Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee commanded the Confederate army in Virginia and is the central figure of the American South's memory of the Civil War. Born in Virginia in 1807, he was the son of Henry Lee, a Revolutionary cavalry commander who ruined the family financially and abandoned it. He graduated second in his class at West Point without a single demerit, and served thirty-two years in the engineers, distinguishing himself under Winfield Scott in Mexico. He married Mary Custis, a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, and became responsible for her father's estate at Arlington and the roughly two hundred people enslaved on it, whom he worked hard, hired out, and pursued when they fled. He commanded the marines who captured John Brown at Harpers Ferry in 1859. Lincoln offered him command of the Union armies in April 1861. He declined and resigned, saying he could not draw his sword against Virginia, and took command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862. He was an aggressive commander who repeatedly beat larger forces by dividing his own — the Seven Days, Second Manassas, Fredericksburg and above all Chancellorsville in 1863, his masterpiece. His two invasions of the north failed. Antietam in 1862 was the bloodiest single day in American history, and at Gettysburg in July 1863 he ordered a frontal assault across open ground that was destroyed, and told the survivors it was his fault. He surrendered at Appomattox in April 1865 and afterwards discouraged insurgency. He became a college president and died in 1870.
- Lived: 1807 CE – 1870 CE
- Nationality: American
- Roles: general
