. Lee Statues

The Confederate general remains one of the most divisive figures in American history.

Statues and other memorials built in his honor have become flashpoints in cities such as New Orleans , Louisiana, Baltimore, Maryland and Dallas, Texas. Many Robert. E. Lee statues have been removed, but Virginia’s 2017 decision to take one down sparked a violent protest that turned deadly in Charlottesville.

While Lee did not support secession, he never defended the rights of enslaved peoples. Instead, he led the Confederates as they attempted to dissolve the United States that his own father helped create.

Robert E. Lee. PBS American Experience . Arlington House. Arlington National Cemetery . Robert E. Lee. Washington & Lee University . Robert E. Lee. Stratford Hall . The Civil War. American Battlefield Trust . Robert E. Lee Quotes. Son of the South . The Reader’s Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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Robert E. Lee

General Robert E. Lee (1807–1870). Prints and Photographs Division , Library of Congress. Digital ID # cwpb 04402

General Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) has continuously ranked as the leading iconic figure of the Confederacy. A son of Revolutionary War hero Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, Robert graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1829, ranking second in a class of forty six—and without a single demerit. His prewar record as an officer was distinguished by numerous engineering projects, service in the Mexican War , and nearly three years as commandant at West Point. In March and April 1861, Lee was offered command of the principal Union Army. Yet, after Virginia seceded on April 17, he determined that "to lift my hand against my own State and people is impossible." After resigning from the U.S. Army, he assumed command of Virginia's forces on April 23. Lee’s genius as a military tactician came to the fore after he was given command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862. Despite being consistently outnumbered by the enemy, he led his forces in a series of remarkable victories that included Second Manassas (Second Bull Run), Fredericksburg , and Chancellorsville . The Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 marked Lee’s last major campaign on Northern soil. Remaining thereafter in Virginia, he mounted skillful defenses against the Union's unrelenting Overland Campaign and the siege of Petersburg (spring 1864–spring 1865). After Petersburg and Richmond fell, Lee was finally compelled to surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Later that year, Lee accepted the presidency of Washington College External (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia, a position he retained until his death on October 12, 1870.

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Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Humanities

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870)

Robert E. Lee was a Confederate general during the American Civil War (1861–1865) who led the Army of Northern Virginia from June 1862 until its surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Descended from several of Virginia’s First Families, Lee was a well-regarded officer of the United States Army before the war. His decision to fight for the Confederacy was emblematic of the wrenching choices faced by Americans as the nation divided. After an early defeat in western Virginia, he repulsed George B. McClellan ‘s army from the Confederate capital during the Seven Days’ Battles (1862) and won stunning victories at Manassas (1862), Fredericksburg (1862), and Chancellorsville (1863). The Maryland and Pennsylvania campaigns he led resulted in major contests at Antietam (1862) and Gettysburg (1863), respectively, with severe consequences for the Confederacy. Lee offered a spirited defense during the Overland Campaign (1864) against Ulysses S. Grant , but was ultimately outmaneuvered and forced into a prolonged siege at Petersburg (1864–1865). Lee’s generalship was characterized by bold tactical maneuvers and inspirational leadership; however, critics have questioned his strategic judgment, his waste of lives in needless battles, and his unwillingness to fight in the Western Theater. In 1865, his beloved home at Arlington having been turned into a national cemetery, Lee became president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington . There he promoted educational innovation and presented a constructive face to the devastated Southern public. Privately Lee remained bitter and worked to obstruct societal changes brought about by the war, including the enfranchisement of African Americans. By the end of his life he had become a potent symbol of regional pride and dignity in defeat, and has remained an icon of the Lost Cause . He died on October 12, 1870.

Early Years

In peacetime Henry Lee steadily lost money and reputation because of unwise land speculation. He was sent to debtor’s prison while Robert was still an infant. In 1813, badly beaten by a political mob, and dodging his creditors, he skipped bail to sail for the West Indies. Robert never saw his father again.

Now dependent on the generosity of their kin, the family moved to Alexandria. Robert attended a relative’s plantation school and the Alexandria Academy, where he was given a classical education. His boyhood was enriched by a supportive and engaging extended family and academic success, but pinched by poverty and his mother’s failing health.

Misfortune again touched Robert’s life in 1821 with a scandal involving his half brother. Henry Lee IV shocked Virginians by seducing his young ward—her name was Elizabeth “Betsy” McCarty and she was Henry IV’s sister-in-law—embezzling her inheritance, and possibly murdering their child. Believing this disgrace would lead to social isolation, Robert convinced his mother to let him join the army.

Family and Military Life

Lee entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1825, where he excelled both scholastically and militarily. Admired for his geniality and fine presence, he was appointed cadet adjutant. However, he was unable to best Charles Mason, a talented New Yorker who took top honors academically, and who, like Lee, boasted a demerit-free record. (Mason went on to become chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court.) Lee graduated second in the class of 1829 and joined the Corps of Engineers.

Two years later Lee wed Mary Anna Randolph Custis , the witty, artistic great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. The couple had seven children, to whom Lee was powerfully attached. He also became increasingly tied to the Custis family seat at Arlington, with its splendid grounds and historical associations. In Lee’s uncertain army life, Arlington became an important anchor.

For seventeen years, Lee worked to strengthen the nation’s frontier defenses. Assigned throughout the country, he redirected rivers, designed coastal fortifications, and surveyed newly acquired territory. In the army Lee was known for his sociability and attention to detail, but called himself “an indifferent engineer.” Opportunities for advancement were meager and the work required extended absences from his family. Lee considered leaving the service virtually every year. “I would advise no young man to enter the army,” he regretfully admitted in a letter to his wife.

The Mexican War (1846–1848) disrupted the routine of army duty. Though Lee did not approve of the war, he relished the opportunity for action. For several months he laid out transportation routes, but early in 1847 he was put on the staff of General Winfield Scott . Lee admired Scott’s ability to overcome disadvantage by what the general termed “headwork,” by which he meant outthinking the enemy, planning precisely, and reacting to crises intellectually and not emotionally. In addition, Scott depended heavily on his young engineer for reconnaissance and tactical planning. Lee fought with distinction at battles such as Vera Cruz (March 1847), Cerro Gordo (April 1847), and Chapultepec (September 1847). He received two brevet promotions for his performance at Cerro Gordo. Scott would later call Lee “the very best soldier I ever saw in the field.” Although the Mexican War gave Lee valuable battlefield experience, he did not lead troops or design strategic campaigns in this conflict.

After the war, Lee returned to structural engineering until 1852, when U.S. secretary of war Jefferson Davis appointed him superintendent of West Point. Lee had not wanted the post and found it stressful. He was a careful steward of the academy, but found little opportunity for innovation. His rigid belief in the virtue of “duty” was not appreciated by the cadets, among whom he was unpopular. One notable contribution was his focus on equestrian instruction. Under Lee’s leadership some of America’s greatest cavalry officers were trained, among them J. E. B. Stuart , Fitzhugh Lee , and Philip H. Sheridan.

In March 1855, Lee eagerly accepted a lieutenant colonelship in the newly established 2nd U.S. Cavalry. Assigned to Texas, his unit was responsible for subduing the Comanche and chasing Mexican banditos . It proved a difficult posting. Lee found the work frustrating, and the isolation and harsh landscape oppressive. His beloved mother-in-law and favorite sister died early in the 1850s, causing him to embrace a somber brand of evangelical Protestantism, which left him dejected and self-critical. When his father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis, died in 1857, Lee willingly returned to Arlington to settle the estate.

The Politics of Slavery

As Custis’s executor, Lee found himself confronted with the political reality of slavery. He disliked the institution—more for its inefficiency than from moral repugnance—yet defended it throughout his life. Custis, however, had liberated his slaves in a messy will that stipulated that they be released within five years. Lee interpreted this to mean that the slaves could be held for the entire period. The slaves, believing they were already free, accosted Lee and escaped in large numbers. Lee responded by hiring out many Arlington slaves, breaking up families that had been together for decades. He then filed legal petitions to keep them enslaved indefinitely. Only when the courts ruled against him did Lee finally free the slaves.

Lee was again exposed to the volatile politics of slavery when ordered in October 1859 to suppress an attempted slave insurrection led by the radical abolitionist John Brown at Harpers Ferry . Commanding a small detachment of marines, Lee led a model operation in which none of Brown’s hostages was injured, and Brown was taken alive. The ramifications of the disturbing incident were reinforced when Lee witnessed Brown’s ominous predictions of the bloodshed to come, and stood guard at his execution.

The Union Divides

The malaise over slavery followed Lee when he returned to full-time duty in February 1860. As acting head of the Department of Texas he refused to allow that state’s secessionists to wrest federal property from him. As the crisis deepened, however, his thinking became increasingly conflicted. Although he did not believe in secession, he also declared that if “the Union can only be maintained by the sword & bayonet … its existence will lose all interest with me.” He particularly hoped that Virginia would remain in the Union so that his various loyalties—to country, army, state, and family—could remain intact. Recalled to Washington, he was promoted in March 1861 to full colonel by the new U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln, and once again swore an oath of allegiance to the United States. A few weeks later, Lee was forced to confront his ambivalence when Virginia seceded and he was offered command of Union forces recruited to protect Washington, D.C.

Mary Lee later called the moment “the severest struggle” of her husband’s life. Faced with a divided family and the collapse of his career, Lee spent two days consulting scripture and quietly considering his future. On April 20, 1861, he resigned from the U.S. Army, telling friends that he could not participate in an invasion of the South. A few days later he accepted command of Virginia’s forces.

As general, Lee was first assigned a desk job, where he undertook a methodical organization of Virginia’s forces. Finally given a field command in western Virginia, he was “mortified” when Union general William S. Rosecrans defeated him at Cheat Mountain in September 1861. Jefferson Davis relieved Lee and sent him to oversee the construction of fortifications along the Carolina and Georgia coasts, then returned him to an advisory position. Although frustrated, Lee later benefited from the connections he built with political leaders in the Confederate capital at Richmond .

On June 1, 1862, Lee began his celebrated relationship with the Army of Northern Virginia when Davis ordered him to temporarily replace Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston , wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines during the Peninsula Campaign . Lee’s immediate task was to check the advance of Union general George B. McClellan, whose Army of the Potomac was threatening Richmond. Devising a strategy that combined bold field maneuvers and defensive earthworks—the latter led to some calling him the “King of Spades”—Lee confronted McClellan from June 25 until July 1 in the Seven Days’ Battles. His men decisively won only one of the contests— Gaines’s Mill —and the plan suffered from overly complicated movements as well as poor communications. Nonetheless, by relentless fighting and skillful use of terrain, Lee was able to frighten McClellan away from the Confederate capital.

The Seven Days’ Battles previewed much of Lee’s battlefield style. They allowed horrific casualties—at Malvern Hill , the Army of Northern Virginia lost 5,300 men killed, wounded, or captured in a fight that included a massive assault that gained nothing—but showcased Lee’s expert use of entrenchments, and how he exploited opportunities through improvisation and sheer brio. The victory also inspired his men, who rallied to their new commander with an esprit that would last throughout the war.

The Golden Year for the Confederacy

After the Seven Days’ Battles, Lincoln placed John Pope in command of a new Army of Virginia, consisting of three corps that already had performed poorly against Confederate general Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign (1862). Rightly suspecting that he might now face both McClellan’s and Pope’s armies, Lee initiated an aggressive campaign. Under his orders, Jackson confronted Union general Nathaniel P. Banks at Cedar Mountain on August 9, 1862, to win a narrow victory. Ignoring conventional wisdom, Lee then divided his force, tricking Pope into chasing Jackson, who faked a retreat. After a dramatic march, Jackson lured Pope’s overconfident army into a fierce battle at Manassas Junction on August 28. The following day, Lee’s other wing commander, James Longstreet , brought up his men to rejoin the two corps in the heat of fighting—an immensely difficult battlefield maneuver. On August 30, Longstreet hit Pope’s vulnerable left flank, crushed the Union force, and chased them to the horizon. (The three-day battle has come to be known as the Second Battle of Manassas.) Jackson followed the retreating Union troops, but was halted at the Battle of Chantilly on September 1.

Critics complained that Lee took too many risks on the campaign, that luck and Pope’s ineptitude rather than Confederate skill held it together, and that the days had again been shockingly “sanguinary.” Yet the boldness of his actions had given Lee the momentum. In the coming months his agility and elusiveness continually “baffled” superior Union forces, often turning their offensive drives into desperate defensive stands.

In this spirit Lee undertook an invasion of Union territory, a move that was popular with the public and the troops. Lee wanted to spare Virginians the ravages of two armies and he was anxious for his men to live off Maryland’s greener pastures. He and Davis hoped that if the war directly threatened Northerners it would create a political crisis that could topple the U.S. government and attract foreign assistance to the South. They also thought that slaveholding Maryland might be “liberated” and brought to their side.

But the arduous march north was poorly outfitted, and the men arrived in Maryland weakened by hunger and diminished by a high rate of desertion and straggling. (By some estimates Lee lost a third of his army.) Greeted without the expected enthusiasm, for the first time they suffered the disadvantage of being on hostile territory. The invasion had been a high-stakes gamble, but Lee increased the odds against him by again dividing his army, despite his officers’ skepticism. Jackson’s corps was sent to take logistically important Harpers Ferry, and the rest faced McClellan’s advancing men. The two armies clashed at South Mountain on September 14, where Lee was able to delay, but not defeat, the Union forces.

Three days later they met again near the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. McClellan, who had accidentally intercepted Lee’s campaign plans, also had an advantage in artillery and men. But the Union effort on September 17 was badly executed and its numerical superiority never fully exploited. Lee was able to thwart disaster by adroitly shifting forces to meet each of the violent contests that raged along Antietam Creek. At the end of the bloody day, however, the Union held the advantage.

Lee saved his army by deftly retreating across the Potomac River , and a brief fight at Shepherdstown helped convince McClellan not to pursue him. Though the campaign featured a victory at Harpers Ferry and some impressive tactical parrying, Lee had achieved none of his strategic objectives. In addition, Lincoln used his advantage to wrest the moral high ground from the South, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, and effectively collapsing the possibility of foreign assistance to the Confederacy.

Lee’s army reestablished its formidable reputation at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. This time the Confederates faced a Union contingent a third again its size, under General Ambrose E. Burnside . Concentrating his forces, and establishing positions that took full advantage of the weaponry of the day, Lee allowed the Northern men to fruitlessly attack his defensive strongholds on Marye’s Heights, slaughtering thousands. The Union army survived by escaping across the Rappahannock River, but the defeat badly strained Northern morale.

Early in 1863, Lincoln again changed generals, placing the Army of the Potomac’s military machine under Joseph Hooker . Hooker believed he could trap Lee by attacking him simultaneously from several directions. Facing a Union force double his size at a crossroads called Chancellorsville, west of Fredericksburg, Lee again precariously divided his army. Over the course of the fighting, which lasted from May 1 until May 6 and included another Union charge up Marye’s Heights, Lee was able to squeeze the Union forces from two directions and then reunite his troops. The Confederates captured the most favorable artillery positions, launched a devastating barrage, then pressed the attack until Hooker had to pull back. Through surprise and daring, Lee had turned a vulnerable defensive position into a brilliant tactical offense.

Even the Union prisoners cheered when Lee rode in front of his troops in this moment of triumph. Yet in many ways it was an empty victory. More than 20 percent of his soldiers lay on the gory fields, or were maimed or missing. Stonewall Jackson, wounded accidentally by his own men, died on May 10. Lee himself complained that “our loss was severe, and again we had gained not an inch of ground and the enemy could not be pursued.”

Lee risked his scarce resources in such large and costly battles because he hoped to destroy the enemy’s army—or to discourage Northerners so profoundly that they would demand an end to the conflict. In each contest he attacked with ferocity, hoping for a final annihilation of the Union forces. In addition, much of the Southern public was buoyed by theatrical successes such as Chancellorsville and anxious for quick victory. But this Napoleonic style of warfare was less effective against improved weaponry and technology, such as railroads, that allowed troops to be easily reinforced. Even the fanatical Confederate Edmund Ruffin noted that such “great & bloody battles” led to “no important results whatever, except to damage, weaken, & impoverish both the contending powers.” Later historians have also questioned Lee’s strategy and debated whether the Confederacy might have been more successful in a war of attrition, wearing down the North by using irregular tactics on the difficult Southern terrain, much as Washington and Lee’s own father did against the British.

Gettysburg to the End of the War

Lee’s reputation had now grown to the point that he and his army had become a major source of national unity in the Confederacy. Civilians as well as soldiers looked to him for leadership and inspiration, rather than to Davis’s problematic government. With his authority at its height, Lee convinced Confederate officials to approve another northward excursion. Always reluctant to fight on fronts not directly related to Virginia’s defense, he argued against sending his men to reinforce besieged Vicksburg, Mississippi. In June 1863, after reorganizing his army, he moved up the Shenandoah Valley (where he fought and won the Second Battle of Winchester), through Maryland, and into Pennsylvania. Lee welcomed the fresh foraging, and again hoped to cripple Union morale by delivering a knockout punch that would win peace on Confederate terms.

The battle that resulted was fought at Gettysburg for three days from July 1 until July 3, 1863. The first day’s contest began as an incidental cavalry encounter and escalated as both sides augmented their forces. By evening, Lee’s men—including forces under Confederate generals A. P. Hill , Richard S. Ewell , and Jubal A. Early —had driven their opponents outside Gettysburg, but the Union troops made a prescient decision to retreat to high ground south of town. Lee also recognized the value of these heights and ordered Ewell to take a critical rise called Culp’s Hill , but he failed to provide Ewell with either the precise instructions or the reinforcements needed to gain a success.

The next day, Lee determined to attack the Northern forces, despite the misgivings of his lieutenants, including Longstreet, in particular. He had two serious disadvantages. Under generals George G. Meade (who had taken command of the Army of the Potomac a few days earlier) and Winfield Scott Hancock, the Union line had been strengthened overnight by entrenchments and an ingenious fish-hook formation that allowed for easy reinforcement of its weaker sections. Lee’s second problem was a lack of information. Cavalry general J. E. B. Stuart, who served as the eyes and ears of Lee’s army, was absent (with Lee’s approval) on an extended expedition, foraging and harassing Union troops away from the front lines. Lee had hoped for an early morning attack on both the Union right and left flanks, but the shortage of reliable intelligence caused delays, misguided marches, and unexpected exposure to Union fire. Despite spirited fighting by Longstreet’s corps at critical spots such as Little Round Top and Devil’s Den, the Union line held.

Casualties During Pickett’s Charge

Lee hoped to recoup the Army of Northern Virginia’s pride that autumn during the Bristoe Campaign, but Meade refused to be enticed into another major engagement, and the Confederates had little success. Still determined to “strike them a blow” Lee eagerly awaited the spring season, undaunted by the appointment of Ulysses S. Grant as general-in-chief of Union armies. Grant, the victor at Vicksburg, came east to lead the Army of the Potomac personally.

What ensued was the Overland Campaign, some seven weeks of brutal, relentless fighting. The armies first met on May 5 and 6, 1864, in the scrubby woods, known locally as the Wilderness , near the old Chancellorsville battlefield. Lee knew his resources were too limited to force Grant back to Washington, D.C., but he had not expected the Union to push onward after its appalling casualties in a stalemated contest at the Battle of the Wilderness . Some of the heaviest fighting of the war took place the following week near Spotsylvania Court House, particularly around a Confederate breastwork known as the Bloody Angle. Lee, outnumbered two to one, was able to hold his own through swift tactical maneuvering and his forceful personal role in rallying the ranks. Still, Grant edged southward. Lee forestalled the drive when on June 3 the Union flung itself against the zigzagged Confederate fortifications at Cold Harbor, suffering 7,000 casualties, many of whom fell in an ill-conceived assault. Nonetheless, Grant continued the forward movement, maneuvering past Lee a few weeks later and into a siege at Petersburg .

Lee’s inspirational leadership of his soldiers was notable throughout the war, but in this campaign it became legendary. The men looked up to Lee because of his splendid bearing, his courage on the field, his fair dealings, and his willingness to share their hardships. He also led them to victory, and to many he became the embodiment of the Army of Northern Virginia’s alleged invincibility. During the campaigns of 1864 he was conspicuous on the field—rallying the troops, directing battle maneuvers, plugging gaps, and sometimes acting more like a brigade commander than the general in charge. This hands-on role is one reason Lee was able to frustrate Grant’s powerful machine for so long. It also reinforced his soldiers’ worshipful regard. “You are the country to these men,” General Henry A. Wise reportedly told Lee at the end of the conflict. “They have fought for you.”

Diminished by some 35,000 casualties during the Overland Campaign—the most famous of whom, J. E. B. Stuart, was killed at the Battle of Yellow Tavern —the Army of Northern Virginia held on in miserable trench conditions for nearly nine months. Always a reluctant politician, Lee was unable to wrest critical supplies from the Confederate authorities. His army quashed a Union attempt to exploit the huge explosion of a mine dug under its fortifications at the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864, but various efforts at offensive action failed. After a final repulse at Fort Stedman on March 25, 1865, Lee’s defeat was only a matter of time. Hoping to move the remnant of his army southward to join Joseph Johnston’s troops, Lee signaled Davis that Petersburg and Richmond must be abandoned. On April 6, during the Appomattox Campaign , the Confederates suffered a costly defeat at Sailor’s Creek , which left them desperately short of men and supplies. Cornered, Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. “I fought the enemy at every step,” he told a confidant in what amounted to a final assessment of his war efforts. “I believe I got out of [my army] all they could do or all any men could do.”

Later Years

Despite his defeat , Lee was hugely admired in the postwar South. Counseling his soldiers to return home peaceably, Lee showed by example how to accept loss with dignity. The war had taken a terrific personal toll on the Lees: death had claimed numerous family members and Arlington had been confiscated for use as a national cemetery. Penniless, Lee accepted an offer to be president of Washington College, a small, nearly destitute school in Lexington. His stated goal was the instruction of the rising generation and the rebuilding of his state. Lee proved to be an able educator, though he did not relish the work. He added practical subjects such as engineering and journalism to the traditional classical studies, attracted funding from both the North and the South, and introduced a rigorous disciplinary code. Publicly he counseled Southerners to face the future with stoicism and hard work.

Privately, he was far from content. Although Lee was granted parole at Appomattox, his personal fate was uncertain until his citizenship was returned with the amnesty of 1868. After this time, though still maintaining a low public profile, he worked to establish a conservative state government, wrote angry private diatribes against the principle of majority rule, and advocated disenfranchising the newly liberated African Americans. Racial conflicts also plagued Washington College, to which he responded ambivalently. He considered writing his memoirs but decided they could become provocative and edited his father’s reminiscences instead. Saddened and embittered, Lee told a friend that the “great mistake” of his life had been “taking a military education.” Lee died of a probable stroke on October 12, 1870.

The South went into universal mourning and Lee became a charismatic symbol of honor and sacrifice in the region. In the nineteenth century, proponents of the Lost Cause view of the Civil War used both myth and fact to mold a public image of Lee as a titan of personal virtue and military genius. Early in the twentieth century, several national figures, including U.S. president Woodrow Wilson , praised him as a unifying personality, citing his efforts to pacify the South after the war. Recent scholarship has more-closely probed Lee’s motives and battlefield decisions, as well as his support for a racially stratified society. Since his decision to withdraw from the Union in 1861, his actions have provoked controversy. Yet Lee remains a significant historical figure, whose importance lies as much in the questions he prods Americans to ask about patriotism and loyalty as it does in his battlefield prowess.

• Antebellum Period (1820–1860)
• Civil War, American (1861–1865)
• Mexican War (1846–1848)
• Reconstruction and the New South (1865–1901)
• Alexander, Edward Porter. Fighting for the Confederacy . Edited by Gary W. Gallagher. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
• Carmichael, Peter, ed. Audacity Personified . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004.
• Connelly, Thomas L. The Marble Man . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977.
• Davis, William C. The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy . Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1996.
• Fellman, Michael. “Robert E. Lee, Postwar Southern Nationalist.” Civil War History 46: 185–204.
• Freeman, Douglas Southall. R. E. Lee . 4 Volumes. New York: Charles Scribner, 1934–1937.
• Gallagher, Gary W., ed. Lee the Soldier . Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.
• Glatthaar, Joseph T. General Lee’s Army . New York: The Free Press, 2008.
• McClure, John M. “The Freedman’s Bureau School in Lexington versus ‘General Lee’s Boys.’” In Virginia’s Civil War , edited by Peter Wallenstein and Bertram Wyatt-Brown. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005.
• Nolan, Alan T. Lee Considered . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
• Pryor, Elizabeth Brown. Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through His Private Letters . New York: Viking, 2007.
• Taylor, Walter Herron. Lee’s Adjutant: The Wartime Letters of Colonel Walter Herron Taylor, 1862–1865 . Edited by R. Lockwood Tower. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995.
• Thomas, Emory M. “Young Man Lee.” In Leadership during the Civil War , edited by Roman G. Heleniak and Lawrence L. Hewitt. Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: White Mane Publishing Co., 1992.
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Robert E. Lee

Born to Revolutionary War hero Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee in Stratford Hall, Virginia, Robert Edward Lee seemed destined for military greatness.  Despite financial hardship that caused his father to depart to the West Indies, young Robert secured an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated second in the class of 1829.  Two years later, he married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, a descendant of George Washington 's adopted son, John Parke Custis .  Yet with all his military pedigree, Lee had not set foot on a battlefield.  Instead, he served seventeen years as an officer in the Corps of Engineers, supervising and inspecting the construction of the nation's coastal defenses.  Service during the 1846 war with Mexico, however, changed that.  As a member of General Winfield Scott 's staff, Lee distinguished himself, earning three brevets for gallantry, and emerging from the conflict with the rank of colonel.

From 1852 to 1855, Lee served as superintendent of West Point, and was therefore responsible for educating many of the men who would later serve under him - and those who would oppose him - on the battlefields of the Civil War.  In 1855 he left the academy to take a position in the cavalry and in 1859 was called upon to put down abolitionist John Brown ’s raid at Harpers Ferry.

Because of his reputation as one of the finest officers in the United States Army, Abraham Lincoln  offered Lee the command of the Federal forces in April 1861. Lee declined and tendered his resignation from the army when the state of Virginia seceded on April 17, arguing that he could not fight against his own people.  Instead, he accepted a general’s commission in the newly formed Confederate Army. His first military engagement of the Civil War occurred at Cheat Mountain, Virginia (now West Virginia) on September 11, 1861. It was a Union victory but Lee’s reputation withstood the public criticism that followed. He served as military advisor to President Jefferson Davis until June 1862 when he was given command of the wounded General Joseph E. Johnston 's embattled army on the Virginia peninsula. 

Lee renamed his command the Army of Northern Virginia, and under his direction it would become the most famous and successful of the Confederate armies.  This same organization also boasted some of the Confederacy's most inspiring military figures, including James Longstreet , Stonewall Jackson and the flamboyant cavalier J.E.B. Stuart .  With these trusted subordinates, Lee commanded troops that continually manhandled their blue-clad adversaries and embarrassed their generals no matter what the odds. 

Yet despite foiling several attempts to seize the Confederate capital, Lee recognized that the key to ultimate success was a victory on Northern soil.  In September 1862, he launched an invasion into Maryland with the hope of shifting the war's focus away from Virginia.  But when a misplaced dispatch outlining the invasion plan was discovered by Union commander George McClellan the element of surprise was lost, and the two armies faced off at the battle of Antietam .  Though his plans were no longer a secret, Lee nevertheless managed to fight McClellan to a stalemate on September 17, 1862.  Following the bloodiest one-day battle of the war, heavy casualties compelled Lee to withdraw under the cover of darkness.  The remainder of 1862 was spent on the defensive, parrying Union thrusts at Fredericksburg and, in May of the following year, Chancellorsville .  

The masterful victory at Chancellorsville gave Lee great confidence in his army, and the Rebel chief was inspired once again to take the fight to enemy soil.  In late June of 1863, he began another invasion of the North, meeting the Union host at the crossroads town of Gettysburg , Pennsylvania.  For three days Lee assailed the Federal army under George G. Meade in what would become the most famous battle of the entire war.  Accustomed to seeing the Yankees run in the face of his aggressive troops, Lee attacked strong Union positions on high ground.  This time, however, the Federals wouldn't budge.  The Confederate war effort reached its high water mark on July 3, 1863 when Lee ordered a massive frontal assault against Meade's center, spear-headed by Virginians under Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett .  The attack known as Pickett's charge was a failure and Lee, recognizing that the battle was lost, ordered his army to retreat.  Taking full responsibility for the defeat, he wrote Jefferson Davis offering his resignation, which Davis refused to accept.

After the simultaneous Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg , Mississippi, Ulysses S. Grant assumed command of the Federal armies.  Rather than making Richmond the aim of his campaign, Grant chose to focus the myriad resources at his disposal on destroying Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.  In a relentless and bloody campaign, the Federal juggernaut bludgeoned the under-supplied Rebel band.  In spite of his ability to make Grant pay in blood for his aggressive tactics, Lee had been forced to yield the initiative to his adversary, and he recognized that the end of the Confederacy was only a matter of time.  By the summer of 1864, the Confederates had been forced into waging trench warfare outside of Petersburg .  Though President Davis named the Virginian General-in-Chief of all Confederate forces in February 1865, only two months later, on April 9, 1865, Lee was forced to surrender his weary and depleted army to Grant at Appomattox Court House , effectively ending the Civil War.

Lee returned home on parole and eventually became the president of Washington College in Virginia (now known as Washington and Lee University). He remained in this position until his death on October 12, 1870 in Lexington, Virginia.

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The Civil War

A Smithsonian magazine special report

Making Sense of Robert E. Lee

“It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.”— Robert E. Lee, at Fredericksburg

Roy Blount, Jr.

Few figures in American history are more divisive, contradictory or elusive than Robert E. Lee, the reluctant, tragic leader of the Confederate Army, who died in his beloved Virginia at age 63 in 1870, five years after the end of the Civil War. In a new biography, Robert E. Lee , Roy Blount, Jr., treats Lee as a man of competing impulses, a “paragon of manliness” and “one of the greatest military commanders in history,” who was nonetheless “not good at telling men what to do.”

Blount, a noted humorist, journalist, playwright and raconteur, is the author or coauthor of 15 previous books and the editor of Roy Blount’s Book of Southern Humor . A resident of New York City and western Massachusetts, he traces his interest in Lee to his boyhood in Georgia. Though Blount was never a Civil War buff, he says “every Southerner has to make his peace with that War. I plunged back into it for this book, and am relieved to have emerged alive.”

“Also,” he says, “Lee reminds me in some ways of my father.”

At the heart of Lee’s story is one of the monumental choices in American history: revered for his honor, Lee resigned his U.S. Army commission to defend Virginia and fight for the Confederacy, on the side of slavery. “The decision was honorable by his standards of honor—which, whatever we may think of them, were neither self-serving nor complicated,” Blount says. Lee “thought it was a bad idea for Virginia to secede, and God knows he was right, but secession had been more or less democratically decided upon.” Lee’s family held slaves, and he himself was at best ambiguous on the subject, leading some of his defenders over the years to discount slavery’s significance in assessments of his character. Blount argues that the issue does matter: “To me it’s slavery, much more than secession as such, that casts a shadow over Lee’s honorableness.”

In the excerpt that follows, the general masses his troops for a battle over three humid July days in a Pennsylvania town. Its name would thereafter resound with courage, casualties and miscalculation: Gettysburg.

In his dashing (if sometimes depressive) antebellum prime, he may have been the most beautiful person in America, a sort of precursorcross between Cary Grant and Randolph Scott. He was in his element gossiping with belles about their beaux at balls. In theaters of grinding, hellish human carnage he kept a pet hen for company. He had tiny feet that he loved his children to tickle None of these things seems to fit, for if ever there was a grave American icon, it is Robert Edward Lee—hero of the Confederacy in the Civil War and a symbol of nobility to some, of slavery to others.

After Lee’s death in 1870, Frederick Douglass, the former fugitive slave who had become the nation’s most prominent African-American, wrote, “We can scarcely take up a newspaper . . . that is not filled with nauseating flatteries” of Lee, from which “it would seem . . . that the soldier who kills the most men in battle, even in a bad cause, is the greatest Christian, and entitled to the highest place in heaven.” Two years later one of Lee’s ex-generals, Jubal A. Early, apotheosized his late commander as follows: “Our beloved Chief stands, like some lofty column which rears its head among the highest, in grandeur, simple, pure and sublime.”

In 1907, on the 100th anniversary of Lee’s birth, President Theodore Roosevelt expressed mainstream American sentiment, praising Lee’s “extraordinary skill as a General, his dauntless courage and high leadership,” adding, “He stood that hardest of all strains, the strain of bearing himself well through the gray evening of failure; and therefore out of what seemed failure he helped to build the wonderful and mighty triumph of our national life, in which all his countrymen, north and south, share.”

We may think we know Lee because we have a mental image: gray. Not only the uniform, the mythic horse, the hair and beard, but the resignation with which he accepted dreary burdens that offered “neither pleasure nor advantage”: in particular, the Confederacy, a cause of which he took a dim view until he went to war for it. He did not see right and wrong in tones of gray, and yet his moralizing could generate a fog, as in a letter from the front to his invalid wife: “You must endeavour to enjoy the pleasure of doing good. That is all that makes life valuable.” All right. But then he adds: “When I measure my own by that standard I am filled with confusion and despair.”

His own hand probably never drew human blood nor fired a shot in anger, and his only Civil War wound was a faint scratch on the cheek from a sharpshooter’s bullet, but many thousands of men died quite horribly in battles where he was the dominant spirit, and most of the casualties were on the other side. If we take as a given Lee’s granitic conviction that everything is God’s will, however, he was born to lose.

As battlefield generals go, he could be extremely fiery, and could go out of his way to be kind. But in even the most sympathetic versions of his life story he comes across as a bit of a stick—certainly compared with his scruffy nemesis, Ulysses S. Grant; his zany, ferocious “right arm,” Stonewall Jackson; and the dashing “eyes” of his army, J.E.B. “Jeb” Stuart. For these men, the Civil War was just the ticket. Lee, however, has come down in history as too fine for the bloodbath of 1861-65. To efface the squalor and horror of the war, we have the image of Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves, and we have the image of Robert E. Lee’s gracious surrender. Still, for many contemporary Americans, Lee is at best the moral equivalent of Hitler’s brilliant field marshal Erwin Rommel (who, however, turned against Hitler, as Lee never did against Jefferson Davis, who, to be sure, was no Hitler).

On his father’s side, Lee’s family was among Virginia’s and therefore the nation’s most distinguished. Henry, the scion who was to become known in the Revolutionary War as Light-Horse Harry, was born in 1756. He graduated from Princeton at 19 and joined the Continental Army at 20 as a captain of dragoons, and he rose in rank and independence to command Lee’s light cavalry and then Lee’s legion of cavalry and infantry. Without the medicines, elixirs, and food Harry Lee’s raiders captured from the enemy, George Washington’s army would not likely have survived the harrowing winter encampment of 1777-78 at Valley Forge. Washington became his patron and close friend. With the war nearly over, however, Harry decided he was underappreciated, so he impulsively resigned from the army. In 1785, he was elected to the Continental Congress, and in 1791 he was elected governor of Virginia. In 1794 Washington put him in command of the troops that bloodlessly put down the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. In 1799 he was elected to the U.S. Congress, where he famously eulogized Washington as “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

Meanwhile, though, Harry’s fast and loose speculation in hundreds of thousands of the new nation’s acres went sour, and in 1808 he was reduced to chicanery. He and his second wife, Ann Hill Carter Lee, and their children departed the Lee ancestral home, where Robert was born, for a smaller rented house in Alexandria. Under the conditions of bankruptcy that obtained in those days, Harry was still liable for his debts. He jumped a personal appearance bail—to the dismay of his brother, Edmund, who had posted a sizable bond—and wangled passage, with pitying help from President James Monroe, to the West Indies. In 1818, after five years away, Harry headed home to die, but got only as far as Cumberland Island, Georgia, where he was buried. Robert was 11.

Robert appears to have been too fine for his childhood, for his education, for his profession, for his marriage, and for the Confederacy. Not according to him. According to him, he was not fine enough. For all his audacity on the battlefield, he accepted rather passively one raw deal after another, bending over backward for everyone from Jefferson Davis to James McNeill Whistler’s mother. (When he was superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, Lee acquiesced to Mrs. Whistler’s request on behalf of her cadet son, who was eventually dismissed in 1854.)

By what can we know of him? The works of a general are battles, campaigns and usually memoirs. The engagements of the Civil War shape up more as bloody muddles than as commanders’ chess games. For a long time during the war, “Old Bobbie Lee,” as he was referred to worshipfully by his troops and nervously by the foe, had the greatly superior Union forces spooked, but a century and a third of analysis and counteranalysis has resulted in no core consensus as to the genius or the folly of his generalship. And he wrote no memoir. He wrote personal letters—a discordant mix of flirtation, joshing, lyrical touches, and stern religious adjuration—and he wrote official dispatches that are so impersonal and (generally) unselfserving as to seem above the fray.

During the postbellum century, when Americans North and South decided to embrace R. E. Lee as a national as well as a Southern hero, he was generally described as antislavery. This assumption rests not on any public position he took but on a passage in an 1856 letter to his wife. The passage begins: “In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages.” But he goes on: “I think it however a greater evil to the white than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.”

The only way to get inside Lee, perhaps, is by edging fractally around the record of his life to find spots where he comes through; by holding up next to him some of the fully realized characters—Grant, Jackson, Stuart, Light-Horse Harry Lee, John Brown—with whom he interacted; and by subjecting to contemporary skepticism certain concepts—honor, “gradual emancipation,” divine will—upon which he unreflectively founded his identity.

He wasn’t always gray. Until war aged him dramatically, his sharp dark brown eyes were complemented by black hair (“ebon and abundant,” as his doting biographer Douglas Southall Freeman puts it, “with a wave that a woman might have envied”), a robust black mustache, a strong full mouth and chin unobscured by any beard, and dark mercurial brows. He was not one to hide his looks under a bushel. His heart, on the other hand . . . “The heart, he kept locked away,” as Stephen Vincent Benét proclaimed in “John Brown’s Body,” “from all the picklocks of biographers.” Accounts by people who knew him give the impression that no one knew his whole heart, even before it was broken by the war. Perhaps it broke many years before the war. “You know she is like her papa, always wanting something,” he wrote about one of his daughters. The great Southern diarist of his day, Mary Chesnut, tells us that when a lady teased him about his ambitions, he “remonstrated—said his tastes were of the simplest. He only wanted a Virginia farm—no end of cream and fresh butter—and fried chicken. Not one fried chicken or two—but unlimited fried chicken.” Just before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, one of his nephews found him in the field, “very grave and tired,” carrying around a fried chicken leg wrapped in a piece of bread, which a Virginia countrywoman had pressed upon him but for which he couldn’t muster any hunger.

One thing that clearly drove him was devotion to his home state. “If Virginia stands by the old Union,” Lee told a friend, “so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for revolution), then I will follow my native State with my sword, and, if need be, with my life.”

The North took secession as an act of aggression, to be countered accordingly. When Lincoln called on the loyal states for troops to invade the South, Southerners could see the issue as defense not of slavery but of homeland. A Virginia convention that had voted 2 to 1 against secession, now voted 2 to 1 in favor.

When Lee read the news that Virginia had joined the Confederacy, he said to his wife, “Well, Mary, the question is settled,” and resigned the U.S. Army commission he had held for 32 years.

The days of July 1-3, 1863, still stand among the most horrific and formative in American history. Lincoln had given up on Joe Hooker, put Maj. Gen. George G. Meade in command of the Army of the Potomac, and sent him to stop Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania. Since Jeb Stuart’s scouting operation had been uncharacteristically out of touch, Lee wasn’t sure where Meade’s army was. Lee had actually advanced farther north than the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, when he learned that Meade was south of him, threatening his supply lines. So Lee swung back in that direction. On June 30 a Confederate brigade, pursuing the report that there were shoes to be had in Gettysburg, ran into Federal cavalry west of town, and withdrew. On July 1 a larger Confederate force returned, engaged Meade’s advance force, and pushed it back through the town—to the fishhook-shaped heights comprising Cemetery Hill, Cemetery Ridge, Little Round Top, and Round Top. It was almost a rout, until Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard, to whom Lee as West Point superintendent had been kind when Howard was an unpopular cadet, and Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock rallied the Federals and held the high ground. Excellent ground to defend from. That evening Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, who commanded the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, urged Lee not to attack, but to swing around to the south, get between Meade and Washington, and find a strategically even better defensive position, against which the Federals might feel obliged to mount one of those frontal assaults that virtually always lost in this war. Still not having heard from Stuart, Lee felt he might have numerical superiority for once. “No,” he said, “the enemy is there, and I am going to attack him there.”

The next morning, Lee set in motion a two-part offensive: Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell’s corps was to pin down the enemy’s right flank, on Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill, while Longstreet’s, with a couple of extra divisions, would hit the left flank—believed to be exposed—on Cemetery Ridge. To get there Longstreet would have to make a long march under cover. Longstreet mounted a sulky objection, but Lee was adamant. And wrong.

Lee didn’t know that in the night Meade had managed by forced marches to concentrate nearly his entire army at Lee’s front, and had deployed it skillfully—his left flank was now extended to Little Round Top, nearly three-quarters of a mile south of where Lee thought it was. The disgruntled Longstreet, never one to rush into anything, and confused to find the left flank farther left than expected, didn’t begin his assault until 3:30 that afternoon. It nearly prevailed anyway, but at last was beaten gorily back. Although the two-pronged offensive was ill-coordinated, and the Federal artillery had knocked out the Confederate guns to the north before Ewell attacked, Ewell’s infantry came tantalizingly close to taking Cemetery Hill, but a counterattack forced them to retreat.

On the third morning, July 3, Lee’s plan was roughly the same, but Meade seized the initiative by pushing forward on his right and seizing Culp’s Hill, which the Confederates held. So Lee was forced to improvise. He decided to strike straight ahead, at Meade’s heavily fortified midsection. Confederate artillery would soften it up, and Longstreet would direct a frontal assault across a mile of open ground against the center of Missionary Ridge. Again Longstreet objected; again Lee wouldn’t listen. The Confederate artillery exhausted all its shells ineffectively, so was unable to support the assault—which has gone down in history as Pickett’s charge because Maj. Gen. George Pickett’s division absorbed the worst of the horrible bloodbath it turned into.

Lee’s idolaters strained after the war to shift the blame, but the consensus today is that Lee managed the battle badly. Each supposed major blunder of his subordinates—Ewell’s failure to take the high ground of Cemetery Hill on July 1, Stuart’s getting out of touch and leaving Lee unapprised of what force he was facing, and the lateness of Longstreet’s attack on the second day—either wasn’t a blunder at all (if Longstreet had attacked earlier he would have encountered an even stronger Union position) or was caused by a lack of forcefulness and specificity in Lee’s orders.

Before Gettysburg, Lee had seemed not only to read the minds of Union generals but almost to expect his subordinates to read his. He was not in fact good at telling men what to do. That no doubt suited the Confederate fighting man, who didn’t take kindly to being told what to do—but Lee’s only weakness as a commander, his otherwise reverent nephew Fitzhugh Lee would write, was his “reluctance to oppose the wishes of others, or to order them to do anything that would be disagreeable and to which they would not consent.” With men as well as with women, his authority derived from his sightliness, politeness, and unimpeachability. His usually cheerful detachment patently covered solemn depths, depths faintly lit by glints of previous and potential rejection of self and others. It all seemed Olympian, in a Christian cavalier sort of way. Officers’ hearts went out to him across the latitude he granted them to be willingly, creatively honorable. Longstreet speaks of responding to Lee at another critical moment by “receiving his anxious expressions really as appeals for reinforcement of his unexpressed wish.” When people obey you because they think you enable them to follow their own instincts, you need a keen instinct yourself for when they’re getting out of touch, as Stuart did, and when they are balking for good reason, as Longstreet did. As a father Lee was fond but fretful, as a husband devoted but distant. As an attacking general he was inspiring but not necessarily cogent.

At Gettysburg he was jittery, snappish. He was 56 and bone weary. He may have had dysentery, though a scholar’s widely publicized assertion to that effect rests on tenuous evidence. He did have rheumatism and heart trouble. He kept fretfully wondering why Stuart was out of touch, worrying that something bad had happened to him. He had given Stuart broad discretion as usual, and Stuart had overextended himself. Stuart wasn’t frolicking. He had done his best to act on Lee’s written instructions: “You will . . . be able to judge whether you can pass around their army without hindrance, doing them all the damage you can, and cross the [Potomac] east of the mountains. In either case, after crossing the river, you must move on and feel the right of Ewell’s troops, collecting information, provisions, etc.” But he had not, in fact, been able to judge: he met several hindrances in the form of Union troops, a swollen river that he and his men managed only heroically to cross, and 150 Federal wagons that he captured before he crossed the river. And he had not sent word of what he was up to.

When on the afternoon of the second day Stuart did show up at Gettysburg, after pushing himself nearly to exhaustion, Lee’s only greeting to him is said to have been, “Well, General Stuart, you are here at last.” A coolly devastating cut: Lee’s way of chewing out someone who he felt had let him down. In the months after Gettysburg, as Lee stewed over his defeat, he repeatedly criticized the laxness of Stuart’s command, deeply hurting a man who prided himself on the sort of dashing freelance effectiveness by which Lee’s father, Maj. Gen. Light-Horse Harry, had defined himself. A bond of implicit trust had been broken. Loving-son figure had failed loving-father figure and vice versa.

In the past Lee had also granted Ewell and Longstreet wide discretion, and it had paid off. Maybe his magic in Virginia didn’t travel. “The whole affair was disjointed,” Taylor the aide said of Gettysburg. “There was an utter absence of accord in the movements of the several commands.”

Why did Lee stake everything, finally, on an ill-considered thrust straight up the middle? Lee’s critics have never come up with a logical explanation. Evidently he just got his blood up, as the expression goes. When the usually repressed Lee felt an overpowering need for emotional release, and had an army at his disposal and another one in front of him, he couldn’t hold back. And why should Lee expect his imprudence to be any less unsettling to Meade than it had been to the other Union commanders?

The spot against which he hurled Pickett was right in front of Meade’s headquarters. (Once, Dwight Eisenhower, who admired Lee’s generalship, took Field Marshal Montgomery to visit the Gettysburg battlefield. They looked at the site of Pickett’s charge and were baffled. Eisenhower said, “The man [Lee] must have got so mad that he wanted to hit that guy [Meade] with a brick.”)

Pickett’s troops advanced with precision, closed up the gaps that withering fire tore into their smartly dressed ranks, and at close quarters fought tooth and nail. Acouple of hundred Confederates did break the Union line, but only briefly. Someone counted 15 bodies on a patch of ground less than five feet wide and three feet long. It has been estimated that 10,500 Johnny Rebs made the charge and 5,675—roughly 54 percent—fell dead or wounded. As a Captain Spessard charged, he saw his son shot dead. He laid him out gently on the ground, kissed him, and got back to advancing.

As the minority who hadn’t been cut to ribbons streamed back to the Confederate lines, Lee rode in splendid calm among them, apologizing. “It’s all my fault,” he assured stunned privates and corporals. He took the time to admonish, mildly, an officer who was beating his horse: “Don’t whip him, captain; it does no good. I had a foolish horse, once, and kind treatment is the best.” Then he resumed his apologies: “I am very sorry—the task was too great for you—but we mustn’t despond.” Shelby Foote has called this Lee’s finest moment. But generals don’t want apologies from those beneath them, and that goes both ways. After midnight, he told a cavalry officer, “I never saw troops behave more magnificently than Pickett’s division of Virginians. . . . ” Then he fell silent, and it was then that he exclaimed, as the officer later wrote it down, “Too bad! Too bad! OH! TOO BAD!”

Pickett’s charge wasn’t the half of it. Altogether at Gettysburg as many as 28,000 Confederates were killed, wounded, captured, or missing: more than a third of Lee’s whole army. Perhaps it was because Meade and his troops were so stunned by their own losses—about 23,000—that they failed to pursue Lee on his withdrawal south, trap him against the flooded Potomac, and wipe his army out. Lincoln and the Northern press were furious that this didn’t happen.

For months Lee had been traveling with a pet hen. Meant for the stewpot, she had won his heart by entering his tent first thing every morning and laying his breakfast egg under his Spartan cot. As the Army of Northern Virginia was breaking camp in all deliberate speed for the withdrawal, Lee’s staff ran around anxiously crying, “ Where is the hen? ” Lee himself found her nestled in her accustomed spot on the wagon that transported his personal matériel. Life goes on.

After Gettysburg, Lee never mounted another murderous head-on assault. He went on the defensive. Grant took over command of the eastern front and 118,700 men. He set out to grind Lee’s 64,000 down. Lee had his men well dug in. Grant resolved to turn his flank, force him into a weaker position, and crush him.

On April 9, 1865, Lee finally had to admit that he was trapped. At the beginning of Lee’s long, combative retreat by stages from Grant’s overpowering numbers, he had 64,000 men. By the end they had inflicted 63,000 Union casualties but had been reduced themselves to fewer than 10,000.

To be sure, there were those in Lee’s army who proposed continuing the struggle as guerrillas or by reorganizing under the governors of the various Confederate states. Lee cut off any such talk. He was a professional soldier. He had seen more than enough of governors who would be commanders, and he had no respect for ragtag guerrilladom. He told Col. Edward Porter Alexander, his artillery commander, . . . the men would become mere bands of marauders, and the enemy’s cavalry would pursue them and overrun many wide sections they may never have occasion to visit. We would bring on a state of affairs it would take the country years to recover from.”

“And, as for myself, you young fellows might go to bushwhacking, but the only dignified course for me would be, to go to Gen. Grant and surrender myself and take the consequences.” That is what he did on April 9, 1865, at a farmhouse in the village of Appomattox Court House, wearing a fulldress uniform and carrying a borrowed ceremonial sword which he did not surrender.

Thomas Morris Chester, the only black correspondent for a major daily newspaper (the Philadelphia Press ) during the war, had nothing but scorn for the Confederacy, and referred to Lee as a “notorious rebel.” But when Chester witnessed Lee’s arrival in shattered, burned-out Richmond after the surrender, his dispatch sounded a more sympathetic note. After Lee “alighted from his horse, he immediately uncovered his head, thinly covered with silver hairs, as he had done in acknowledgment of the veneration of the people along the streets,” Chester wrote. “There was a general rush of the small crowd to shake hands with him. During these manifestations not a word was spoken, and when the ceremony was through, the General bowed and ascended his steps. The silence was then broken by a few voices calling for a speech, to which he paid no attention. The General then passed into his house, and the crowd dispersed.”

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The Making and the Breaking of the Legend of Robert E. Lee

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By Eric Foner

• Aug. 28, 2017

In the Band’s popular song “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” an ex-Confederate soldier refers to Robert E. Lee as “the very best.” It is difficult to think of another song that mentions a general by name. But Lee has always occupied a unique place in the national imagination. The ups and downs of his reputation reflect changes in key elements of Americans’ historical consciousness — how we understand race relations, the causes and consequences of the Civil War and the nature of the good society.

Born in 1807, Lee was a product of the Virginia gentry — his father a Revolutionary War hero and governor of the state, his wife the daughter of George Washington’s adopted son. Lee always prided himself on following the strict moral code of a gentleman. He managed to graduate from West Point with no disciplinary demerits, an almost impossible feat considering the complex maze of rules that governed the conduct of cadets.

While opposed to disunion, when the Civil War broke out and Virginia seceded, Lee went with his state. He won military renown for defeating (until Gettysburg) a succession of larger Union forces. Eventually, he met his match in Ulysses S. Grant and was forced to surrender his army in April 1865. At Appomattox he urged his soldiers to accept the war’s outcome and return to their homes, rejecting talk of carrying on the struggle in guerrilla fashion. He died in 1870, at the height of Reconstruction, when biracial governments had come to power throughout the South.

But, of course, what interests people who debate Lee today is his connection with slavery and his views about race. During his lifetime, Lee owned a small number of slaves. He considered himself a paternalistic master but could also impose severe punishments, especially on those who attempted to run away. Lee said almost nothing in public about the institution. His most extended comment, quoted by all biographers, came in a letter to his wife in 1856. Here he described slavery as an evil, but one that had more deleterious effects on whites than blacks. He felt that the “painful discipline” to which they were subjected benefited blacks by elevating them from barbarism to civilization and introducing them to Christianity. The end of slavery would come in God’s good time, but this might take quite a while, since to God a thousand years was just a moment. Meanwhile, the greatest danger to the “liberty” of white Southerners was the “evil course” pursued by the abolitionists, who stirred up sectional hatred. In 1860, Lee voted for John C. Breckinridge, the extreme pro-slavery candidate. (A more moderate Southerner, John Bell, carried Virginia that year.)

Lee’s code of gentlemanly conduct did not seem to apply to blacks. During the Gettysburg campaign, he did nothing to stop soldiers in his army from kidnapping free black farmers for sale into slavery. In Reconstruction, Lee made it clear that he opposed political rights for the former slaves. Referring to blacks (30 percent of Virginia’s population), he told a Congressional committee that he hoped the state could be “rid of them.” Urged to condemn the Ku Klux Klan’s terrorist violence, Lee remained silent.

By the time the Civil War ended, with the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, deeply unpopular, Lee had become the embodiment of the Southern cause. A generation later, he was a national hero. The 1890s and early 20th century witnessed the consolidation of white supremacy in the post-Reconstruction South and widespread acceptance in the North of Southern racial attitudes. A revised view of history accompanied these developments, including the triumph of what David Blight, in his influential book “Race and Reunion” (2001), calls a “reconciliationist” memory of the Civil War. The war came to be seen as a conflict in which both sides consisted of brave men fighting for noble principles — union in the case of the North, self-determination on the part of the South. This vision was reinforced by the “cult of Lincoln and Lee,” each representing the noblest features of his society, each a figure Americans of all regions could look back on with pride. The memory of Lee, this newspaper wrote in 1890, was “the possession of the American people.”

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Robert E. Lee

Facts & information about robert e. lee, a confederate civil war general during the american civil war.

Robert E. Lee Facts

January 19, 1807

October 12, 1870

Beginning Rank

Major General, Virginia state troops

Highest Rank Achieved

General, Confederate States of America

More About Robert E. Lee

Robert E Lee’s Horse Traveller Robert E. Lee’s Surrender Seven Days Battle Battle Of Fredericksburg Battle Of Chickamauga Battle Of Antietam Battle Of Chancellorsville Battle Of The Wilderness Battle Of Gettysburg Battle Of Spotsylvania Cold Harbor Appomattox Court House Battle

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Robert E. Lee summary: Confederate General Robert E. Lee is perhaps the most iconic and most widely respected of all Civil War commanders. Though he opposed secession, he resigned from the U.S. Army to join the forces of his native state, rose to command the largest Confederate army and ultimately was named general-in-chief of all Confederate land forces. He repeatedly defeated larger Federal armies in Virginia, but his two invasions of Northern soil were unsuccessful. In Ulysses S. Grant, he found an opponent who would not withdraw regardless of setbacks and casualties, and Lee’s outnumbered forces were gradually reduced in number and forced into defensive positions that did not allow him room to maneuver. When he surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, it meant the war was virtually over.

Robert Edward Lee was the fifth child of Revolutionary War hero and governor of Virginia Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee. Henry Lee, unfortunately, was fiscally irresponsible, which hurt the family financially, and he left for the West Indies when Robert was six, never to return. Robert’s mother, Ann Carter Lee, raised the boy with a strong sense of duty and responsibility.

Robert secured an appointment to West Point in 1825. Graduating second in his class in 1829, with no demerits, he entered the prestigious Engineer Corps. Throughout the peace of 1830s and early 1840s, he was assigned to posts from Georgia to New York and rose from second lieutenant to captain. In 1831 he married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, great-granddaughter of George Washington’s wife Martha and her first husband, Daniel P. Custis. As a result of wedding Mary, Lee improved his financial position and his name became associated, however distantly, with the Revolutionary War commander and first president, something that added to his reputation during and after the Civil War.

Robert E. Lee in the Mexican War

When the United States went to war with Mexico in 1846, Lee won laurels on the staff of Major General Winfield Scott, who commanded the American forces that invaded Veracruz and captured Mexico City. As an engineer, Lee helped Scott find ways around Mexican strongpoints or to capture them.

This experience undoubtedly played an important role during the Civil War, when he was always looking for a way “to get at those people over there,” the Federal armies that he often thwarted. Breveted three times for gallantry in Mexico, Lee crossed the nearly impassible hardened lava beds of the Pedregal in storm and darkness to inform his commander of the position of Scott’s advance troops on the other side. He then crossed the inhospitable area again, guiding Scott’s follow-on troops to surprise and defeat the Mexican force at Contreras. Scott’s estimation of Capt. Lee could not have been higher; one observer called it, “almost idolatrous.”

Lee as Superintendent of West Point

After Mexico agreed to a peace settlement in 1848, Lee returned to duties in a peacetime army. On September 1, 1852, he became superintent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he oversaw changes to the curriculum and added a fifth year to the traditional four. In 1855, Congress authorized the formation of four new regiments and Lee, leaving the engineers where promotion was slow, became a lieutenant colonel in charge of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. For the next six years, he was stationed with them in Texas, primarily overseeing operations against the Comanches and performing staff duties.

In October 1859, while Lee was on one of several trips east to settle the estate of his wife’s father, radical abolitionist John Brown and a band of followers seized the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. The War Department ordered Lee to handle the situation and, leading a U.S. Marine detachment, he quickly recaptured the arsenal.

Lee Enters The Civil War With The Confederecy

Several states of the Deep South seceded in protest over the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as president, and the newly formed Southern Confederacy offered Lee the rank of brigadier general. He ignored that offer, but the bombardment of U.S. troops in Fort Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12–14, 1861, placed him in a difficult position. His former commander, Winfield Scott, offered him command of the army of volunteers being raised to suppress the rebellion; that same day, Virginia voted in favor of secession. Lee did not support secession, but he would not fight against his native state. He resigned his officer’s commission, wrote Scott a personal message of thanks and regret, and became a major general of Virginia troops, commanding all military forces of the state.

After Virginia officially joined the Confederacy and its governor transferred all the state’s troops to that body, Lee became a Confederate major general—for all of two days, after which the Confederate Congress made him their army’s third full general, ranking behind Samuel Cooper and Albert Sidney Johnston. He became military advisor to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and, on July 28, the president asked him to coordinate the defenses of Western Virginia, where the citizens were attempting to create a new, Union-loyal state and Confederate arms had already met with defeat at Philippi and in the Big Kanawha Valley.

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Lee committed an error common to military leaders at this stage of the war: he devised a plan too complicated for the volunteer troops and bickering commanders to carry out, especially in a mountainous area plagued with bad roads. Defeated at Rich Mountain by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s force, he returned to Richmond as “Granny Lee,” his previously glowing reputation under a cloud. The Richmond Examiner decried him as unwilling to shed blood and “to depend exclusively upon the resources of strategy … without the cost of life.” While in Western Virginia, however, Lee first encountered Traveller, the horse that would carry him through most of the war and become nearly as famous an icon as Lee himself.

Lee’s next assignment was head of a department comprised of the coastal regions of South Carolina, Georgia and eastern Florida. The engineer spent four months overseeing the construction of coastal defenses. In March 1862, he was back in Richmond, assigned to manage “the conduct of military operations in the armies of the Confederacy.” In that role, he successfully supported a conscription act, passed by the Confederate Congress April 16. His support of the act may not have been as convincing to the Congress as the 100,000-man Army of the Potomac that George McClellan was advancing up the Virginia peninsula toward Richmond.

McClellan’s troops clashed with the Confederates under Gen. Joseph Johnston in the Battle of Seven Pines, also called the Battle of Fair Oaks, on May 31. When Johnston was wounded and taken from the field, Davis asked Lee to assume command of the army.

General Lee Takes Command of the Army

Knowing he could not win by retreating into defensive works, within three weeks Lee took the offensive, initiating the Seven Days Battle, a series of fights that drove the Federals back down the peninsula. In the final battle, Malvern Hill, Lee threw his men in a series of costly charges against strong Union positions but failed to take the hill. Perhaps Lee was looking to dispel his “Granny Lee” reputation; perhaps he was remembering that frontal assaults had often worked in Mexico; perhaps he sensed victory was just one more charge away. Whatever his reason, the Seven Days showed both his capacity for maneuver and surprise and his willingness to sustain significant losses in pursuit of victory, traits that would arise again. Lee had driven the enemy away from the gates of Richmond, however, and his star began to rise in the South.

He next moved north, his Army of Northern Virginia divided into two corps, the larger under the command of his “Old War Horse” Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, and the other under Lt. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. In the Battle of Second Bull Run—Second Manassas to the Confederates—Lee defeated Maj. Gen. John Pope. A month later, September 1862, Lee led his army in its first excursion onto Northern soil, crossing the Potomac into Maryland. That campaign ended at the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg) on September 17, the bloodiest single day in all of American history. At the end of that day’s fighting, he calmly assessed that the cautious McClellan would not renew the contest and allowed his men a day of rest before withdrawing back into Virginia.

The following December, McClellan’s replacement, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, stole a march on Lee but failed to cross the Rappahannock River promptly. The resulting Battle of Fredericksburg slaughtered the right wing of Burnside’s army.

At the end of April 1863, a fourth Union commander, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, tried to outflank and defeat Lee. The result was what is widely regarded as Lee’s greatest victory, the Battle of Chancellorsville. Boldly dividing his army in the face of superior numbers, the “Gray Fox” repulsed Hooker’s main force, then turned and stopped the rest of the Army of the Potomac at Salem Church.

The Gettysburg Campaign

In June, Lee again led his troops in an invasion of the North, this time striking into Pennsylvania. He was not well, physically or emotionally. The symptoms of heart disease were becoming evident, and the general still grieved the death of his 23-year-old daughter, Anne Carter Lee, the previous October. He had also lost his “right arm,” Stonewall Jackson, who had been mortally wounded by his own men at Chancellorsville.

Lee had always shown an inclination to issue orders that gave subordinates significant latitude in carrying them out. During the Gettysburg campaign, that proclivity allowed his cavalry commander, J.E.B. “Jeb” Stuart, to decide on a wide swing behind Union lines that took him out of contact with the rest of the army and denied Lee crucial intelligence on enemy movements. Jackson’s old corps had been split in two, and the new commanders needed a firmer hand than Lee applied, which may have cost him the high ground at the Battle of Gettysburg. There, he repeated his mistake of Malvern Hill, sending the divisions of Maj. Gen. George Pickett and Brig. Gen. James Pettigrew across a mile and a quarter of open ground against a strong Union position on Cemetery Ridge. Pickett’s Charge, as it became known, resulted only in a monumental loss of soldiers Lee could not replace, and his second northern invasion failed.

In November he turned back an indecisive movement by Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade, the victor of Gettysburg, during the Mine Run Campaign, but soon Lee faced a more determined foe.

Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant had been summoned from the Western Theater to command all Union armies in the field and attached himself to Meade’s Army of the Potomac. In the bloody Overland Campaign in the summer of 1864, Grant and Lee faced each other in the Wilderness, at Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. Always, Lee was able to withdraw after inflicting severe casualties on the Federals, but they could replace their fallen better than the South could. Finally forced back to the Petersburg–Richmond area, Lee again used his engineering skill to create extensive defensive works that held back his opponents until the spring of 1865.

Lee’s Surrender And The End Of The Civil War

He was named commander-in-chief of all Confederate armies on January 23, 1865, but it was too late for coordinated action between the theaters and the dangers in Virginia occupied most of his attention. Finally forced out of his defensive works, he surrendered to Grant on April 9 at Appomattox Court House, though some of his commanders had urged him to lead a guerrilla war in the mountains. Lee’s surrender was the signal that the Southern cause was truly lost. Other Confederate armies soon capitulated as well. Read more about Lee’s Surrender

Lee After The Civil War

His wife’s home at Arlington had long been occupied by Union troops and its lands turned into a cemetery for their dead. Lee and his family lived in Richmond until he accepted a position as president of Washington College (later renamed Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia, later in 1865. On October 2, 1870, the heart disease that had plagued him for at least seven years finally claimed the old warrior.

He had become a symbol of Southern resistance to the Union armies and was made an icon of the Lost Cause in the post-war South. Today, he remains internationally respected as a daring, often brilliant tactician, a gentleman who never referred to Northern soldiers as “the enemy” but as “those people over there,” a man who opposed secession but felt honor-bound to serve his native state. He applied for restoration of his American citizenship, but the papers were lost until the 1970s, when his wish was granted.

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Featured article, did robert e. lee doom himself at gettysburg.

By blindly relying on poor intelligence and saying far too little to his generals, Lee may have sealed the Rebels’ fate.

The afternoon of July 3, 1863, near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, promised to be hot. A town resident with a scientific bent would record a high temperature of 87 degrees for this day. At his headquarters just west of town, alongside the Chambersburg Pike, Gen. Robert E. Lee was feeling a heat that had little to do with the sun. Everywhere he looked men, animals, and weapons were moving with a sense of purpose instilled by orders he had given just a short time before. A climax to two days of battle was coming, announced by an action sure to be bloody, and certain, he fervently hoped, to be decisive.

To anyone passing by the modest headquarters tent, the 56-year-old commander of the Confederacy’s finest army appeared, as one soldier recalled, “calm and serene.” There is no reason to believe otherwise. “I think and work with all my power to bring the troops to the right place at the right time; then I have done my duty,” Lee said. “As soon as I order them into battle, I leave my army in the hands of God.”

Over the course of the morning, an unnatural peacefulness had spread across the battlefield save for the occasional pop of a distant rifle firing. Then, at seven minutes past one o’clock, Lee heard a signal cannon shot followed, after a short pause, by a second. No one needed to tell him what it meant. The attack that was to decide the battle, and perhaps the war, was beginning.

A great deal would be written about the events at Gettysburg. Lee himself would submit three different reports explaining the critical decisions he made this day and the two days immediately before it. In them he would imply that his principal lieutenants had come up short, and would even wonder if he had asked his men to do too much.

But missing from his analysis was any recognition that he based his plans on a great deal of field intelligence that he might have guessed was flat-out wrong, that, given the circumstances (especially the absence of his favored cavalry chief, which forced Lee to rely on information from less trustworthy substitutes) he should at the very least have treated with far more caution.

Nor does it indicate that General Lee ever asked himself if he could have done more to ensure that those empowered with executing his orders fully understood his intentions. To put it bluntly, it is clear these 146 years after his reflections that Lee­­—even though he had just completely reorganized his army, with new officers serving at all levels—failed to see that his battle instructions were fully communicated to all of his commanders. It wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last, that a battle turned on a misapprehension or miscommunication. Gettysburg had more than its share of both, however, due in no small part to Lee’s hands-off management style—and his determination to make this battle the one that changed the war.

 Lee had been on the road to Gettysburg from the start of the conflict. From the moment he was placed in command of the Army of Northern Virginia, he believed that the Confederacy’s survival depended on expanding the fighting deep into Union territory. Even as he struggled to hold back a massive Federal army under Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan that was threatening Richmond in 1862, he tried to assemble a sufficiently strong force for Lt. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson to invade Pennsylvania from the Shenandoah Valley. It wasn’t to be; the resources of the Confederacy were spread too thin. But the impulse became an idée fixe in Lee’s strategic thinking.

When he led Confederate forces into Maryland in September 1862, in the operation climaxing at Antietam, he intended to press through the border state into Pennsylvania. Once again, circumstances forced him to divert. Following the battle of Chancellorsville (May 1–3, 1863), Lee found himself in an administrative tug-of-war with Richmond over the control of his army. Certain powerful officials wanted to detach pieces of it to prevent the loss of Vicksburg in Mississippi.

Lee argued that allowing him to march north would accomplish the same thing, by capturing the enemy’s attention and diverting Federal reinforcements that otherwise would be sent west. Besides, as he would later state, an “invasion of the enemy’s country breaks up all of his preconceived plans, relieves our country of his presence, and we subsist while there on his resources.” In the end, President Jefferson Davis backed the only general who could deliver him victories. Granted permission to mount his operation, Lee assured Davis that any advance would be carried out “cautiously, watching the result, and not to get beyond recall until I find it safe.”

Despite his promise, Lee never seriously considered halting the campaign once he commenced disengaging from the Union Army of the Potomac near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Even a wholehearted Federal strike at his cavalry force camped around Brandy Station, Virginia, on June 9, did not deter him. By June 16, the entire Army of Northern Virginia (70,000 men, comprising three infantry corps plus cavalry and artillery) was stretched out in a long column whose tail was just departing Fredericksburg even as its head was approaching the Pennsylvania border. Six days later his advance commander—Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, in charge of the Second Corps—was handed instructions sanctioning the capture of Harrisburg should the situation become favorable.

On June 28, headquartered outside Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Lee was poised to commit his force to a broad sweep to the east as far as the Susquehanna River. His goal was not to take northern territory, but to hurry the Army of the Potomac into a showdown. As he explained to one of his senior commanders, he fully expected to “throw an overwhelming force on their advance, crush it, follow up the success, drive one corps back and another, and by successive repulses and surprises before they can concentrate; create a panic and virtually destroy the army.” Only then, Lee believed, could the Confederacy expect to talk peace with the North on advantageous terms.

But several days earlier he had made a fateful decision that would afterward be seen as critical to the outcome of this operation, and a significant factor in the intelligence failures at Gettysburg. His cavalry, under Maj. Gen. James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, had been tied down in northern Virginia protecting the right flank of his infantry columns tramping north through the Shenandoah Valley. Lee needed his horsemen with Ewell’s Corps in the advance and listened as Stuart proposed to get to the head of the line by riding east and then north, behind the Union columns thought to be scattered in a disorganized pursuit. Stuart’s ingenious work at Chancellorsville made Lee comfortable granting broad discretion to his cavalry chief, even though senior subordinates like Lt. Gen. James Longstreet felt that Stuart required “an older head to instruct and regulate him.” Lee agreed to Stuart’s plan, estimating it would take three days before his cavalry chief would be back in contact. Stuart departed with most of his riders early on the morning of June 25.

Three days later, there was no word from Stuart and no reliable information as to where he was. In the absence of intelligence, Lee assumed that all was going according to plan and that his opponent was spread thin in a protective arc shielding the immediate approaches to Washington, leaving the way clear for his advance to the Susquehanna River. His mental image of an enemy disorganized and hesitating to intervene seemed borne out. But it was on this very night of June 28 that he learned from an irregular scout employed by Longstreet, his First Corps commander, that the Union army was much closer and more concentrated than he had imagined.

Very suddenly, the risk to the long Confederate column had increased exponentially.

Lee had no recourse but to dramatically alter plans. A phalanx of couriers hurried out from headquarters with fresh instructions for the army to draw together. It was Lee’s intention to regroup his potent force just east of the Catoctin Mountains around the village of Cashtown, Pennsylvania. Confident he would have his army well in hand before the Federals began arriving in strength, he still anticipated attacking and defeating them a piece at a time as they scrambled to confront him.

When Lee entered the western end of the Cashtown Pass on the morning of July 1, everything was going according to the new plan. Ewell’s Corps was falling back from its advance positions along the Susquehanna River (two divisions marching southward, the third on a roundabout route that brought it traveling east through the pass later that morning), Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill’s Third Corps was already on the eastern side of the pass, and Longstreet’s First Corps was due to complete its passage by day’s end. Union cavalry had been reported in the area, so when Lee reached the midpoint and heard distant gunfire toward the east he was not alarmed. But by the time he had nearly cleared the pass, the faraway musketry had been joined by the deeper rumble of cannon fire, indicating something more than a light skirmish was taking place.

Arriving in Cashtown, Lee checked with General Hill, who was suffering from one of his periodic bouts of illness and clearly out of touch with events. Hill had no idea what all the firing was about, but one of his three divisions (that commanded by Maj. Gen. Henry Heth) was supposed to be investigating reports of Federal horsemen in the town of Gettysburg. He left to find out what was happening, while Lee slowly followed.

Approaching the outskirts of Gettysburg it became apparent that a fight of some magnitude had taken place earlier this day. When Hill appeared with Heth in tow, Lee heard a confused tale of a small scrap against cavalry that had suddenly escalated into a full-blown battle when the Yankee horsemen had been reinforced by veteran infantry. Writing a decade after the war about his handling of the morning fight, Heth, who had a lot to answer for regarding his poor deployments and combat management, chose to put all the blame on Stuart’s absence. “Train a giant for an encounter and he can be whipped by a pigmy—if you put out his eyes,” he declared.

At this moment Lee’s best information came from what he could see with his own eyes. From just behind the Confederate lines spread north to south along Knoxlyn Ridge, he observed a parallel Federal deployment across Herr’s Ridge. Based on the flags displayed and prisoners taken, he was facing one Union corps. At this point approaching midday, he preferred to let combat end. Although Heth’s Division had been roughly handled in the morning fight, the rest of Hill’s Corps was close at hand and not under any immediate threat. The first of Longstreet’s men were transiting the Cashtown Pass and Lee expected that the remaining two divisions from Ewell’s Corps were completing their march via roads north of Gettysburg. There was ample reason to use the rest of July 1 to consolidate his army.

Lee watched as the Federals reoriented themselves to counter Ewell’s advance. Unwilling to stand idly by while one of his corps was engaged, he reluctantly allowed Hill to press the attack. The result was some hard fighting on both the western and northern fronts that eventually compelled the Yankees to retreat through Gettysburg, closely pursued by jubilant Rebels.

Lee rode forward to Seminary Ridge, the ridge closest to the town. There he could observe that the defeated enemy soldiers were regrouping on the high ground of Cemetery Hill just to the south of the town. This would not do, but how to prevent it? Two of Hill’s divisions had taken heavy losses driving the enemy, and Lee did not believe them capable of a further effort this day. Longstreet’s column was too distant, leaving Ewell’s soldiers as the best option.

A series of messages now passed between Lee and Ewell, who led what had been Stonewall Jackson’s old command. Lee appears to have made no adjustment to having a different personality in charge. His trust in Jackson had been implicit. As he said of his late lieutenant: “I have but to show him my design, and I know that if it can be done it will be done.”

Now Lee was giving Ewell the same degree of latitude by suggesting or urging an action, not demanding it, though Ewell, for his part, apparently preferred more specific orders.

Ewell indicated to Lee a willingness to resume the attack, but only if he could get Hill to cover his right flank. Despite having the one unengaged division of Hill’s Corps close at hand, Lee insisted that Ewell would have to act alone. (When questioned on his decision to withhold these 7,000 fresh troops, Lee answered “that he was in ignorance as to the force of the enemy in front,…and that a reserve in case of disaster, was necessary.”) Worried about a possible enemy threat to his own left flank, and with no help offered for his right, Ewell decided to stand pat. In time Lee would fault Ewell for not doing more. Conversing after the war with Cassius Lee, a trusted cousin, he expressed his regret over Ewell’s hesitancy. “[Stonewall] Jackson,” he said, “would have held the heights.”

The night of July 1 was a time for critical decisions. Lee’s original plan to concentrate near Cashtown was discarded. He was inclined to take up a position along the north-south ridges running west of Gettysburg until Ewell was able to convince him that it made more sense to keep his corps as it was, spread across Gettysburg’s northern side. To sweeten the deal, Ewell anticipated that a key piece of high ground (Culp’s Hill) would soon fall into his hands, which would cut off one of the principal roads being used by the Union army. Lee allowed everyone to hold their positions for the night.

He had entered Pennsylvania anticipating he would fight a major battle, and while he may not have planned for it to happen at Gettysburg, he was also realistic enough to understand that a commander can’t expect to choose his arena. He arose early on July 2, half expecting to find that the Yankees had skedaddled. Not only was the Union army still on the high ground,  but it was obvious that reinforcements had reached it during the night. Enemy units now occupied a line that stretched southward from Cemetery Hill along Cemetery Ridge.

Lee’s first encounter this morning was with James Longstreet. His First Corps commander proposed that the Confederates break contact in order to swing south to flank the enemy. The prospect of untangling Ewell’s men from Gettysburg’s north side and marching in vulnerable columns while the enemy gathered strength made Lee rule out Longstreet’s option. Although rebuffed in his attempt to change Lee’s mind about attacking the enemy at Gettysburg, Longstreet left their conversation convinced that Lee had not absolutely ruled out a flanking option.

In later years, Southern writers anxious to promote an image of Lee free from any failures of judgment insisted that he had issued Longstreet orders for an early morning attack, which the sulky corps commander ignored. Histories appearing as late as the 1960s accepted this as a matter meriting discussion. Yet it is clear that Lee could not have ordered such an action for July 2. When he awoke that morning, the exact location of the Union army was unknown. Until he could pin that down it would have been irresponsible to mount any offensive. Most modern historians give little credence to the “dawn attack” orders and the officers whose recollections support it.

Before and after speaking with Longstreet, Lee dispatched scouts to identify the Yankee deployments. While waiting to hear from them, he learned that Ewell’s men had not occupied Culp’s Hill. Rebel parties probing the position before dawn encountered Union soldiers in strength. It took Lee until mid-morning to collate his scouting reports. Some came from (presumably) reliable army engineers, others from officers just trying to help. Lee asked questions when the reports were given, but does not appear to have tagged any as questionable or requiring further verification. Time was his greatest enemy now.

Based on what he heard, he believed the Federal line stretched south along the Emmitsburg Road for a relatively short distance, terminating near or at a peach orchard. With Hill’s men still recovering from yesterday’s fighting, and Ewell’s snagged in rugged terrain unsuitable for large-scale offensive operations, Lee decided that his best chance for success was to employ Longstreet’s fresh troops (only two divisions, though; the third was still in transit) to roll up the enemy’s left flank.

On July 1, Lee had allowed less than half his army to become engaged without being able to control the fight or complete the victory. On July 2, he felt he had sufficient strength to do the job and had identified the enemy’s weak point. Unfortunately for Rebel arms, his conclusions stemmed from bad information and his own overoptimistic assumptions.

Lee believed that the Army of the Potomac was still in the process of reaching Gettysburg when, in fact, much of it (including its commander, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade) had arrived or was very close by. Six of the Union army’s seven corps were present—roughly 54,700 soldiers to Lee’s 42,000—though perhaps just four corps would have been immediately visible from the Confederate lines. He imagined that the Federals were dispirited and demoralized when in reality their fighting spirit was at a fever pitch. The enemy position sketched for him was wrong in several important ways. Instead of running along the course of the Emmitsburg Road, the Union forces followed the actual ridgeline, which diverged to the east before terminating at a low hill (Little Round Top), rather than hanging in the air at the Peach Orchard. The attack Lee planned for July 2 would have struck unoccupied ground but for an act of insubordination by one of Meade’s corps commanders who moved off Cemetery Ridge to occupy the Peach Orchard and nearby high ground without orders.

The army Lee was sending into battle at Gettysburg had been patched together in record time. In the short period between receiving permission for the operation and actually beginning it, he had reorganized it from top to bottom. A two-corps force had become a three-corps arrangement, with new officers put in charge at all levels. There had not been time to road test any of the parts and Lee chose to ignore that critical stage of army building. Greatly worried that bad news from Vicksburg would renew calls to disperse portions of his command, he had set off on his most critical campaign of the war with an army whose command-and-control elements had yet to jell. July 2 at Gettysburg would subject this construct to maximum stress.

Lee later described this day’s battle plan: “It was determined to make the principal attack upon the enemy’s left, and endeavor to gain a position [in the Peach Orchard] from which it was thought that our artillery could be brought to bear with effect. Longstreet was directed to place the divisions of McLaws and Hood on the right of Hill, partially enveloping the enemy’s left, which he was to drive in. General Hill was ordered to threaten the enemy’s center, to prevent re-enforcements being drawn to either wing, and co-operate with his right division in Longstreet’s attack. General Ewell was instructed to make a simultaneous demonstration upon the enemy’s right, to be converted into a real attack should opportunity offer.”

While any commander expects there will be differences between what is planned and what occurs, it is sobering to realize how much of Lee’s plan was either mistaken in its assumptions or misunderstood by its participants. Some six hours had passed from Lee’s receipt of the scouting report concerning the enemy’s left flank and until Longstreet actually reached it there had been no updates. It would seem that with Stuart still absent, there was no one other than Lee himself charged with gathering field intelligence. Longstreet emerged from a lengthy, circuitous route (chosen to avoid detection) to find the enemy not just in the Peach Orchard, but positioned farther back to enfilade the flank of any force moving north along the Emmitsburg Road. This required him to commit nearly a full division, 10,892 men, to neutralize the problem and spend precious hours dislodging the stubborn Yankees from the nearby Devil’s Den and the Wheatfield.

Once begun, the energy of Longstreet’s attack was to spread along the line held by Hill’s troops. It was here that clear, effective communication was vital, but Lee became a mere bystander as his orders passed down through Hill’s chain of command and were corrupted in the process. It took skill and experience to know when a demonstration should be converted into an attack. From subsequent events, it is evident that there was no common sense of purpose among Hill’s subordinates. Some brigades advanced in conjunction with a movement to their immediate right, others held back waiting to be called up to support the neighboring advance, while at least one refrained from moving at all. Any cumulative assault power was dissipated as a result, and countless acts of valor wasted. Even though Lee remained close to Hill throughout this day’s actions, there is no evidence he did anything to spur his lieutenant to better prosecute the action.

Communication was no better with the opposite flank. On the far left, Richard Ewell acted with little regard for what was taking place elsewhere on July 2. This despite a personal visit from Lee in the morning, as Longstreet was preparing for his flank march. When Lee departed, Ewell’s orders were unchanged and from appearances he did not display any sense of urgency. The clear inference is that Lee did not convey the importance of making “a simultaneous demonstration” on the Confederate right flank. According to a recent biography of Ewell, nothing is known of his activities this afternoon. The biographer’s best guess is that the general “probably slept.” His infantrymen maintained a desultory skirmishing on the town’s outskirts throughout the day, but otherwise posed no threat. His artillery provided some help. At the time that Longstreet’s cannons signaled the start of his attack on the far right, 16 of Ewell’s guns rolled onto the constricted crest of Benner’s Hill (northeast of Gettysburg) and targeted Cemetery Hill. For a short period the Rebel cannoneers gave as good as they got, but the heavier weight of the Federal counterbattery fire soon exacted a high price from the Rebel gunners.

By 6 p.m., nearly an hour before any of Hill’s bri­gades became engaged, the firing died down on Ewell’s front. Things became so quiet that George Meade began shifting 7,700 troops from Culp’s Hill to support his battered left. Then, around 9:30 p.m., with the fighting just about finished on Long­street’s and Hill’s fronts, Ewell threw 7,600 men against Culp’s Hill and the eastern side of Cemetery Hill. The former effort grabbed some empty trenches on the lower slope, while the latter was hurled back after fierce fighting.

Lee, posted near the physical center of the action, was curiously detached from the combat. According to one of the foreign observers accompanying the Rebels, during the afternoon and early evening the general “only sent one message, and only received one report.” An artilleryman positioned nearby noted that his “countenance betrayed no more anxiety than upon the occasion of a general review.” Soon after the combat ended, Lee had to evaluate what had been accomplished this day, yet of his three corps commanders only Hill made a personal report. The other two sent surrogates with summaries that failed to convey a complete picture of their circumstances. Perhaps that in itself should have made it clear that Longstreet and Ewell had their hands full. However, already lining up his sights on July 3, Lee did not read anything into the absence of the two officers whose personal observations should have shaped his planning.

Based on what he saw, what he was told, and what he believed, Lee assessed that “Longstreet succeeded in getting possession of and holding the desired ground….Ewell also carried some of the strong positions which he assailed….” The desired ground was the Peach Orchard, which Lee thought presented his cannons with an elevated platform sufficient to dominate the Yankee lines along Cemetery Ridge. In fact, as Longstreet’s able artillery chief, Col. Edward P. Alexander, had learned firsthand late on the afternoon of July 2, the ground rose again some 40 feet at the Federal main line of resistance, so packing the Peach Orchard with Confederate cannons provided none of the advantages Lee imagined.

Similarly, Ewell’s report suggested he had penetrated the enemy’s principal defensive lines when, in fact, his troops had taken possession of trenches abandoned by the Federals located well down the slope from the hilltop, which was still heavily fortified and stoutly defended. Ewell’s inaccurate information led Lee to conclude that the Confederate Second Corps “would ultimately be able to dislodge the enemy.” With the benefit of hindsight, it now seems clear that the victory Lee was seeking at Gettysburg loomed so large in his thinking that he only processed the pieces of information that would validate his resolve to continue the fight for one more day. Having composed a picture of an enemy army on the ropes, and buoyed by his faith in his men, he determined to press ahead.

“The result of this day’s operations induced the belief that with proper concert of action, and with the increased support that the positions gained on the right [by Long­street] would enable the artillery to render the assaulting columns, we should ultimately succeed,” he later wrote, “and it was accordingly determined to continue the attack. The general plan was unchanged. Longstreet, re-enforced by Pickett’s three brigades,…was ordered to attack the next morning, and General Ewell was directed to assail the enemy’s right at the same time.”

Also receiving orders was Jeb Stuart, who had reached the battlefield at some point in the afternoon of July 2, well ahead of his troopers, who would not be available for any serious work that day. Lee appears to have passed over Stuart’s belated arrival without comment, although some postwar memoirs manufactured a bit of dialogue to show his displeasure. Speaking of these events some five years in the future, Lee alluded to Stuart’s failure when he allowed that the Gettysburg fight was “commenced in the absence of correct intelligence.”

What was supposed to be a rapid cavalry march to the head of Lee’s infantry columns had been bedeviled by fate and fateful decisions. Despite what Lee and Stuart believed, the Union forces were already moving north when the operation began, forcing the Rebel riders on a wide detour to reach an unguarded Potomac ford. The chance capture of a U.S. supply train outside Washington that same day further upset Stuart’s timetable. He lost valuable time paroling Yankee teamsters and guards, and was then burdened by attaching the slow-moving wagons to his column. There were several brief but sharp encounters with Yankee cavalry and a poor read of the situation by Stuart who, on July 1, closed on Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in a vain effort to connect with Ewell. Compounding his errors in judgment, Stuart then tried to dislodge Pennsylvania militiamen holding the town until early in the morning of July 2, when he at last learned the location of Lee’s army.

Lee arose on the morning of July 3 to find his plans already unraveled. Without waiting for any signal from the opposite flank, Richard Ewell resumed his assaults against Culp’s Hill at dawn. Lee intended for Ewell and Long­street to launch their attacks “at the same time,” yet nothing in Ewell’s instructions to his subordinates suggested any need for coordination. It would seem that Ewell’s sudden obsession with capturing Culp’s Hill overrode any other considerations. Once again Lee had failed to make explicit the critical part he expected his Second Corps commander to play.

Ewell wasn’t Lee’s only problem lieutenant this morning. When he checked with Longstreet to find out how far along his preparations were, he learned that the officer had spent the night trying to locate a way around the enemy’s left flank, now pegged to the two Round Tops. Lee also discovered, seemingly for the first time, that the two Longstreet divisions engaged on July 2 were in no shape to resume operations. Considering the proximity of his and Longstreet’s headquarters, Longstreet’s failure to inform—and Lee’s failure to discern—this state of affairs again represented a significant breakdown.

It speaks to Lee’s mental resilience and unflagging determination that he immediately cobbled together a new plan. The prospect of calling off an attack never entered his mind. Long­street and Hill, as well as several subordinate officers and their staffs, now met with their chief to see what resources were actually available. From Longstreet, Lee had Maj. Gen. George Pickett’s fresh division, waiting close by in ready reserve. From Hill came Heth’s Division to join Pickett, backed up by four brigades—two from Pender’s Division, two from Richard Anderson’s—for a total of about 11,800 troops. Selecting Heth’s Division provided a focus for the attack, since it was roughly opposite the Federal center, defended by 6,500 troops.

Much to Longstreet’s surprise, he was tapped by Lee to direct the combined operation, even though Hill had at least as many men committed to the assault. Speaking with a bluntness that perhaps he hoped would recuse him once and for all, Longstreet said: “General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position.” Nonetheless, Hill’s poor handling of troops on July 1 was still fresh in Lee’s mind, so Longstreet got the assignment.

While preparations went forward, Lee added other elements to the plan to improve its chances of success. He intended to precede the assault with a massive bombardment of the target area involving all the cannons from Longstreet’s and Hill’s corps. With Hill’s guns included in the mix, the Confederates would catch many of the Federal batteries on Cemetery Hill and Ridge in a killing crossfire. He explained this to the Army of Northern Virginia’s artillery chief, Brig. Gen. William Nelson Pendleton, and left him to handle the details.

There was a second part to the artillery scheme, as important as the preliminary softening-up phase. The movement against Cemetery Ridge would initially pass over rolling ground that offered sheltered swales where the men in the advancing lines of battle could duck the enemy fire and realign. Once they reached Emmitsburg Road, however, the men would be fully exposed to cannon fire and musketry at point-blank range.

Lee planned to advance as many batteries as possible with the infantry and have the guns drench the enemy positions with shells just prior to the final lunge. This, he expected, would suppress any Union cannons that managed to survive the opening bombardment and sufficiently cow the enemy infantry. The plan required that Alexander’s batteries be promptly resupplied after firing off their ready rounds during the opening bombardment, another matter left to Pendleton’s attention.

Some historians believe that there was another element to the assault as planned. There is evidence that provisional orders were issued to selected units holding the line for a follow-up advance once the enemy’s line had been breached. Taken in the aggregate, these units constituted a second wave intended to exploit the breakthrough. The responsibility for committing this group rested with Longstreet, who was already an unwilling participant in the attack. Why Lee did not reserve this decision for himself is another of the battle’s unanswered questions.

With the arrangements made, Lee briefly prowled the lines before returning to his headquarters to wait. If the bombardment did its work, if the flanks were protected, and if enough of the artillery advanced with the infantry, Lee felt that his superb soldiers would smash through the Yankee army. He expected that the Federal soldiers would lose their nerve, and he was utterly confident that his men would press the attack all the way to Cemetery Ridge.  There was little more for him to do. It was all now in God’s hands.

That the subsequent assault, known as Pickett’s Charge, failed was a major setback to Lee. Afterward he seemed to blame the soldiers involved. In his second official Gettysburg report, he admitted that he might have asked more of his men “than they were able to perform.” To his wife, Lee wrote that his men “ought not to have been expected to have performed impossibilities.” What he seemed to miss in his analysis, then and after the war, were his own failures to ensure that his instructions were carried out.

He might have started with his artillery chief, Pendleton. While Longstreet’s artillery commander, Alexander, knew the game plan, it is clear that his equivalent in Hill’s Corps, Col. R. Lindsay Walker, did not. Numerous Third Corps batteries failed to participate in the bombardment, leaving most of the Federal guns on Cemetery Hill and Ridge free to pummel the infantry wave. Pendleton also neglected to keep the critical ordnance resupplies close at hand, so when the time came for Alexander’s batteries to move forward with the infantry, only a handful had sufficient ammunition to justify making the effort, not enough to make a difference. As Lee had feared, the tract from the Emmitsburg Road to Cemetery Ridge proved to be the killing ground that broke the back of the assault.

Lee refrained from any negative comments about Pendleton’s performance in his Gettysburg reports, while the artillery chief’s narrative makes it seem that every instruction was carried out. Lee appears to have had a soft spot for the West Pointer, who had forsaken the ministry for a military career, even though Pendleton informally acknowledged his inadequacies as artillery chief by granting tactical control of batteries on the battlefield to younger officers of lower rank. The cost for Lee’s personal kindness of carrying the weaker man along was dear.

It is also worth noting that while Lee waited at his headquarters for Longstreet’s attack to begin, he made no effort to coordinate with Ewell. By the time Pickett’s Charge began, Ewell had shot his bolt on Culp’s Hill and was no longer threatening that enemy flank. Lee recognized on the evening of July 1 that it would be a stiff challenge to effectively integrate his Second Corps operations with the rest of the army. Once he agreed to let Ewell remain on the north side of the town, it was incumbent on him to make certain Ewell knew his part. From the evidence in hand, Lee failed to do so.

Jeb Stuart’s role on July 3 is also the subject of much speculation. His instructions for July 3, as recollected by his adjutant, were to “protect the left of Ewell’s corps…observe the enemy rear and attack it in case the Confederate assault on the Federal lines were successful…[and] if opportunity offered, to make a diversion which might aid the Confederate infantry.” While accomplishing the first, Stuart was unable to do more. His efforts to advance were checked in fierce fighting over what is today known as the East Cavalry Battlefield. It should be stressed that his orders to attack the enemy rear were conditioned on a successful infantry breakthrough.

The failure of the assault against Cemetery Ridge marked an end to Lee’s offensive designs. After personally helping to rally the defeated men from Longstreet’s and Hill’s corps, he planned a withdrawal from Pennsylvania that began on the night of July 4. Even when blessed by a timid pursuit from Union forces, the march was staggered by bad weather and the burden of carrying so many casualties. A good estimate of Lee’s losses is 22,874 killed, wounded, or missing, more than a third of his force. Not until July 14 would the Army of Northern Virginia be safely across the Potomac River, ending the campaign.

Lee’s performance at Gettysburg was far from masterful. Time and again he failed to impress upon his key lieutenants the full intent of his orders, and at critical moments in the battle’s second and third days he crafted offensive plans based on misinformation. On July 1 he was reluctant to finish the fight and refrained from using a readily available reserve to assist Ewell in taking the high ground that would prove central to the Union success. He also permitted his Second Corps to remain in a position that greatly compounded the normal difficulties of command and control. On July 2 Lee based the day’s battle plan on faulty intelligence and then kept hands off once the action began. His position near the Confederate center put him at the critical boundary between Hill’s and Ewell’s corps, yet he took no proactive steps to ensure a maximum effort was mounted. On July 3, Lee’s determination to strike a blow led to a compromise plan that needed careful management to succeed, oversight that was tragically absent.

There is no evidence that Lee ever marked the irony that Vicksburg surrendered to Union forces on July 4. Even though he afterward insisted that the Gettysburg campaign had achieved most of its goals (resupply of his army and deterring Federal incursions into Northern Virginia for the harvest season), Lee submitted his resignation on August 8, citing health issues and public discontent over the battle results. President Davis promptly rejected the request, leaving Lee in command of the Army of Northern Virginia to the war’s end. In another note to Davis, Lee observed: “I still think if all things could have worked together [then victory] would have been accomplished. But with the knowledge I had then…I do not know what better course I could have pursued.”

In the few years left to him after the war, Lee rarely commented on his experiences in Confederate service. When he did talk about some of the battles he fought, Gettysburg figured high on the list. One gets the impression that he was still struggling to understand how that one got away from him. Speaking about it with Washington College faculty member and former Army of Northern Virginia officer William Allen, Lee once more voiced his disappointment with Jeb Stuart, who “failed to give him information, and this deceived him into a general battle.” Looking back, he told Allen he was certain that “victory would have been won if he could have gotten one decided simultaneous attack on the whole line.” The closest Lee would come to acknowledging the part his misconceptions and poor communication played in losing the battle was an admission to a confidant in 1868 that his defeat in Pennsylvania “was occasioned by a combination of circumstances.”

Perhaps the most unguarded expression of Lee’s feelings about the battle came at the end of July 4. It was late and he had been active all day organizing the withdrawal—heavy work for an older man—and was feeling the effort. When he met with the officer charged with escorting the train of the wounded, who was expecting orders, Lee instead made him audience to a rare monologue. With the anguish of a master designer who has seen one of his finest constructs fall, Lee let down his guard. “Too bad! Too bad!” he exclaimed. “Oh! Too bad!”    

Lee to the Rear

‘Lee to the Rear!’ A Texas private’s long-forgotten account of Robert E. Lee’s brush with death at the Battle of the Wilderness.

On May 6, 1864, following a day of inconclusive fighting in the Wilderness, General Robert E. Lee watched at the edge of the Widow Tapp’s field as the Army of the Potomac’s II Corps drove westward on the Brock Road toward the vulnerable right flank of A.P. Hill’s Corps. Just as a Union breakthrough seemed imminent, Lee spied the approaching van of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s Corps. The famed Texas Brigade of the 1st, 4th and 5th Texas, and the 3rd Arkansas, commanded by Brig. Gen. John Gregg, was near the front of that gray column—and they may very well have saved Lee’s life that day. What happened in the Widow Tapp’s field could have altered the war’s course.

As the Texans reached the battlefield, Lee attempted to lead them into battle. But the men refused to let him take that risk. They forcibly led Lee and his horse Traveller away from danger, then joined the rest of Longstreet’s soldiers in stemming the Federal tide.

The “Lee-to-the Rear” incident has long been regarded as one of the most dramatic episodes in the storied history of the Army of Northern Virginia. Over the years, various eyewitness accounts of the episode have made it into print, dozens of historians have analyzed the meaning of the moment and numerous artists have interpreted the chaotic scene. The recently discovered account excerpted here, first published in Texas Magazine in January 1912 by James H. Cosgrove, a 23-year-old private in Company C of the 4th Texas, sheds new light on the incident. No previous account has made it clear that a man was killed while leading Traveller to the rear, illustrating how close the South came to losing its best general.

As Longstreet’s men approached the Wilderness’ smoky thickets on the morning of May 6, they lagged far behind the schedule that Lee had hoped for. In this instance, unlike at other controversial moments during the war, Longstreet does not deserve blame for the tardiness. The men had moved steadily most of the night—“fast and double quick as much as we could,” one of them wrote. Another called the pace “a turkey trot.”

Near Parker’s Store, not far west of the front lines, two approaching divisions converged and had to share the Orange Plank Road corridor. General Joseph B. Kershaw’s men deployed to contest the virtually unchecked enemy ad­vance on their right (south) of the Plank Road: Georgians under General Goode Bryan; Mississippians of Gener­al B.G. Humphreys’ Brigade; and Kershaw’s old command, now led by Colonel John W. Henagan.

Kershaw’s doughty warriors restored order and bought time for the Texans to arrive at the edge of the Widow Tapp’s field. As the Texas Brigade turned left off the Plank Road and formed along the western edge of the widow’s three-dozen cleared acres, Private Cosgrove was in the ranks, clutching his rifle. His description follows:

What a beautiful morning that was as we met in ascending a long, red Virginia hill….A clear, majestic sun, dispelling lazy fragments of fog, warmed with its beams the chills of the past night….Not a sound of all the first day’s fighting had reached us. We had moved with the rapidity of a forced march from Gordonsville, coursing our way through deep woods….

I am to tell of how I saw General Lee, as he rode at full speed across the front of our brigade, then leading the division, in column of attack…in support of the Canton, Mississippi, battery, firing desperately into the pine thicket a few hundred yards away. These thickets were crowned with the tops of Federal battle flags, showing a large force, which was further evidenced by a musketry fire withering in the extreme….

In this mighty din, with Field’s and McLaw[s]’s divisions…panting in leash, General Lee, accompanied by a single courier—a lad just beyond his teens…Brown, yet living near Canton, Mississippi—spurred up to the battery commander….Around me were dead and falling men and horses and above me the incessant and deafening hiss of a storm of bullets….Near me, lying on a rubber blanket, was the body of a handsome young lieutenant of the artillery company….His features, beautiful in death, will be with me always….Here it was that Lee rode out to lead his army in a charge for the first time!

We were called to attention, and, in moving forward, “arms at right shoulder, guide center,” I saw General Lee somewhere near the center of the brigade front formation, when the cry went up, “Lee to the rear! The general to the rear!” and the brigade halted….

Ordnance Officer Randall of Rusk, Texas, seized General Lee’s bridle and was killed dragging his horse back to the rear. The enemy was at point blank distance and the firing upon us was very, very heavy. Then came that trumpet voice of General Gregg, our brigade commander: “Men, the eyes of your general are upon you; forward, and give them hell!” Into that zone of death headlong went the brigade.

Coming out wounded, some twenty or thirty minutes later, I saw General Lee near where Lieutenant Randall had fallen, and as I passed with a group of others hurt, I heard him say: “Men, everything is prepared for you at the field hospital…..” And the wounded, some of them even unto death, cheered him.

To gaze upon a beloved commander at a moment and upon an occasion which would be particularly marked in history is reserved for but comparatively few, and the impression will be lasting.

This vision at once suggests itself to me when I hear General Lee’s name mentioned, and it is the most vivid mental picture I retained of the general, or of any event of the war coming under my personal observation.”

The details reflected in Cosgrove’s account stand up to investigation. Lieutenant Whitaker P. Randall, acting ordnance officer on General Gregg’s staff, was in fact killed on May 6. He was only 24. The Texas Brigade suffered nearly 600 casualties—including Cosgrove, who was wounded—that day out of a total strength of not much more than 800. Some sorrowing comrade must have marked Randall’s burial spot, because the ordnance officer’s remains were eventually interred in the Confederate Cemetery on Washington Avenue in Fredericksburg, where a marker spells his name almost correctly.

James Cosgrove had enlisted at Owensville, Texas, on April 19, 1861. He apparently crossed into Texas from Louisiana for the purpose, as the 1860 census did not enumerate a single Cosgrove anywhere in Texas. After the war, Cosgrove returned to Louisiana. He was living in Shreveport in 1913, and as late as 1915 an inquiry about his service went to the Louisiana pension board. His widow, Julia A. Cosgrove, later applied for a pension based on James’ wartime record.

Robert K. Krick is well known for his dogged research, which uncovers gems such as Cosgrove’s account.

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Robert Edward Lee was the son of Henry (“Light-horse Harry”) Lee and Ann Hill Carter Lee. His father had been a hero of the American Revolution and governor of Virginia , and uncles and other relatives had signed the Declaration of Independence , served in Congress , and otherwise achieved notable reputations. When Lee was age six, his father moved to the West Indies and never returned, leaving the family in financially straightened circumstances.

Lee entered the United States Military Academy in 1825 and graduated second in the class of 1829. Fellow cadets referred to him as the “Marble Model”—a nickname that reflected envy as well as admiration. Just under six feet (1.8 metres) tall, with black hair and brown eyes, Lee cut a striking figure. High class ranking entitled him to enter the Engineer Corps as a second lieutenant on July 1, 1829.

More than a decade and half passed before Lee saw a battlefield. Promotions to first lieutenant (September 21, 1836) and to captain (July 7, 1838) punctuated his peacetime engineering service. In June 1831 Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, the only daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington . The couple would share a 39-year marriage that produced four daughters and three sons. Lee took seriously the ties to George Washington , whom he sought to emulate throughout his life.

On May 13, 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico . Between March and September 1847, Lee served on the staff of Winfield Scott during a campaign that ended with the capture of Mexico City. Lee impressed superiors throughout these operations and won brevet promotions to major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel.

As sectional stresses related to the institution of slavery mounted in the 1850s, Lee held the superintendency of the United States Military Academy (1852–55) and later served as lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Cavalry in Texas. In 1859 he was in Washington, D.C., when the abolitionist John Brown mounted his raid on Harpers Ferry , Virginia (now West Virginia). Summoned to the War Department on October 17, Lee proceeded to Harpers Ferry with a detachment of Marines and the next morning orchestrated the capture of Brown, whom he described as an “enemy of the Country.”

Best Books About Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee is an iconic and controversial figure which countless books have been written about since days of the Civil War .

To help you figure out which books to read, I’ve created this list of the best books about Robert E. Lee.

The following is a list of the best books about Robert E. Lee:

The book discusses everything from Lee’s experiences in the Mexican-War to his surrender at Appomattox. Freeman depicts Lee as an honest, straightforward man who is “one of the small company of great men in whom there is no inconsistency to be explained, no enigma to be solved.”

In addition to his biography about Lee, Freeman also wrote a highly acclaimed six-volume biography of George Washington.

Thomas argues that Lee’s image has been distorted over the years partly due to his own hidden nature and partly due to the myths and legends that surround him.

“Lee, the enigma, seldom if ever revealed himself while he lived. To understand him, it is necessary to look behind his words and see, for example, the true nature of the lighthouse keeper Lee encountered during his surveying mission in 1835. It is also important to peer beyond Lee’s words and recall what he did as well as what he said. Sometimes the existential Lee contradicted the verbal Lee.”

“In addition to looking behind and beyond his words, it is well to remember that Lee once possessed of flesh and blood. This is important because so many have made so much of Lee during the years since he lived that legend, image and myth have supplanted reality. Lee has become a hero essentially smaller than life.”

“Synthesizing printed and manuscript sources, he presents Lee as neither the icon of Douglas Southall Freeman nor the flawed figure presented by Thomas Connolly. Lee emerges instead as a man of paradoxes, whose frustrations and tribulations were the basis for his heroism. Lee’s work was his play, according to the author, and throughout his life he made the best of his lot…Highly recommended.”

A review by Kirkus Reviews praised the book for presenting a fair and balanced view of this controversial figure:

“A comprehensive new biography that seeks to give a balanced portrait of the famed Confederate general. Thomas undertakes a daunting task here, seeking to recover the real, living human from the mythology surrounding Lee since his death in 1870. In this effort he hews a middle ground between early 20th century hagiographies and revisionist contemporary interpretations…Well written and based largely on primary documentation, a good effort at understanding a complex personality.”

A review by Patrick T. Reardon in the Chicago Tribune called the book an “interesting, readable examination of Lee’s life” but states that it “leaves the general still very much a mystery.”

Thomas is also the author of eight books about the Civil War era, which include The Confederate Nation: 1861-1865; The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience; Travels to Hallowed Ground: A Historian’s Journey to the American Civil War; Bold Dragoon: The Life of J.E.B. Stuart; The Confederate State of Richmond: A Biography of the Capital; The Dogs of War: 1861; The American War and Peace: 1860-1877.

Captain Robert E. Lee was the youngest of General Lee’s three sons. In 1862, Lee served as a private in the Rockbridge Artillery before he was promoted to the rank of Captain, after the Battle of Sharpsburg, and then promoted to major general and aide-de-camp to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

“A perfectionist, obsessed by duty and by the value of obedience, he might have been a grim figure, except for the fact that he had another side, charming, funny, and flirtatious. The animal lover, the gifted watercolorist, the talented cartographer – the topographic maps he drew for the Corps of Engineers are works of art, as are the cartoons he drew for his children in Mexico. The father who adored having his children get into bed with him in the morning, and telling them stories, or having them tickle his feet; the adoring husband; the devoted friend – these are all facets of the same man. He was the product of a rationalist education and at the same time a romantic, who sought for a spiritual answer to the problems of life – a man of contradictions, whose natural good manners and courtly bearing disguised his lifelong soul-searching.”

The book received positive reviews when it was published. A review by David Shribman in the Boston Globe described it as “Lively, approachable, and captivating…Like Lee himself, everything about Clouds of Glory is on a grand scale” while Publisher’s Weekly referred to it as “superbly engaging.”

Kirkus Reviews called it “A masterful biography of the beloved Civil War general…Lee is a man for the ages, and Korda delivers the goods with this heart-wrenching story of the man and his state” and a review by David Holahan in the Christian Science Monitor stated “Korda clearly has command of his subject…[Clouds of Glory] is well-considered and amply documented. Military buffs will find much to feast on.”

“When it comes to the broader historical context, Korda sometimes falters. He does not display familiarity with recent literature on the Civil War era. For example, the one book he cites on desertion from the Confederate armies, a subject of considerable recent scholarship, was written in 1924. Korda notes that Lee’s views on slavery and race have too often been ‘swept under the rug,’ but his own discussion is scattered and incomplete…Although Korda describes him as a political moderate, there was nothing moderate in Lee’s stance during the 1860 presidential campaign… Toward the end of the Civil War, Lee came to accept the necessity of enlisting black soldiers in the Confederate armies; a handful were enrolled a month before the surrender at Appomattox. Yet, Korda notes, his racial views ‘never changed.’ Unfortunately, the book fails to devote sufficient attention to Lee’s appearance in 1866 before the congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which showed him at his worst.”

Published in 2015, this book by Jonathan Horn is about Lee’s complicated connection to George Washington.

“The connections between Washington and Lee are neither mystic nor manufactured. Lee was not the second coming of Washington, but he might have been had he chosen differently. As Washington was the man who would not be king, Lee was the man who would not be Washington. The story that emerges when viewed in this light is more complicated, more tragic, and more illuminating.”

“Compelling….a modern and readable perspective on Lee’s enigmatic character” while the Pittsburg Post Gazette declared “The resulting work is well-written, fair-minded and short.”

“Horn, a former White House speechwriter, puts a captivating spin on Lee’s story by comparing and contrasting the two great men. Detailed yet accessible descriptions of battles are coupled with stories of Lee’s personal life, revealing a man as complex as the war he reluctantly joined…Horn takes a fair and equitable approach to Lee, his life, and his struggle over participation in a war that tore apart the nation.”

“A romantic, rueful portrait of the Confederate general and the fatal decision that shut him out of history. Former White House speechwriter Horn finds Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) a deeply sympathetic American hero whom fortune seemed to have favored as heir to George Washington, if only Lee had thrown his lot with the Union rather than the South…Compelling research within an overwrought presentation.”

A review in the Kent State University Press also praised the book’s research:

“By design, Horn’s book is a limited biography of Lee. Whole chapters of Lee’s life, for example his engineering work on the Mississippi, receive only a sentence or two. But his central point, the Washington-Lee dynamic, is well researched and thoroughly developed. Whether Horn has made his case convincingly is for each reader to decide.”

“This is not a conventional biography. It is, rather, an exploration of the origins and development of Grant’s and Lee’s personalities and characters, their ethical and moral compasses, and their thinking processes and approaches to decision making – in short, the things that made them the kind of commanders they became.”

Yet, Davis goes on to explain that the book still has new information and insight from newly discovered and previously ignored sources, especially on Lee and Grant’s youth.

7. Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters by Elizabeth Brown Pryor

In the book’s preface, Pryor explains that the book is not meant to be a full-scale biography but is instead a behind the scenes glimpse at Lee through his own words;

“Although this book is filled with new material, it is not meant to be a sensationalist biography. Nor is it a cradle-to-grave chronology, a detailed description of military movements, or an exhaustive analysis of the Civil War. Those books have already been written. Debunking the Lee mythology is also not the point of this book. Rather, it is to amplify our understanding of what constitutes heroism, and how as an ordinary person Lee faced the vagaries of the human condition. These letters help us to understand his prominence and to move out of our own moment to connect with a larger collective experience.”

“An unorthodox, critical, and engaging biography. . . . [Pryor] impressively captures Lee’s character and personality.”

A review by Fergus M. Bordewich in the Wall Street Journal also praised the book for capturing Lee’s complexity:

“Pryor has taken an icon and given us the soul of a complex man and his turbulent age.”

Fellow Lee biographer, William C. Davis, wrote in the preface to his own book, Crucible of Command , that Pryor’s book is well-researched although he faulted her for occasionally making unwarranted assumptions:

“Elizabeth Pryor’s 2007 Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters is exhaustively researched and in the main an outstanding exploration of the inner Lee, often through writings not previously available, though she sometimes makes unwarranted leaps of interpretation from her sources.”

The book briefly discusses Lee’s family history before delving deep into the events of his military career. Fitzhugh Lee explains, in the book’s preface, that since General Lee never wrote a memoir, this book is an attempt to tell Lee’s story through his own words:

“In this volume the attempt has been made to imperfectly supply the great desire to have something from Robert E. Lee’s pen, by introducing, at the periods referred to, such extracts from his private letters as would be of general interest. He is thus made, for the first time, to give his impressions and opinions on most of the great events with which he was so closely connected.”

Published in 1991, this book by Alan T. Nolan debunks the myths and legends about Lee to set the record straight about this iconic figure.

“This book is not, therefore, a biography and offers no full account of Robert E. Lee’s life. It is, instead, an examination of major aspects of the tradition that identifies Lee in American history. In raising questions and drawing conclusions about this tradition, I have attempted to set fort the evidence. The reader who thinks I am asking the wrong questions or disagrees with my conclusions may, in evaluating my thesis, consider the evidence on which it is based. This evidence does not include any new or sensational facts or new primary materials. On the contrary, my inquiry concerns what the familiar and long-available evidence actually establishes about Robert E. Lee. The results of my inquiry are not so much an expose as simply an attempt to set the record straight.”

“However, any future author dealing with Lee will have to face up to Nolan’s material and we will all be the better for it. A man struggling with his times, his prejudices and his sense of honor makes a more arresting subject than a public figure who forever seems to be speaking in copybook maxims.”

“But this disclaimer of bias is a bit disingenuous. Nolan is a lawyer by profession. The book has something of the tone of an indictment of Lee in the court of history, with the author as prosecuting attorney. He wants the jury—his readers—to convict Lee of entering willingly into a war to destroy the American nation.”

“There is truth in some of these charges; it is not the whole truth, however. Nolan’s portrait of Lee may be closer to the real Lee than the flawless marble image promoted by tradition. But the prosecutorial style of his book produces some new distortions.”

Alan T. Nolan is a former lawyer and author of numerous books about the Civil War, including The Iron Brigade: A Military History; Giants in Their Tall Hats: Essays on the Iron Brigade; Rally, Once Again!: Selected Civil War Writings.

“This book is an attempt to probe the image of Robert E. Lee in the American mind, from its origins among Lost Cause writers in the Reconstruction years to the era of the 1961-65 Civil War Centennial, when Lee became a hero to white middle class America. I am also endeavoring to test the Lee image for possible distortion and to rep-praise Lee himself as well. While there have been many biographies of Robert E. Lee, no one has seriously explored the process by which his image has developed since the Civil War.”

“In truth, Lee was an extremely complex individual. Lee the man has become so intermingled with Lee the hero symbol that the real person has been obscured. Efforts to understand him, and to appraise his capabilities fairly, have been hindered by his image as a folk hero.”

The book was the first to deconstruct the myth of Robert E. Lee and was considered groundbreaking and controversial when it was published.

“Connelly provides a fascinating insight into the historical press-agentry through which Lee was enshrined as…an exemplar of American virtues.”

“Connelly conveys these themes with a professionalism that will enable readers to discriminate among his views of Lee, earlier commentators’, and his view of the latter; what could have been a merely useful compilation of propaganda is transformed by Connelly’s own evaluations into a highly substantive and challenging work.”

“Through exhaustive research, Connelly effectively illustrates the Lee image which emerged from newspaper, popular and scholarly magazine, manuscript, fictional, oral, radio, and poetic accounts of the General. Shortcomings of The Marble Man are the attempts to discover why the image developed and then to compare it with the real person, Robert E. Lee.”

Sources: Wilkinson, Julie. “The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and His Image in American Society.” The Annals of Iowa, State Historical Society of Iowa, vol. 44, no. 5, summer 1978, pps. 408-408, ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=8568&context=annals-of-iowa Carmichael, Peter S. “CWT Book Review: Lee Considered.” History.net, 16 March. 2018, www.historynet.com/cwt-book-review-lee-considered.htm Andrews, Peter. “Book World – Lee Considered.” Washington Post, 8 July. 1991, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/07/08/book-world/7e9be165-279d-4973-81e6-4643d21b16cb/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f56cb4917a8e McPherson, James. “How Noble Was Robert E. Lee.” New York Review of Books, 7 Nov. 1991, www.nybooks.com/articles/1991/11/07/how-noble-was-robert-e-lee/ Faust, Drew Gilpin. “Lee Without Tears.” New York Times, 7 July. 1991, www.nytimes.com/1991/07/07/books/lee-without-tears.html Bordewich, Fergus M. “Discovering the Real Robert E. Lee.” Wall Street Journal, 15 May. 2007, www.wsj.com/articles/SB117918601842902577 Blight, David. “In a Celebrated Life, Shades of Gray.” Boston Globe, 29 July. 2007, archive.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/07/29/in_a_celebrated_life_shades_of_gray/ Barney, William L.”Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee—The War They Fought, the Peace They Forged by William C. Davis (review).” Journal of Southern History , vol. 82 no. 1, 2016, pp. 176-177. Project MUSE , muse.jhu.edu/article/611092/pdf Wert, Jeffry D. “Davis: Crucible of Command (2015).” Civil War Monitor, 12 Aug. 2015, www.civilwarmonitor.com/book-shelf/davis-crucible-of-command-2015 “Review: Crucible of Command.” Bob On Books, 25 May. 2015, bobonbooks.com/2015/05/25/review-crucible-of-command/ Barra, Allen. “Book Review: Crucible of Command – Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee.” Historynet.com, 9 Dec. 2014, www.historynet.com/book-review-crucible-of-command-ulysses-s-grant-and-robert-e-lee.htm “Crucible of Command by William C. Davis.” Kirkus Reviews, 21 Dec. 2014, www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/william-c-davis/crucible-of-command/ Goulden, Joseph C. “The Civil War and the Generals Who Fought It.” Washington Times, 20 April. 2015, www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/20/book-review-crucible-of-command-ulysses-s-grand-an/ Bonds, Russell S. “The Odd Couple.” Wall Street Journal, 6 March. 2015, www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-crucible-of-command-by-william-c-davis-1425677492 Carrigan, Henry L., Jr. “The Man Who Would Not Be Washington by Jonathan Horn.” BookPage, bookpage.com/reviews/17608-jonathan-horn-man-who-would-not-be-washington-history Dotinga, Randy. “Robert E. Lee and George Washington Do Not Equate, Says Lee Biographer Jonathan Horn.” Christian Science Monitor, 7 Sept. 2017, www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2017/0907/Robert-E.-Lee-and-George-Washington-do-not-equate-says-Lee-biographer-Jonathan-Horn Barcousky, Len. “’The Man Who Would Not Be Washington’: Robert E. Lee embraces Virginia at the expense of the country he loved.” Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 1 March. 2015, www.post-gazette.com/ae/books/2015/03/01/The-Man-Who-Would-Not-Be-Washington-Robert-E-Lee-embraces-Virginia-at-the-expense-of-the-country-he-loved/stories/201503010062 “Nonfiction Book Review: The Man Who Would Not Be Washington by Jonathan Hom.” Publisher’s Weekly, www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4767-4856-6 “The Man Who Would Not Be Washington by Jonathan Hom.” Kirkus Reviews, 2 Nov. 2014, www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jonathan-horn/the-man-who-would-not-be-washington/ Bailey, Greg. “ The Man Who Would Not Be Washington: Robert E. Lee’s Civil War and His Decision That Changed American History by Jonathan Horn (review).” Civil War History , vol. 61 no. 4, 2015, pp. 455-456. Project MUSE , muse.jhu.edu/article/597689 Holahan, David. “Clouds of Glory.” Christian Science Monitor, 12 May. 2014, www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2014/0512/Clouds-of-Glory “Clouds of Glory by Michael Korda.” Kirkus Reviews, 30 March. 2014, www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-korda/clouds-of-glory-life/ “Nonfiction Book Review: Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee by Michael Korda.” Publisher’s Weekly, www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-06-211629-1 Shribman, David. “’Clouds of Glory’ by Michael Korda.” Boston Globe, 17 May. 2014, www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2014/05/17/review-clouds-glory-michael-korda/hs2q7pt1kaZSBBEoXs212K/story.html Foner, Eric. “Book Review: ‘Clouds of Glory: the Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee’ by Michael Korda.” Washington Post, 30 May. 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-clouds-of-glory-the-life-and-legend-of-robert-e-lee-by-michael-korda/2014/05/30/cba1d004-c973-11e3-95f7-7ecdde72d2ea_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.20ee0c7f1ea7 Bordewiche, Fergus M. “Ghost of the Confederacy.” New York Times, 27 June. 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/books/review/clouds-of-glory-michael-kordas-robert-e-lee-biography.html Rable, George C. “The Journal of Southern History.” The Journal of Southern History , vol. 62, no. 4, 1996, pp. 809–811. JSTOR , www.jstor.org/stable/2211160. Reardon, Patrick. “Emory Thomas Paints a 3 rd View of Enigmatic Robert E. Lee.” Chicago Tribune, 10 Sept. 1995, www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-09-10-9509100037-story.html “Robert E. Lee by Emory M. Thomas.” Kirkus Review, www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/emory-m-thomas/robert-e-lee/ “Nonfiction Book Review: Robert E. Lee: A Biography.” Publisher’s Weekly, www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-393-03730-2 Thompson, Charles Willis. “Robert E. Lee: A Final Portrait.” New York Times Book Review, 14 Oct. 1934. Thompson, Charles Willis. “Dr. Freeman Concludes his Monumental Life of Lee.” New York Times Book Review, 10 Feb. 1935. Benet, Stephen Vincent. “Great General, Greater Man: Robert E. Lee.” New York Herald Tribune, 10 Feb. 1935. Tate, Allen. “The Definitive Lee.” The New Republic, 19 Dec. 1934. Commager, Henry Steele. “New Books in Review: The Life of Lee.” The Yale Review, vol. XXIV, no. 3 (March 1935), 594. Malone, Dumas. “Review of R.E. Lee.” American Historical Review, vol. XL, no. 3, (April 1935), 534. Malone, Dumas. “Review of R.E. Lee.” American Historical Review, vol. XLI, no. 1, (October 1935), 164. Johnson, David E. Douglas Southall Freeman. Pelican Publishing Company, 2002. “30 Great Books About Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee.” About Great Books, www.aboutgreatbooks.com/topics/history/ulysses-s-grant-robert-e-lee/ Reeves, John. “7 Essential Books on Robert E. Lee.” Medium, 15 Aug. 2017, medium.com/@reevesjw/7-essential-books-on-robert-e-lee-dae455bc7bcf

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Robert E. Lee Biography

Birthday: January 19 , 1807 ( Capricorn )

Born In: Stratford, Virginia, United States

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Also Known As: Robert Edward Lee

Died At Age: 63

Spouse/Ex-: Mary Anna Custis Lee

father: Henry Lee III

mother: Anne Hill Carter

siblings: Algernon Sidney Lee, Anne Kinloch Lee Marshall, Catherine Mildred Lee Childe, Charles Carter Lee, Henry Lee IV, Lucy Grymes Lee Carter, Philip Lee, Sydney Smith Lee

children: Anne Carter Lee, Eleanor Agnes Lee, George Washington Custis Lee, Mary Custis Lee, Mildred Childe Lee, Robert E. Lee Jr. , William Henry Fitzhugh Lee

Born Country: United States

Quotes By Robert E. Lee Military Leaders

Died on: October 12 , 1870

place of death: Lexington, Virginia, United States

U.S. State: Virginia

Cause of Death: Pneumonia

Diseases & Disabilities: Stroke

Ancestry: British American

education: United States Military Academy

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What role did robert e. lee play in the american civil war, what were some of robert e. lee's major battles during the civil war, what was robert e. lee's stance on slavery during the civil war, how did robert e. lee's surrender at appomattox court house impact the end of the civil war, what is the legacy of robert e. lee in american history.

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Robert E. Lee: A Biography Paperback – Illustrated, June 17, 1997

"The best and most balanced of the Lee biographies."― New York Review of Books

• Print length 490 pages
• Language English
• Publisher W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date June 17, 1997
• Dimensions 6.2 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
• ISBN-10 0393316319
• ISBN-13 978-0393316315
• See all details

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About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Revised ed. edition (June 17, 1997)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 490 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393316319
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393316315
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.2 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
• #831 in U.S. Civil War Confederacy History
• #1,398 in American Civil War Biographies (Books)

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Emory m. thomas.

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Robert E. Lee – Biography, Major Facts, & Achievements

by World History Edu · October 24, 2019

Robert E. Lee Biography and Facts

Robert Edward Lee was born on the 19th of January, 1807 in Stratford Hall, Virginia, US. He was born to an aristocratic Virginia family. His father, Henry Lee, was a colonel and served during the American Revolutionary War.

Robert E. Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Cutis and they had several children. Lee started his military career in the United States Army. However, during America’s most fatal war – the American Civil War – Lee was the commander of the Confederate States Army.

Serving as a Colonel in the United States Army from 1829 to 1861 and then later as a General in Chief in the Confederate States Army from 1861 to 1865, he was a man of principle and focus who fought gallantly for any cause that he set his mind to. Depending on whom you ask, Robert E. Lee is remembered in two different ways; in the south as a hero, and in the North, possibly as a traitor.

Major Facts about Robert E. Lee

Born –  Robert Edward Lee

Birthday – January 19, 1807

Place of birth –  Stratford Hall, Virginia, United States

Date of death – October 12, 1870

Place of death – Lexington, Virginia, United States  

Cause of death –  Pneumonia

Burial place – University Chapel, Washington and Lee University

Most Famous For – General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States (1862-1865)

Mother –  Anne Hill Carter Lee

Father – Henry Lee III

Wife –  Mary Anna Randolph Custis (1831-1870)

Children –  Custis, Mary Custis, Rooney, Robert E. Lee Jr., Anne Carter, Eleanor Agnes, Mildred Childe

Military career:

Rank – Colonel (U.S. Army), General (Confederate States)

Service years – United States Army (1829-1861), Confederate States Army (1861-1865)

Wars fought in – Mexican-American War (1846-1848), American Civil War (1861-1865)

Nickname – “Uncle Robert”, “Marble Man”, “King of Spades”

Major Accomplishments of Robert E. Lee

For his astounding military mind and tactics, Robert E. Lee is continuously venerated as one of the greatest generals in U.S. history, if not world history in general. In order to emphasize this point, the following are the top accomplishments of Robert E. Lee:

Distinguished Military Academy Graduate

He had an appointment at the United States Military Academy in West Point in 1825 and graduated second in his class. Robert E. Lee distinguished himself academically as a student and he was commissioned as a brevet second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers of the U.S. Army in June 1829. Lee would proceed to become an officer and also a military engineer in the United States Army, serving for 32 years.

Phenomenal in the Mexican-American War

Robert E. Lee served as a member of staff for fellow Virginian, General Winfield Scott. Thanks to his engineering skills, Lee helped Scott by using tactical arts to find the opponents’ weak points which led to their victory. He was illustrious in the Mexican War. He was in charge of several brave duties which led to America’s victory.

Lee received three brevet promotions for his acts of courage during the war. He also secured promotions beginning from Major to Lieutenant colonel, and then to colonel. At that time, he was considered one of the most intelligent, courageous and daring officers in the U.S. Army.

During the Mexican-American War, Robert Lee, the captain of the engineers, for the first time, worked side by side with Ulysses S. Grant (later Civil War General and 18th President of the United States). Both of them worked closely with each other and ended the war on the 2nd of February, 1848.

Arlington Plantation and the Curtis slaves

George Washington Parke Curtis, Robert E. Lee’s father-in-law died in 1857. He left behind a vast plantation and slaves amidst huge debt. After Curtis’s death, the plantation faced a financial crisis due to improper management. Lee then decided to take charge of the plantation, and for him to take up the management role, he took a two-year leave of absence from the army.

Managing the plantation also involved managing the slaves. These slaves were made to believe that they were to be set free as soon as their master died. Since they felt their freedom was being delayed, some tried escaping but were caught and put in jail. The slaves protested against Lee’s harsh treatment on the plantation and this almost led to a revolt. About five years later, the slaves were set free after filing the deed of manumission.

John Brown’s Raid at Harper’s Ferry

After the war, Robert served as a superintendent of West Point until 1855 when he left to take a Cavalry position in Texas. In 1859, he was ordered to put down John Brown’s slave rebellion at Harper’s Ferry. John Brown was a leader of a group of abolitionists who were stirring up a slave rebellion. Lee and his soldiers attacked him and his followers since they refused to surrender. This attack was accomplished in an hour with Lee capturing John and his followers.

Abraham Lincoln , the incoming president, signed Lee’s colonelcy in March 1861 after the secession of Texas from the Union in February 1861. To fight the Southern States that had detached themselves from the Union, Lee was offered the rank of Major General after his promotion. He was given a chance to lead an army, which he renamed the Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of the Seven Pines.

Commander of the Army during the Seven Days Battle

Lee gained admiration from his people and his men gave him the name, ‘Marse Robert’ after his attack against McClellan’s forces in the Seven Days Battle (June 25–July 1, 1862) . His serial attacks distorted McClellan’s plans to attack him and his men. These tactical moves made McClellan leave the Peninsula Campaign. It was a battle that recorded one of the heaviest casualties.

Within 90 days after his promotion, Lee had moved the battle lines further by defeating a number of Union forces, including one led by General John Pope at the Battle of Bull Run. With the aim of ending the war, Lee invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania. Hoping that he could gather materials in the Union territory and then influence the upcoming elections.

For the second time, McClellan attacked Lee and his forces at Antietam on the 17th of September. This battle was considered the bloodiest as it recorded great losses on both sides. After the battle of Antietam, Abraham Lincoln ordered another attack on Lee and his force. It was led by Ambrose Burnside, the commander of the Army of Potomac on the 13th of December 1862 at Fredericksburg. Even though the battle was disastrous, Lee came out victorious.

President Lincoln wasn’t deterred by the defeat at Fredericksburg under Commander Burnside. He decided to name another man Joseph Hooker, to command the Army of Potomac. Lee’s army was attacked by Hooker in May 1863 at Chancellorsville. Using tactical means, Lee’s army defeated but lost Jackson his commander amidst great casualties.

Bravery during the American Civil War

Robert E. Lee was an able tactician and commander who in spite of the 4-year bloody civil war was respected by his men and opposing commanders from the Union Army

Robert E. Lee performed the duty as a senior military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis in the first year of the Civil War. As the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, he conquered most of his battles against the Union armies at the battlefield.

At the beginning of the civil war, Lee was asked by President Abraham Lincoln to lead the Union forces. Robert refused and as a matter of fact, resigned his post because he considered himself a Virginian. His original intention was that he was not going to fight against the South.

The North was against slavery while the South relied on it. Due to this, slavery is considered to be the central cause of the civil war. It created cultural and political division between the North and the South.

General Robert E. Lee opposed succession and in his opinion, slavery was a sinful act. He didn’t join in to fight for the south until his home state, Virginia was invaded. He was the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862. Lee commanded the Army in the American Civil War from 1862 until its surrender in 1865. The Union Army was forced to withdraw from its position after the attack against George McClellan.

Robert E. Lee achieved some important battle wins over the Union Army, but often his audacious attacks caused him to lose many men, which was even compounding the fast depleting resources of the South. In the dying years of the Civil War, Lee was in charge of all Confederate Armies, and ultimately it was Lee who surrendered to the Union general Ulysses S. Grant.

The Battle of Gettysburg and the Surrender at Appomattox Court House

The Union Army faced great losses after a series of fights and Lee was unsuccessful with his attacks against the North. Even though the army was unable to withstand General Ulysses S. Grant, Lee didn’t listen to the advice to save Vicksburg. In 1863, he attacked the North another time in Pennsylvania at the Battle of Gettysburg (a three-day battle). On the third day of the battle, Robert and his army retreated due to great loss. He was condemned for his aggressive strategies into the Union territory which caused great casualties.

Ulysses S. Grant, in 1864, realizing how weak Lee’s army was, decided to launch a series of attacks. Lee was successful in the initial ones but they were defeated when he sent Jubal A. Early to lead the raid. Robert and his army were outnumbered in the subsequent attack as a result of inadequate supplies. On the 9th of April 1865, he surrendered his army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. After the surrender, he instructed his men to be good citizens, not to fight but go home. This was the end of the civil war.

Defeated by Grant, Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army, surrendered at Appomattox Court House in April 1865.

Read More: 10 Most Famous Americans of the Civil War Era

Robert E. Lee after the Civil War

Robert E. Lee became the President of Washington and Lee University in Virginia in 1865. He dedicated his last years to education.  Also, he requested a national reconciliation; he did everything he could to create patch up the relationship between the North and the South.

Due to the exceptional roles he played in the American Army, Bobby Lee was given several nicknames like “Granny Lee”, “Marble Man” and “King of spades”.

Robert E, Lee is remembered in two different ways; in the south as a hero and the North, possibly, as a traitor. He died of pneumonia on the 12th of October 1870 at age 63. In 1975, Robert E. Lee’s citizenship was posthumously restored by the U.S. Congress, effective June 13, 1865.

In September 2021, The Robert E. Lee statue was removed in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The statue, a symbolic confederate statue, was designed by Mercié, Monument Avenue, Richmond, Virginia, 1890

FACT CHECK : At World History Edu, we strive for utmost accuracy and objectivity. But if you come across something that doesn’t look right, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.

Tags: Confederate Army Military Generals Robert E. Lee Robert E. Lee Biography Robert E. Lee Facts

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GALLERIES > American History > Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee

History of Robert E. Lee

According to Civil War history, Robert Edward Lee, often referred to as “Robert E. Lee” was a prominent figure within the Confederate Army. Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee III, a Revolutionary War officer, was his father. Owing to unsuccessful investments, Lee’s father experienced major financial setbacks and was imprisoned for debt. After his father’s release, the family quickly relocated to Alexandria, which at the time was still a part of the District of Columbia (annexed by Virginia in 1847). They did this for two reasons: first, there were top-notch schools there, and second, several extended family members lived nearby. Lee’s father permanently relocated to the West Indies in 1812, leaving his family to live on Oronoco Street. Lee was raised as a devout Christian, yet it took him till the age of 46 to be confirmed in the Episcopal Church.

Although Robert E. Lee owned numerous slaves, he opposed slavery philosophically but supported its constitutionality. Lee made the decision to join his home state when Virginia announced its intention to leave the Union in 1861. He participated in small combat engagements and served as Jefferson Davis’ top military advisor throughout the first year of the Civil War. Robert E. Lee served as a general and was later promoted to Overall Commander of the Confederate States Army. During his military career, Robert E. Lee had many accomplishments. He received multiple commendations for bravery and competence in the Mexican-American War as a military officer. However, slavery and the Confederacy would later tarnish Lee’s legacy.

DID YOU KNOW?

Lee received multiple commendations for bravery and competence in the Mexican-American War.

Interesting facts about robert e. lee.

Revolutionary War hero Harry Lee, aka “Light Horse,” welcomed his son Robert to his aristocratic Virginian family in January 1807.

At West Point Military Academy, Lee excelled academically and placed second in his class behind Charles Mason, who later rose to the position of Chief Justice of the Iowa Territorial Supreme Court. Robert E. Lee’s accomplishments, motivation, concentration, height and good looks, earned him the nickname “Marble Model.” He completed the four-year program without receiving any demerits.

Robert E. Lee married the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington.

In 1829, not long after he completed his education, Lee began courting Mary Anna Randolph Custis, a distant cousin and childhood friend.

One of Robert E. Lee’s accomplishments included suppressing a slave revolt in just one hour.

According to Robert E. Lee’s biography, he turned down an offer for a Union leadership post.

Although Robert E. Lee is frequently regarded to have opposed slavery, he, unlike other White Southerners, never outright condemned it. He openly criticized abolitionists.

From 1865 until his passing, Robert E. Lee was president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Virginia. His reputation made it possible for the school to raise a lot of money, turning it into a premier Southern university.

During Lee’s life, he was never pardoned and did not have his citizenship.

Where Arlington National Cemetery lays today was previously where Robert E. Lee’s family resided before the war.

Early Life of Robert E. Lee

Lee was the youngest son. After his father died, when he was six, Lee’s mother raised him. Young Robert was well-educated. He attended private schools in Virginia and abroad as an affluent child. In 1825, Robert E. Lee began studying at West Point. He graduated second in his class in 1829. For 30 years, Lee served as a U.S. Army colonel. In the Mexican-American War, he earned three brevet promotions for valor in action as a staff officer under General Winfield Scott. Following the Harpers Ferry armory raid, he headed U.S. Marines to apprehend abolitionist John Brown.

Lee attended private schools in Virginia and abroad as an affluent child.

He became West Point’s superintendent in 1852 and updated the school’s curriculum and training procedures. He was granted command of the Union Army in 1861 by President Abraham Lincoln. However, he declined, claiming his allegiance to Virginia. Instead, he joined the Confederate Army and climbed fast to command the Northern Virginia Army.

In 1861, Lee debated secession despite his military victories. He resigned from his U.S. commission in command of the Union Army and joined the Confederacy. He led the Northern Virginia Army as a Confederate general. He was victorious at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville as commander. In the Battle of Gettysburg, he commanded a disastrous assault on Cemetery Ridge, which turned the war. Andrew Johnson pardoned him after the Civil War. He was named President of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, where he served from 1865 until his death. He is credited with rebuilding the school and teaching his pupils duty and dignity. He died after a stroke at 63 on October 12, 1870.

Accomplishments of Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee was recognized as a national war hero after he battled and defeated numerous Mexican armies and made significant contributions to U.S. territory gains that aided in westward expansion and boosted American dominance in the world.

He was given the enormous burden of proving his importance as a leader while serving in the U.S. military. He used his expertise to lead soldiers into bloody battles against stronger armies during the Civil War.

Lee led the Confederates to victory in numerous engagements over the course of his lengthy career as a general, displaying incredible bravery and savagery in the face of overwhelming odds against the South. He managed to remain a very worthy opponent against the North during the Civil War.

Hall of Fame

In 1936, Robert E. Lee entered the Great Americans Hall of Fame (HOF) after 70 years. Bronx Community College’s HOF honors Americans who have made major contributions to American history and culture with bronze busts. Lee’s HOF membership was controversial due to his ties to the Confederacy and slavery, but he was honored for his military leadership and strategic acumen.

Lee was honored for his military leadership and strategic acumen.

Descendants of robert e. lee.

Robert E. Lee married Mary Anna Custis Lee. They had three boys and four girls. George Washington Custis Lee, their oldest son, became a Confederate commander like his father. Lee was Washington University’s president from 1865 until 1877. Their second son, William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, was a major Confederate general. He governed Virginia from 1886 to 1890 after the war. Robert E. Lee Jr., their youngest son, edited the Richmond Times-Dispatch for years as a lawyer and writer. He helped preserve his father’s legacy. Mary, Agnes and Mildred, Lee’s daughters, also contributed to society. Mary, a loving wife and mother, helped her father in his later years. Agnes’ art and writing honored her father’s life. Mildred’s faith and positivity inspired people despite her severe rheumatoid disease. There are many descendants of Robert E. Lee in the U.S. Several works in education, the arts and other sectors commemorate him and his family.

Robert E. Lee’s life was full of victory and sorrow. He is still revered and inspires generations of Americans. Lee’s services to the nation should not be forgotten despite his ties to the Confederacy and the dispute between his life and his beliefs. As a soldier, professor and leader, he epitomized the finest American character and remains a vital component in the pursuit of a perfect union.

Late in Life

On April 9, 1865, he surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, hence leading to the culmination of the Civil War. Lee surrendered for many reasons. After years of fighting, his army was exhausted. Second, Lee knew the Confederates needed food, ammo and equipment to battle. Finally, Lee realized that prolonging the war would only hurt his men and civilians. After the capitulation, Northerners and Southerners praised Lee’s honorable surrender. His determination to put the country before himself helped heal some of the war’s terrible wounds. Robert E. Lee is difficult and important in American history. Notwithstanding his dubious legacy, his military and national contributions are unquestionable.

Lee faced several obstacles after the Civil War. He worked extensively to revamp the school’s curriculum and infrastructure. Notwithstanding his achievements, Lee’s reputation was muddied by his support of the Confederacy and slavery. Lee’s portrait has become a flashpoint in Civil War legacy and racial justice arguments.

It was inevitable that Robert E. Lee had to start over after the war. He worked hard to create Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, one of the South’s premier universities, where he served as president. Lee developed cardiac issues in the late 1860s and later died from them. Despite his worsening health, Lee served at the institution until his death in 1870.

Lee became Washington College’s president after struggling to find work.

Who was robert e. lee.

Robert E. Lee was an accomplished leader in the United States Army. He fought for and led the Confederacy during the American Civil War and later surrendered to the Union.

How many slaves did Robert E. Lee own?

Robert E. Lee bought 200 enslaved people after inheriting several dozen from his father-in-law.

What did Robert E. Lee do in the Civil War?

During the American Civil War, Robert E. Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia, the most effective of the Southern troops, and eventually all the Confederate armies. Lee rose to prominence as the Confederacy’s military commander and a representation of the American South.

Why did Robert E. Lee surrender?

Lee surrendered for a number of reasons. The Confederate Army had been battling for years and was worn out. Furthermore, Lee was aware that the Confederates needed supplies, weapons and equipment to continue fighting. Lee finally saw that continuing the conflict would only harm his troops and citizens.

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The making and the breaking of the legend of robert e. lee.

... As far as Lee was concerned, the culmination of these trends came in the publication in the 1930s of a four-volume biography by Douglas Southall Freeman, a Virginia-born journalist and historian. For decades, Freeman’s hagiography would be considered the definitive account of Lee’s life. Freeman warned readers that they should not search for ambiguity, complexity or inconsistency in Lee, for there was none — he was simply a paragon of virtue. Freeman displayed little interest in Lee’s relationship to slavery. The index to his four volumes contained 22 entries for “devotion to duty,” 19 for “kindness,” 53 for Lee’s celebrated horse, Traveller. But “slavery,” “slave emancipation” and “slave insurrection” together received five. Freeman observed, without offering details, that slavery in Virginia represented the system “at its best.” He ignored the postwar testimony of Lee’s former slave Wesley Norris about the brutal treatment to which he had been subjected. In 1935 Freeman was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in biography.

That same year, however, W. E. B. Du Bois published “Black Reconstruction in America,” a powerful challenge to the mythologies about slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction that historians had been purveying. Du Bois identified slavery as the fundamental cause of the war and emancipation as its most profound outcome. He portrayed the abolitionists as idealistic precursors of the 20th-century struggle for racial justice, and Reconstruction as a remarkable democratic experiment — the tragedy was not that it was attempted but that it failed. Most of all, Du Bois made clear that blacks were active participants in the era’s history, not simply a problem confronting white society. Ignored at the time by mainstream scholars, “Black Reconstruction” pointed the way to an enormous change in historical interpretation, rooted in the egalitarianism of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and underpinned by the documentary record of the black experience ignored by earlier scholars. Today, Du Bois’s insights are taken for granted by most historians, although they have not fully penetrated the national culture.

Inevitably, this revised view of the Civil War era led to a reassessment of Lee, who, Du Bois wrote elsewhere, possessed physical courage but not “the moral courage to stand up for justice to the Negro.” Even Lee’s military career, previously viewed as nearly flawless, underwent critical scrutiny. In “The Marble Man” (1977), Thomas Connelly charged that “a cult of Virginia authors” had disparaged other Confederate commanders in an effort to hide Lee’s errors on the battlefield. James M. McPherson’s “Battle Cry of Freedom,” since its publication in 1988 the standard history of the Civil War, compared Lee’s single-minded focus on the war in Virginia unfavorably with Grant’s strategic grasp of the interconnections between the eastern and western theaters.

Lee’s most recent biographer , Michael Korda, does not deny his subject’s admirable qualities. But he makes clear that when it came to black Americans, Lee never changed. Lee was well informed enough to know that, as the Confederate vice president, Alexander H. Stephens, declared, slavery and “the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man” formed the “cornerstone” of the Confederacy; he chose to take up arms in defense of a slaveholders’ republic. After the war, he could not envision an alternative to white supremacy.

What Korda calls Lee’s “legend” needs to be retired. ...