Lee, Robert E. (1807-1870), was a great general who commanded the Confederate Army in the American Civil War. He is one of the most important figures in the history of the American South. Lee’s fame rests both on his military achievements and on his character. He won the admiration and respect of Northerners as well as Southerners.
Lee chose to fight for the Confederacy out of loyalty to his native state, Virginia. He also opposed all efforts to limit the institution of slavery. Union General Ulysses S. Grant, to whom Lee finally surrendered, said about Lee: “There was not a man in the Confederacy whose influence with the whole people was as great as his.”
Unlike President Abraham Lincoln, who led the North in the Civil War, Lee was not a self-made man. Lee’s family was a leading family of Virginia. The Lees were one of the most distinguished families in the United States. A kinsman, Thomas Lee, had served as royal governor of the colony. Lee was also related to Francis Lightfoot Lee and Richard Henry Lee. Both had been statesmen and soldiers during the American Revolution (1775-1783). His father, Henry Lee, was known as “Light-Horse Harry.” Light-Horse Harry Lee had been a brilliant cavalry commander in the Revolutionary War. The Lee mansion, Matholic, burned in the early 1700’s. Queen Caroline of England gave Thomas Lee money to help rebuild it. Lee called the new building Stratford Hall.
Robert E. Lee was a handsome man. He stood 5 feet 101/2 inches (179 centimeters) tall and weighed about 170 pounds (77 kilograms). He had a commanding appearance—straight, alert, and intelligent. He was never known to smoke or drink alcoholic beverages. He did not use profane language.
Early years
Robert Edward Lee was born in Stratford Hall, near Montross, Virginia, on Jan. 19, 1807. He grew up with a deep devotion to his native state. His love of Virginia continued throughout his life. He was a serious boy. He spent many hours in his father’s library. In 1825 he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. His classmates admired him for his brilliance, leadership, and devotion to duty. He graduated from the academy with high honors in 1829. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers.
In the Corps of Engineers.
Lee served for 17 months at Fort Pulaski on Cockspur Island, Georgia. In 1831, the Army transferred him to Fort Monroe, Virginia, as assistant engineer. While stationed there, he married Mary Anna Randolph Custis (1808-1873). Mary Anna was Martha Washington’s great-granddaughter. The couple lived in her family home, Arlington. It still stands on a Virginia hill overlooking Washington, D.C. They had seven children—George Washington Custis, Mary, William H. Fitzhugh, Agnes, Annie, Robert Edward, and Mildred. The children grew up chiefly at Arlington. All three sons served as Confederate officers under Lee during the Civil War.
Lee served as an assistant in the chief engineer’s office in Washington from 1834 to 1837. He spent the summer of 1835 helping to lay out the boundary line between Ohio and Michigan. His first important independent job came in 1837. 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. There he took charge of building fortifications.
The Mexican War.
When war broke out between the United States and Mexico in 1846, the Army sent Lee to Texas. He served as assistant engineer under General John E. Wool. All his superior officers, especially General Winfield Scott, were impressed with the brave young Virginian.
Early in the war, Lee supervised the construction of bridges for Wool’s march toward the Mexican border. He then did excellent work on scouting trips. He was shortly transferred to General Winfield Scott’s command. He took part in the capture of Veracruz. Lee’s engineering skill made it possible for American troops to cross the difficult mountain passes on the way to the capital. During the march to Mexico City, Lee was promoted to brevet major, then to brevet lieutenant colonel. He was promoted to brevet colonel before the war ended.
The official reports praised Lee highly. Scott declared that his “success in Mexico was largely due to the skill, valor, and undaunted courage of Robert E. Lee … the greatest military genius in America.”
Superintendent of West Point.
After three years at Fort Carroll in Baltimore harbor, Lee became superintendent of West Point in 1852. He would have preferred duty in the field, instead of at a desk. But he assumed his post without complaint. During his three years at West Point, he improved the buildings and the courses. He spent much time with the cadets. One cadet, Jeb Stuart, later served as one of Lee’s best cavalry officers. Lee won a reputation during his service there as a fair and kind superintendent.
Other duties.
In 1855, Lee became a lieutenant colonel of cavalry. He was assigned to duty on the Texas frontier. There he helped protect settlers from attacks by Native American Apache and Comanche warriors. Once again, he proved to be an excellent soldier and organizer. But these were not happy years for Lee. He did not like to be away from his family for long periods. He particularly wanted to spend time with his wife, who was becoming an invalid. Lee came home to see her as often as possible. He happened to be in Washington at the time of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. He was sent there to arrest Brown and restore order. He accomplished this task quickly and with little loss of life. Then he returned to his regiment in Texas. After Texas seceded from the Union in 1861, Lee was recalled to Washington, D.C., to wait for further orders.
The Civil War
Like most white Southerners, Lee believed in slavery. Contrary to myth, he owned enslaved people until the Civil War. The only people he freed were those who had been enslaved by his father-in-law. Lee was required to do so by the terms of his father-in-law’s will. Lee bitterly opposed those who wished to abolish the institution of slavery. However, he did not favor secession. Lee admired George Washington. He hated the thought of a divided nation.
“Secession is nothing but revolution,” Lee wrote. “The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member… at will. It was intended for ‘perpetual union’ so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not a government by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution.”
Yet, when Lee had to make his choice, he could not bring himself to fight against Virginia or on the side of the abolitionists. On the advice of Lee’s old commander, Winfield Scott, Lincoln offered Lee command of the Union army in Virginia. But Lee declined the offer and instead resigned from the U.S. Army. He offered his services to the Confederacy.
Opening campaigns.
Lee’s first duty in the Confederacy was to organize Virginia’s troops. He then served in Richmond, Virginia, as military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In May 1861, Lee was appointed a full general. In the fall, Davis sent him to command Confederate forces in western Virginia. He sought to drive back Union troops who had advanced far into the state, but he was unsuccessful. Later, Davis sent him to fortify the coast of South Carolina against invasion. After Lee’s return to Richmond in early 1862, he helped direct General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s successful campaign in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
On May 31, 1862, in the Battle of Fair Oaks (Seven Pines), Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston was wounded. Johnston commanded the Confederate army near Richmond. Davis then assigned Lee to command Johnston’s army. It was called the Army of Northern Virginia.
In his new command, Lee faced Union General George B. McClellan. McClellan had approached within 7 miles (11 kilometers) of Richmond with 100,000 troops. Three forces were closing in on Jackson’s Confederate troops in the Shenandoah Valley. A fourth camped on the Rappahannock River. The forces stood ready to aid McClellan. In a series of engagements known as the Battles of the Seven Days, Lee forced McClellan to retreat. The campaign convinced Lee of the need for simpler methods and organization. Jackson became Lee’s most trusted subordinate. He was so devoted to Lee that he said he would follow him into battle blindfolded.
With Jackson’s help, Lee won a major victory over General John Pope in the second Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), in August 1862. He then prepared to invade Maryland. But McClellan intercepted a battle order which a Confederate staff officer had lost. Knowing Lee’s plans in advance, McClellan halted him in the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg). Lee returned to Virginia to reorganize the Confederate army.
Later battles.
Union General Ambrose E. Burnside led an attack against Lee in December 1862, at Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was on this occasion that Lee made a statement that has since become famous. Fog had covered the battlefield early in the morning, before the battle began. As it lifted and the Confederate commander surveyed the thousands of troops in full array, Lee remarked: “It is well that war is so terrible—we would grow too fond of it.”
Lee’s troops badly defeated the Union forces. But Lee could not take advantage of his victory. The Northern troops had been too cleverly placed. They were able to fall back without breaking their lines of communication. The Confederates had few reserves of men and supplies. Lee felt that his army could not win the war by fighting defensively. He also thought that it was too costly simply to stop the enemy army without destroying it. But first he had to fight another defensive battle.
General Joseph Hooker had taken over from Burnside. Hooker attacked Lee at Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863. The Confederate forces won a spectacular victory. But they also paid a high price for it. Stonewall Jackson died. He was accidentally shot by his own troops when he went ahead of his line of battle.
Determined to take the offensive, Lee moved into Pennsylvania. There he encountered the Northern army now under General George G. Meade, at Gettysburg. Bitter fighting continued for three days, from July 1 to 3, 1863. The battle ended with a Confederate defeat. Always generous to those under him, Lee insisted on taking the blame for the campaign’s failure.
During the course of the campaign, the Confederates seized large amounts of valuable supplies from the people of Pennsylvania. These supplies helped keep Lee’s army fed for some months to come.
Final engagements.
In the spring of 1864, Lee first faced Union General Ulysses S. Grant. In a series of bloody battles called the “Overland Campaign,” Grant pushed Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia closer and closer to Richmond. During one of these battles, Confederate soldiers showed the regard they had for Lee. They called him “Marse Robert.” As a brigade of Texans marched past Lee on their way into action, he left his post to join them. But the soldiers insisted that he take a safer position at the rear. They said, “We won’t go unless you go back!”
Grant finally got so close to Richmond that he could strike at the town of Petersburg. Petersburg controlled Richmond’s supply line from the South. Lee blocked Grant at first. Soon, however, he found his army caught. Lee held out for nine months in the Siege of Petersburg. During this time, in early 1865, Lee was made general in chief of all the Confederate armies. But on April 2, 1865, Grant broke Lee’s Petersburg lines. The next day, Richmond fell. Lee’s army retreated westward. Northern forces cut off and surrounded Lee’s troops at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. There Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9. Grant tried to make the surrender as easy as possible. He even allowed the Confederate troops to take their horses home for spring plowing.
Lee made his last ride down the lines on his famous horse, Traveller. As he rode, he told his army: “Men, we have fought through the war together. I have done my best for you; my heart is too full to say more.”
Last years
Lee now became a private citizen for the first time in 40 years. The Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction of 1865 barred him from taking public office. But he applied for a complete individual pardon as provided by the proclamation, hoping to set an example for other Southern leaders to follow. However, the application lacked a required oath of allegiance to the United States. Lee then signed an oath and sent it to Washington, but the oath became lost. As a result, Lee was not pardoned. A general amnesty of 1868 restored his right to vote. He still lacked the right to hold public office, however. In 1970, an employee of the National Archives (now the National Archives and Records Administration) found Lee’s oath. In 1975, Congress restored Lee’s full citizenship.
Lee could have had many positions of wealth and prestige. Instead, he chose to spend his last years as president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. He soon raised the small college to high levels of scholarship. He established schools of commerce and journalism. Young men from all parts of the South flocked to “General Lee’s school.” It was named Washington and Lee University after his death.
Lee urged his students and his friends to keep the peace and accept the outcome of the Civil War. His attitude was important at a time when bitterness and hatred swept both North and South. Lee opposed these feelings. He did everything in his power to restore the political, economic, and social life of the South. “Make your sons Americans,” he urged.
Lee’s health began to fail in 1870. After a brief illness, he died on Oct. 12, 1870. People throughout the country felt his death as a significant loss. Viscount Garnet Wolseley, a distinguished British soldier, spoke eloquently of Lee: “I have met many of the great men of my time, but Lee alone impressed me with the feeling that I was in the presence of a man who was cast in a grander mold and made of different and finer metal than all other men. He is stamped upon my memory as a being apart and superior to all others in every way—a man with whom none I ever knew, and very few of whom I have read, were worthy to be classed.”
Lee is buried in the chapel he built on the campus in Lexington. Other members of the Lee family are buried near him. This chapel is sometimes called “The Shrine of the South.” Thousands of people visit it every year. Lee’s home has been preserved in Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C. January 19, Lee’s birthday anniversary, is a legal holiday in most Southern states. Lee long represented Virginia in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol in Washington. In 2020, however, during an ongoing national reckoning with the legacy of the institution of slavery and white supremacy, the statue was removed from the Capitol.
