Why did general lee lead the confederate army?

Answer 1

Fast mover - able to exploit delays and indecision on the other side (greatly helped by Stonewall Jackson, and not so effective after the latter's death.)

Psychological warrior - wrong-footing the enemy by refusing to fight on a field chosen by them.

Inspirational leader - his men were ready to follow him till they were barefoot and starving.

Noble figurehead - he symbolised the Southern aristocratic virtues.

Answer 2

He led the Army of Northern Virginia to many spectacular victories, starting in the Peninsula campaign, and then Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.

But Chancellorsville was where his essentialteam-partner Stonewall Jackson was killed, and neither Lee nor his army was ever the same after that.

By the time he was appointed General-in-Chief of all the Confederate armies, their cause was lost, and he was not able to achieve any successes before the inevitable surrender at Appomattox.

Answer 3

Many historians and people of his day believe that general Robert E. Lee was an effective leader. Here are some reasons why:

A. None of his soldiers questioned his allegiance to the Southern cause and they followed his lead;

B. Despite being out manned and out cannoned by Union forces, he won many successful battles for the Confederacy;

C. He displayed his bravery by invading the North two times. Although he lost these conflicts, his strategy was great and few Southerners believed that his invasions of Maryland and Pennsylvania were ill conceived;

D. In his loss at Gettysburg, his retreat back to the Potomac was well guarded by his rear guard army;

E. Lee successfully defeated the Union's peninsula campaign designed to capture Richmond;

F. Lee successfully won the 2nd battle of Bull Run; and

G. Before he was appointed to be the top general of the South, he and Jefferson Davis realized that the rail head at Manassas had to be defended. It was, by confronting Union troops closer to Washington DC than to Richmond.