Information AboutRobert E. Lee |
For the author of Robert Edward Lee ( January 19 , 1807 – October 12 , 1870 ) was a career army officer and the most successful general of the Confederate forces during the American Civil War . He eventually commanded all Confederate armies as general-in-chief. His victories against numerically superior forces won him enduring fame as an astute military commander. After the war, he urged reconciliation, and spent his final years as president of the college that would come to bear his name. Lee remains an iconic figure of the Confederacy to this day. EARLY LIFE AND CAREER Robert E. Lee was born at Stratford Hall Plantation , in Westmoreland County, Virginia , the fifth child of Revolutionary War hero Henry Lee ("Lighthorse Harry") and Anne Hill (née Carter) Lee. He entered the United States Military Academy in 1825. When he graduated (second in his class of 46) in 1829, not only had he attained the top academic record, but he had no demerits, either. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Corps Of Engineers . Engineering, family Lee served for seventeen months at Fort Pulaski on Cockspur Island, Georgia . In 1831, he was transferred to Fort Monroe at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula and played a major role in the final construction of both Fort Monroe and its opposite, Fort Calhoun. Fort Monroe was completely surrounded by a Moat . Fort Calhoun, later renamed Fort Wool , was built on a man-made island across the navigational channel from Old Point Comfort in the middle of the mouth of Hampton Roads . When construction was completed in 1834, Fort Monroe was referred to as the "Gibraltar of Chesapeake Bay." While he was stationed at Fort Monroe, he married , William H. Fitzhugh , Robert Edward, Mary, Annie, Agnes, and Mildred. Lee served as an assistant in the chief engineer's office in Washington from 1834 to 1837, but spent the summer of 1835 helping to lay out the state line between Ohio and Michigan . In 1837, he got his first important command. As a First Lieutenant of engineers, he supervised the engineering work for St. Louis harbor and for the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. His work there earned him a promotion to Captain . In 1841, he was transferred to Fort Hamilton in New York Harbor, where he took charge of building fortifications. There he served as a Vestryman at St. John's Episcopal Church, Fort Hamilton. Mexican War, West Point, and Texas Lee distinguished himself in the Mexican War (1846–1848). He was one of Winfield Scott 's chief aides in the march from Veracruz to Mexico City . He was instrumental in several American victories through his personal reconnaissance as a staff officer; he found routes of attack that the Mexicans had not defended because they thought the terrain was impassable. He was promoted to Major after the Battle Of Cerro Gordo in April, 1847. He also fought at Contreras , Churubusco , and Chapultepec , and was wounded at the latter. By the end of the war, he had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel . After the Mexican War, he spent three years at Fort Carroll in Baltimore harbor, after which he became the superintendent of West Point in 1852. During his three years at West Point, he improved the buildings, the courses, and spent a lot of time with the cadets. Lee's oldest son, George Washington Custis Lee , attended West Point during his tenure. Custis Lee graduated in 1854, first in his class. In 1855, Lee became Lieutenant Colonel of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry (under the command of Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston ) and was sent to the Texas frontier. There he helped protect settlers from attacks by the Apache and the Comanche . These were not happy years for Lee, as he did not like to be away from his family for long periods of time, especially as his wife was becoming increasingly ill. Lee came home to see her as often as he could. Lee as slave holder As a member of the Virginia aristocracy, Lee lived in close contact with Slavery before he joined the Army, but he never held more than about a half-dozen slaves under his own name. When Lee's father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis , died in October 1857, Lee's wife inherited 63 slaves. Lee was executor of the will that required them to be freed after five years. The slaves were eager for emancipation but Lee needed the money so he kept them for five years. He tried without success to hire out the slaves, and failed to find a plantation manager. So he took a two-year leave of absence from the army in order to manage the plantation. When three ran away and were recaptured, he hired them out to work on railroad construction in Richmond and Alabama. According to Freeman, "That probably was the extent of the punishment imposed on them. There is no evidence, direct or indirect, that Lee ever had them or any other Negroes flogged. The usage at Arlington and elsewhere in Virginia among people of Lee's station forbade such a thing. But false stories were spread." About the letters in the ''New York Tribune'' falsely accusing him of abusing the slaves, Freeman notes, "This was Lee's first experience with the extravagance of irresponsible antislavery agitators. The libel, which was to be reprinted many times in later years with new embellishments, made him unhappy, but it did not lead him to any violent retort.Freeman 1934, Vol. I, pp. 390-392. Lee released the slaves after the end of the five year period in the winter of 1862, filing the deed of manumission on December 29 , 1862 Freeman 1934, Vol. I, p. 476.. Lee's views on slavery Since the end of the Civil War, it has often been suggested that Lee was in some sense opposed to slavery. In the period following the Civil War and Reconstruction , and after his death, Lee became a central figure in the Lost Cause interpretation of the war, and as succeeding generations came to look on slavery as a terrible wrong, the idea that Lee had always somehow opposed it helped maintain his stature as a symbol of Southern honor and national reconciliation. Some of the evidence cited in favor of the claim that Lee opposed slavery are the Manumission of Custis's slaves, as discussed above, and his support, towards the end of the war, for enrolling slaves in the Confederate States Army, with manumission offered as an eventual reward for good service. Lee gave his public support to this idea two weeks before the war ended, too late to do any good for the Confederacy. Another source is Lee's 1856 letter to his wifeFreeman 1934, p. 372., which can be interpreted in multiple ways: Freeman's analysis''Ibid'' puts Lee's attitude toward slavery and abolition in historical context: Suppression of the Harper's Ferry uprising and capture of John Brown Lee happened to be in Washington at the time of John Brown 's raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry , Virginia (now West Virginia ) in October 1859. He was summoned by the Secretary of War on October 17, informed that a slave uprising was taking place in Virginia, and given command of detachments of Maryland and Virginia militia, soldiers from Fort Monroe , and United States Marines , to suppress the uprising and arrest its leaders. Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart , who also happened to be in Washington at the time on business, was allowed to accompany Lee on his mission.Freeman 1934, Vol. I, pp. 394-395. By the time Lee arrived later that night, the militia on the site had penned Brown and his supporters up in the fire-engine house at the armory with several white hostages they had taken from slave-holding families in the area. Lee surrounded the house with troops and sent Stuart to deliver a demand for immediate surrender early in the morning on October 18 . When Brown refused and demanded safe passage out of the town as a condition for releasing the hostages, Stuart signalled Lee and Lee sent the Marines to storm the fire-engine house. About three minutes later, the raid was over, with two Marines shot and four of Brown's party dead. Brown himself was badly wounded and captured. Lee participated in the interrogation of Brown later that day, and turned Brown and his party over to the state of Virginia on October 19 . Lee returned home briefly, then was ordered back to Harper's Ferry in late November, to command a detachment of federal troops to protect the arsenal from any further attempts. On December 9, a week after Brown was hanged, Lee received orders to return home. He testified before the Senate hearings on the raid, and then returned to his regiment on February 10 1860 ''Ibid'', pp. 403-404.. When Texas seceded from the Union in 1861, Lee was called back to Washington, D.C. , to wait for further orders. CIVIL WAR portrait of Lee in 1865]] On April 18 , 1861 , on the eve of the American Civil War , President Abraham Lincoln , through Secretary of War Simon Cameron , offered Lee command of the United States Army ( Union Army ) through an intermediary, Maryland Republican politician Francis P. Blair , at the home of Blair's son Montgomery , Lincoln's Postmaster-General, in Washington. Lee's sentiments were against Secession , which he denounced in an 1861 letter as "nothing but revolution" and a betrayal of the efforts of the Founders. However his loyalty to his native Virginia led him to join the Confederacy. At the outbreak of war, he was first appointed to command all of Virginia's forces and then as one of the first five full generals of Confederate forces. Lee, however, refused to wear the insignia of a Confederate General stating that, in honor to his rank of Colonel in the United States Army, he would only display the three stars of a Confederate Colonel until the Civil War had been won and Lee could be promoted, in peacetime, to a General in the Confederate Army. After commanding Confederate forces in western Virginia, and then the coastal defenses along the Carolina seaboards, he became military adviser to Jefferson Davis , president of the Confederacy , whom he knew from West Point. Commander, Army of Northern Virginia In the spring of 1862, during the Peninsula Campaign , the Union Army Of The Potomac under General George B. McClellan advanced upon Richmond from Fort Monroe , eventually reaching the eastern edges of the Confederate capital along the Chickahominy River . Following the wounding of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston at the Battle Of Seven Pines , on June 1 , 1862 , Lee assumed command of the Army Of Northern Virginia , his first opportunity to lead an army in the field. Newspaper editorials of the day objected to his appointment due to concerns that Lee would not be aggressive and would wait for the Union army to come to him. He oversaw substantial strengthening of Richmond's defenses during the first three weeks of June and then launched a series of attacks, the Seven Days Battles , against McClellan's forces. Lee's attacks resulted in heavy Confederate casualties and they were marred by clumsy tactical performances by his subordinates, but his aggressive actions unnerved McClellan, who retreated to a point on the James River where Union naval forces were in control. These successes led to a rapid turn-around of public opinion and the newspaper editorials quickly changed their tune on Lee's aggressiveness. After McClellan's retreat, Lee defeated another Union army at the Second Battle Of Bull Run . He then invaded Maryland, hoping to replenish his supplies and possibly influence the Northern elections that fall in favor of ending the war. McClellan obtained a lost order that revealed Lee's plans and brought superior forces to bear at Antietam before Lee's army could be assembled. In the bloodiest day of the war, Lee withstood the Union assaults, but withdrew his battered army back to Virginia. ]] Disappointed by McClellan's failure to destroy Lee's army, Lincoln named Ambrose Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Burnside ordered an attack across the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg . Delays in getting bridges built across the river allowed Lee's army ample time to organize strong defenses, and the attack on December 12 , 1862 , was a disaster for the Union. Lincoln then named Joseph Hooker commander of the Army of the Potomac. Hooker's advance to attack Lee in May, 1863, near Chancellorsville , Virginia, was defeated by Lee and Stonewall Jackson 's daring plan to divide the army and attack Hooker's flank. It was an enormous victory over a larger force, but came at a great cost as Jackson, Lee's best subordinate, was gravely wounded and died soon after from contracted pneumonia. In the summer of 1863, Lee proceeded to invade the North again, hoping for a Southern victory that would compel the North to grant Confederate independence. But his attempts to defeat the Union forces under George G. Meade at Gettysburg , Pennsylvania, failed. His subordinates did not attack with the aggressive drive Lee expected, J.E.B. Stuart 's cavalry was out of the area, and Lee's decision to launch a massive frontal assault on the center of the Union line—the disastrous Pickett's Charge —resulted in heavy Confederate losses. Lee was compelled to retreat again but, as after Antietam, was not vigorously pursued by Union forces. Following his defeat at Gettysburg, Lee sent a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis on August 8 , 1863 , but Davis refused Lee's request. In 1864, the new Union general-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant sought to destroy Lee's army and capture Richmond. Lee and his men stopped each advance, but Grant had superior reinforcements and kept pushing each time a bit farther to the southeast. These battles in the Overland Campaign included the Wilderness , Spotsylvania Court House , and Cold Harbor . Grant eventually fooled Lee by stealthily moving his army across the James River . After stopping a Union attempt to capture Petersburg, Virginia , a vital railroad link supplying Richmond, Lee's men built elaborate trenches and were besieged in Petersburg. He attempted to break the stalemate by sending Jubal A. Early on a raid through the Shenandoah Valley to Washington, D.C. , but Early was defeated by the superior forces of Philip Sheridan . The Siege Of Petersburg would last from June 1864 until April, 1865. General-in-chief (right).]] On January 31 , 1865 , Lee was promoted to general-in-chief of Confederate forces. In early 1865, he urged adoption of a plan to allow slaves to join the Confederate army in exchange for their freedom. The scheme never came to fruition in the short time the Confederacy had left before it ceased to exist. As the Confederate army was worn down by months of battle, a Union attempt to capture Petersburg on April 2 , 1865 , succeeded. Lee abandoned the defense of Richmond and sought to join General Joseph Johnston's army in North Carolina. His forces were surrounded by the Union Army and he surrendered to General Grant on April 9 , 1865 , at Appomattox Court House , Virginia. Lee resisted calls by some subordinates (and indirectly by Jefferson Davis) to reject surrender and allow small units to melt away into the mountains, setting up a lengthy guerrilla war. AFTER THE WAR Following the war, Lee applied for, but was never granted, the official postwar Amnesty . After filling out the application form, it was delivered to the desk of Secretary of State William H. Seward , who, assuming that the matter had been dealt with by someone else and that this was just a personal copy, filed it away until it was found decades later in his desk drawer. Lee took the lack of response to mean that the government wished to retain the right to prosecute him in the future. Lee's example of applying for amnesty encouraged many other former members of the Confederacy 's armed forces to accept restored U.S. citizenship. In 1975, President Gerald Ford granted a posthumous pardon and the U.S. Congress restored his citizenship, following the discovery of his oath of allegiance by an employee of the National Archives in 1970. Lee and his wife had lived at his wife's family home prior to the Civil War, the Custis-Lee Mansion . It was confiscated by Union forces, and is today part of Arlington National Cemetery . After his death, the courts ruled that the estate had been illegally seized, and that it should be returned to Lee's son. The government offered to buy the land outright, to which the family agreed. Lee served as president of Washington College (now Washington And Lee University ) in Lexington, Virginia , from October 2 , 1865 . Over five years, he transformed Washington College from a small, undistinguished school into one of the first American colleges to offer courses in Business , Journalism , and Spanish . He also imposed a sweeping and breathtakingly simple concept of honor — "We have but one rule, and it is that every student is a gentleman" — that endures today at Washington and Lee and at a few other schools that continue to maintain " Honor System s." Importantly, Lee focused the college on attracting male students from the North as well as the South. The college, like most in the United States at the time, remained Racially Segregated . After John Chavis , admitted in 1795, Washington (or Washington and Lee) would not admit a second black student until 1966. Final illness and death , sculptor]] On the evening of September 28 , 1870 , Lee fell ill, unable to speak coherently. When his doctors were called, the most they could do was help put him to bed and hope for the best. It is almost certain that Lee had suffered a Stroke . The stroke damaged the frontal lobes of the brain, which made speech impossible. He was Force-fed to keep up his strength, but he developed aspiration Pneumonia , a common side effect of improper force feeding. Lee died from the effects of pneumonia, on the morning of October 12 , 1870 , two weeks after the stroke, in Lexington , Virginia, and was buried underneath Lee Chapel at Washington And Lee University , where his body remains today. According to legend his last words were "Strike the Tent." TRIVIA
MONUMENTS AND MEMORIAL A number of geographic locations are named in Robert E. Lee's honor:
Arlington House , also known as the Custis-Lee Mansion and located in present-day Arlington National Cemetery , is maintained by the National Park Service as a memorial to Lee. A large, beautiful equestrian statue of Lee by French sculptor Jean Antonin Mercié is the centerpiece of Richmond, Virginia's famous Monument Avenue, which boasts four other statues to famous Confederates. This impressive monument to Lee was unveiled on May 29 , 1890 . Over 100,000 people attended this dedication. The Virginia State Memorial at Gettysburg Battlefield is topped by an equestrian statue of Lee by Frederick William Sievers , facing roughly in the direction of Pickett's Charge . Lee is one of the figures depicted on the massive Bas-relief carved into Stone Mountain near Atlanta, Georgia . Accompanying him on horseback in the relief are Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis . In 1900, Lee was one of the first 29 individuals selected for the Hall Of Fame For Great Americans (the first Hall of Fame in the United States), designed by Stanford White , on the Bronx, New York , campus of New York University , now a part of Bronx Community College . |
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