Robert Edward Lee (19 January 1807-12 October 1870) was a general of the Confederate States Army who served as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War. Lee was perhaps the most beloved commander in American history, with his soldiers idolizing him for his kindness and for his skills as a general. Lee was the best general that the Confederacy had, often winning whenever he fought a defensive battle; however, his invasions of the Union at Antietam in 1862 and Gettysburg in 1863 were both doomed to failure.
Biography[]
Lee in 1838
Robert E. Lee, the quintessential Virginia gentleman, was the son of the American Revolutionary War hero and former state governor Major-General Henry Lee. Second in his class at West Point, he entered the elite Corps of Engineers and spent almost two decades supervising both civil and military engineering projects. His evident ability earned him a place on General Winfield Scott's staff for the invasion of Mexico in 1847.
Entrusted with reconnaissance missions, he twice led troops on routes he had discovered around the flanks of Mexican forces, thereby contributing to American victories at Cerro Gordo and Churubusco. These excitements were soon over, though, as Lee returned to a quiet career in the peacetime army and by the late 1850s was a lieutenant-colonel commanding cavalry in Texas. By chance, he had returned to Virginia in 1859 when antislavery activists led by John Brown attacked the US Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Lee was ordered to the scene and directed the assault that captured Brown.
The Harper's Ferry raid was a sign of increasing division on the slavery issue. Although Lee owned slaves himself, he considered slavery a bad thing. He did not want the breakup of the Union, but was loyal first and foremost to Virginia. Turning down an offer of senior command in the Union Army, in April 1861, he sided with the Confederacy. President Jefferson Davis made him a general and took him as his closest military adviser. As Lee set men to digging fortifications in front of Richmond, no one suspected this courteous professional soldier would turn out to be an aggressive field commander. Appointed to succeed the wounding Joseph Johnston in charge of the army in the Peninsula, Lee quickly launched the offensive known as the Seven Days' Battles.
Initial errors[]
Commanding in battle for the first time, not surprisingly, Lee made plenty of mistakes. It was his good fortune that his opponent, George B. McClellan, was so easily unnerved and so willing to withdraw when attacked. Lee's other great stroke of luck was to discover an ideal partner in Stonewall Jackson. He and Jackson had contrasting temperaments - Lee cool and poised, Jackson driven and intense - but they shared the view that only aggressive tactics and an offensive strategy offered the South any hope against the Union's much larger, better-equipped armies. Lee was prepared to risk dividing his forces, giving Jackson free rein to strike at the enemy's weak points through swift and unexpected maneuvers. This was the secret of the joint victories at the second Battle of Bull Run (known as the second battle of Manasass to the Confederates) and Chancellorsville. This commitment to the strategic offensive overstretched Confederate resources. Lee's September 1862 invasion of Maryland nearly ended in disaster at Antietam, and at Gettysburg the next year, his invasion of Pennsylvania came to grief. In fact, it was when the Union side took the offensive that Lee and his troops performed best.
Lee in his tent
At Fredericksburg in December 1862, Union troops were slaughtered in an ill-advised assault on Lee's well-prepared defensive position, and his subsequent fine victory at Chancellorsville was a decisive counter against an advancing Union army, brilliant in conception and execution. The loss of Jackson in the aftermath of Chancellorsville was a serious blow to Lee. He had no other subordinate with an independent capacity for aggressive maneuver. In the absence of Jackson, Lee saw no alternative at Gettysburg to frontal assaults that climaxed in the infamous Pickett's Charge, repulsed with grievous losses. For the rest of the war, the Confederates were forced on to the defensive. Lee offered to resign, but no one could be found to replace him. Facing Ulysses S. Grant in 1864, Lee fought a skillful series of defensive actions and imposed heavy casualties on advancing Union forces that outnumbered his troops by two to one. His dwindling army was then pinned down in trenches outside Petersburg - it was sheer loyalty to Lee as their commander that held the men at their posts. Eventually cornered at Appomattox, Lee opted for a dignified surrender.
