What did Robert E. Lee do for a living?

Answer 1

For his entire adult life Lee was an officer of the US Army. He entered the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, when he was 18, in 1825, and graduated second in his class in 1829. Graduates who ranked high in their class were usually offered positions in the Army Corps of Engineers, and this was the work Lee was given throughout the early years of his career - building forts, improving navigation on the Mississippi River, and so on. Lee particularly distinguished himself during the Mexican War. General In Chief of the US Army Winfield Scott had taken the field himself, and led a small army from Vera Cruz, on the east coast of Mexico, into central Mexico and captured Mexico City, the largest city in the Americas, and there dictated peace terms to the defeated Mexicans. Lee served as an officer on Scott's staff, and twice scouted and found a way for the tiny American force to outflank the vaslty larger Mexican forces entrenched on the only road to Mexico City, enabling the Americans to "turn" the Mexican position and force the Mexicans to retreat. Lee so impressed Scott that when the Civil War began Scott, who was 75 but still the Commanding General of the US Army (there was no system of retirement then) offered Lee the command of the field army of the US, which Lee declined to go with his native state of Virginia. After the Mexican War Lee was Superintendent of the US Military Academy for several years, and then was given a plum assignment. The US Army was small, there was no retirement, and to get promoted officers waited years, decades, for somebody above them to die or get disgusted and resign. The vast new territory won from Mexico called for new army units to patrol the immense area and deal with the Apaches and Comanches. The creation of these new units also created new positions for officers. Lee had been a captain in the army for more than twenty years, when he was selected for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel (second in command) of one of these new units, the 2nd Cavalry, by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (soon to be the president of the Confederacy). Davis was himself a graduate of West Point, two years before Lee, and had also distinguished himself in the Mexican War.

Lee had married a granddaughter of Martha Washington, who inherited some plantations and hundreds of slaves from her family. Lee was on a long leave of many months administering the estate of his deceased mother-in-law when John Brown made his raid on Harper's Ferry. Lee was at his wife's estate of Arlington when he was sent for to deal with that situation, and with some Marines from the Washington Navy Yard, and young Lieutenant Jeb Stuart, who had been at the War Department awaiting an assignment to duty when word of Brown's attack came in, Lee was able to capture Brown and his colleagues.

The income from his wife's properties allowed Lee to live well, despite the low pay of army officers. The Lees also invested prudently, but put all their money into Confederate bonds at the start of the Civil War, and thus lost it all. So when the Civil War ended Lee was 58, broke, without a job, unable to practice the profession he had followed all his life, his home - his wife's estate of Arlington - had been confiscated by the US government and Arlington Cemetery established on the grounds, his wife was an invalid, and he was living in a house his son (who was a prisoner of war) had rented in Richmond, Virginia, with his extended family. He expected he might be arrested at any moment, and had no means or income with which to pay the rent. The landlord insisted that he had agreed to accept Confederate money for the rent, and so Confederate money was all he would accept, to avoid the necessity of evicting General Lee and his invalid wife and family. Lee was getting offers in the mail, offers such as other Confederate officers found it necessary to accept - to lend his name and prestige to life insurance companies (then an infant industry) or to oversee state lotteries (as Beauregard was reduced to doing in Louisiana), all in the nature of commercial endorsements, trading on his immense prestige among not only southerners, but all Americans. Lee refused to consider such propositions, no matter his dire need.

At this juncture the Trustees of tiny Washington College in Lexington, Virginia had their first post war meeting. The College was in dire straits. It had closed when all the students went off to the war. Yankee troops had wrecked the buildings, destroyed the library, stabled their horses in the chapel, broke all the apparatus in the laboratories. There was no money. Drastic steps were needed. Someone suggested that they elect Robert E. Lee President of the College, and they did. One of the trustees had to borrow a suit of clothes to travel to Richmond to inform Lee of this bold step, and to find out his reaction to this proposal, of which Lee knew nothing beforehand. Lee gladly accepted this offer, moved his family to Lexington, where the college obtained donations once it was known Lee had affiliated himself with the school, and built a new house for the President. Lee got the school not just going, but flourishing. Students came from all over the south, once they heard he was there. The school also built a new chapel, and Lee had his office in the basement. He insisted on a weekly report on the progress of each student, and was very active. He soon had the school growing and expanding its offerings, and was engaged in this useful work when he died in 1870. Today the school is Washington and Lee University.

Answer 2

For his entire adult life Lee was an officer of the US Army. He entered the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, when he was 18, in 1825, and graduated second in his class in 1829. Graduates who ranked high in their class were usually offered positions in the Army Corps of Engineers, and this was the work Lee was given throughout the early years of his career - building forts, improving navigation on the Mississippi River, and so on. Lee particularly distinguished himself during the Mexican War. General In Chief of the US Army Winfield Scott had taken the field himself, and led a small army from Vera Cruz, on the east coast of Mexico, into central Mexico and captured Mexico City, the largest city in the Americas, and there dictated peace terms to the defeated Mexicans. Lee served as an officer on Scott's staff, and twice scouted and found a way for the tiny American force to outflank the vaslty larger Mexican forces entrenched on the only road to Mexico City, enabling the Americans to "turn" the Mexican position and force the Mexicans to retreat. Lee so impressed Scott that when the Civil War began Scott, who was 75 but still the Commanding General of the US Army (there was no system of retirement then) offered Lee the command of the field army of the US, which Lee declined to go with his native state of Virginia. After the Mexican War Lee was Superintendent of the US Military Academy for several years, and then was given a plum assignment. The US Army was small, there was no retirement, and to get promoted officers waited years, decades, for somebody above them to die or get disgusted and resign. The vast new territory won from Mexico called for new army units to patrol the immense area and deal with the Apaches and Comanches. The creation of these new units also created new positions for officers. Lee had been a captain in the army for more than twenty years, when he was selected for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel (second in command) of one of these new units, the 2nd Cavalry, by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (soon to be the president of the Confederacy). Davis was himself a graduate of West Point, two years before Lee, and had also distinguished himself in the Mexican War.

Lee had married a granddaughter of Martha Washington, who inherited some plantations and hundreds of slaves from her family. Lee was on a long leave of many months administering the estate of his deceased mother-in-law when John Brown made his raid on Harper's Ferry. Lee was at his wife's estate of Arlington when he was sent for to deal with that situation, and with some Marines from the Washington Navy Yard, and young Lieutenant Jeb Stuart, who had been at the War Department awaiting an assignment to duty when word of Brown's attack came in, Lee was able to capture Brown and his colleagues.

The income from his wife's properties allowed Lee to live well, despite the low pay of army officers. The Lees also invested prudently, but put all their money into Confederate bonds at the start of the Civil War, and thus lost it all. So when the Civil War ended Lee was 58, broke, without a job, unable to practice the profession he had followed all his life, his home - his wife's estate of Arlington - had been confiscated by the US government and Arlington Cemetery established on the grounds, his wife was an invalid, and he was living in a house his son (who was a prisoner of war) had rented in Richmond, Virginia, with his extended family. He expected he might be arrested at any moment, and had no means or income with which to pay the rent. The landlord insisted that he had agreed to accept Confederate money for the rent, and so Confederate money was all he would accept, to avoid the necessity of evicting General Lee and his invalid wife and family. Lee was getting offers in the mail, offers such as other Confederate officers found it necessary to accept - to lend his name and prestige to life insurance companies (then an infant industry) or to oversee state lotteries (as Beauregard was reduced to doing in Louisiana), all in the nature of commercial endorsements, trading on his immense prestige among not only southerners, but all Americans. Lee refused to consider such propositions, no matter his dire need.

At this juncture the Trustees of tiny Washington College in Lexington, Virginia had their first post war meeting. The College was in dire straits. It had closed when all the students went off to the war. Yankee troops had wrecked the buildings, destroyed the library, stabled their horses in the chapel, broke all the apparatus in the laboratories. There was no money. Drastic steps were needed. Someone suggested that they elect Robert E. Lee President of the College, and they did. One of the trustees had to borrow a suit of clothes to travel to Richmond to inform Lee of this bold step, and to find out his reaction to this proposal, of which Lee knew nothing beforehand. Lee gladly accepted this offer, moved his family to Lexington, where the college obtained donations once it was known Lee had affiliated himself with the school, and built a new house for the President. Lee got the school not just going, but flourishing. Students came from all over the south, once they heard he was there. The school also built a new chapel, and Lee had his office in the basement. He insisted on a weekly report on the progress of each student, and was very active. He soon had the school growing and expanding its offerings, and was engaged in this useful work when he died in 1870. Today the school is Washington and Lee University.