Lee, Robert E.

Lee, Robert E. (1807–1870), Confederate general.Born in Virginia, Lee was the son of Henry (“Lighthorse Harry”) Lee of Revolutionary War fame and a descendant of other prominent Virginia families. Graduating from West Point in 1829, he enjoyed a distinguished army career, including Mexican War service, and was a protégé of General Winfield Scott, general in chief of the U.S. Army. Contrary to a popular myth he owned and trafficked in slaves and pursued the capture and punishment of his own fugitive slaves. He also accepted the prewar southern claims of northern oppression. When Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, Lee rejected President Abraham Lincoln's appeals and resigned from the U.S. Army. As the Civil War began, he became first a leader of Virginia forces and then a general officer of the Confederate States of America.

From 1862 to 1865, Lee commanded the Confederacy's premier Army of Northern Virginia. An accomplished tactician, he favored offensive strategies and achieved a number of stunning victories over larger Union armies, most notably at the battle of Chancellorsville (May 1863). In the course of these victories, however, he suffered disproportionate and irreplaceable losses. Defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1863) and ultimately unsuccessful in the defense of Richmond, Virginia, he surrendered his army at Appomattox in April 1865. After the war, Lee served as president of Washington College in Virginia. Not conciliatory toward the North, he championed southern grievances and was antagonistic toward the freedmen. As sectional reconciliation took place, however, he posthumously came to be viewed as a heroic American in the North as well as the South.

Bibliography

Thomas Connelly , The Marble Man: R.E. Lee and His Image in American Society, 1971.
Alan T. Nolan , Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History, 1991.
Emory M. Thomas , Robert E. Lee: A Biography, 1995.

Alan T. Nolan