Who was the leading Confederate general in Virginia at the start of the war?

Answer 1

* Samuel Cooper * Albert Sidney Johnston * Robert E. Lee * Joseph E. Johnston * P.G.T. Beauregard Joseph E. Johnston was the only CSA General officer who had held that rank in the US Army before the start of the US Civil War. Samuel Cooper had seen service in the Second Seminole War as well as the Mexican American War and had served in the US Army for 46 years with the highest rank held as a Colonel. He did not see combat but instead served as the military advisor to Jefferson Davis. He had been the Adjutant General of the US Army for 9 years when hostilities began and he was the Acting U.S. Secretary of War for a short time in 1857. Almost an unknown even to Civil War buffs today his official position in the Confederate Army was Adjutant General and Inspector General. When the US Civil War began the most famous CSA General Robert E. Lee was a US Army Lieutenant Colonel who was promoted to Colonel by Abraham Lincoln and given command of the First Regiment of Cavalry. He resigned from the US Army three weeks later. Albert Sidney Johnston was a US Army Brigadier General when the Civil War began and had been a Brigadier General for the Republic of Texas. He was killed at Shiloh.