• General Notes

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  Lee, Robert E(dward) (1807-70), brilliant Confederate general, whose military genius was prob ably the greatest single factor in keeping the Confederacy alive through the four years of th e American Civil War.  Lee was born on January 19, 1807, in Stratford, Virginia, the son of L ighthorse Harry Lee, and was educated at the U.S. Military Academy. He graduated second in hi s class in 1829, receiving a  commission as second lieutenant in the engineers. He became fir st lieutenant in 1836, and captain in 1838. He distinguished himself in the battles of the Me xican War and was wounded in the storming  of Chapultepec in 1847; for his meritorious servic e he received his third brevet promotion in rank.  He became superintendent of the U.S. Milit ary Academy and later was appointed colonel of cavalry.   He was in command of the Departmen t of Texas in 1860, and, early the following year, was summoned to Washington, D.C., when wa r between the states seemed imminent. President Abraham Lincoln offered  him the field comman d of the Union forces, but Lee declined. On April 20, three days after Virginia seceded fro m the Union, he submitted his resignation from the U.S. Army. On April 23 he became  commande r in chief of the military and naval forces of Virginia. For a year he was military adviser t o Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, and was then placed in com mand  of the army in northern Virginia. In February 1865 Lee was made commander in chief of a ll Confederate armies; two months later the war was virtually ended by his surrender to Gener al Ulysses S.  Grant at Appomattox Court House. His great battles included those of Antietam , Chancellorsville,  Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg. see CIVIL WAR, AMERICAN; see also separa te articles on the battles mentioned.  The masterly strategy of Lee was overcome only by th e superior resources and troop strength of the Union. His campaigns are almost universally st udied in military schools as models of strategy and tactics. He had a capacity for anticipati ng the actions of his opponents and for comprehending their weaknesses. He made skillful us e of interior lines of communication and kept a convex front toward the enemy, so that his re inforcements, transfers, and supplies could reach their destination over short, direct routes . His greatest contribution to military practice, however, was his use of  field fortificatio ns as aids to maneuvering. He recognized that a small body of soldiers, protected by entrench ments, can hold an enemy force of many times their number, while the main body outflanks  th e enemy or attacks a smaller force elsewhere. In his application of this principle Lee was ye ars  ahead of his time; the tactic was not fully understood or generally adopted until the 20 th century.  Lee applied for but was never granted the official postwar amnesty. He accepte d the presidency of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, in the fall of 186 5; within a few years it had become an outstanding institution. He died there on October 12 , 1870. Lee has long been revered as an ideal by southerners and as a hero by all Americans . His antebellum home is now known as Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial, and is a n ational memorial. In 1975 Lee's citizenship was restored posthumously by an act of the U.S. C ongress.
  Further Reading
  "Lee, Robert E(dward)," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporatio n.
  
  famous General

Details of Robert Edward's family with Mary Anne Randolph Custis