Why did Robert Lee join the Confederate army?

Answer 1

From his previous comments and actions, it seems likely that Lee joined the Confederacy because he felt a greater loyalty to his home state of Virginia than to the United States as a whole (this was, at the time, a quite common sentiment). Lee actually turned down offers of a command in the Confederate armed forces before the secession of Virginia began to look inevitable.

Answer 2

General Lee felt he could not lead the Federal army into his home state. States in those days were not as united as they are today. Lee was first a Virginian and reluctantly accepted his state's choice to secede from the US. His 3 sons also served as officers in the Confederate army.

There are suggestions that he didn't want to fight the North, and that he was hoping that his home state of Virginia wouldn't join the Confederacy. But when it did, he was named a general. After some early setbacks, he was assigned as military adviser to Jefferson Davis before again taking command of Southern armies in 1862.

President Lincoln had offered Lee the position as General-in-Chief of all the Union armies. Lee had formerly served as the superintendent of West Point (1852), and commanded the troops who stopped John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry (1859).

Answer 3

Robert E. Lee was against slavery ,and he was offered a job as a general in the

union's army ,but since his state was part of the south he turned them down to

be a general in the confederate army

Answer 4

Lee went to West Point as an officer cadet in 1825, when he was 18. Lee's father had been an authentic hero of the Revolutionary War, but after that war turned out to be a terrible businessman and lost all the family money, and died deeply in debt. When Lee was growing up his family had no home and had to live with relatives. Winning an appointment to West Point was the only chance Lee had to go to college. After the Civil War Lee was asked to be President of tiny Washington College in western Virginia (now Washington and Lee University). He enjoyed very much being a college president and did many things to help this school grow. During those few years he was at the college before he died he once told someone that the great mistake of his life was "taking a military education". From the time he went to West Point as an 18 year old until the end of the Civil War Lee spent his entire adult life - forty years - in uniform.

Answer 5

Robert E. Lee was against the movement for secession and not in favor of slavery. His conscious however, prevented him from bearing arms against his home state of Virginia. He had been offered a major command of Union forces but declined. His submitted his resignation and joined the forces of Virginia and the Confederacy.

Answer 6

Robert E. Lee resigned his commission in the US Army in order to fight for his home state of Virginia. He could not bear the thought of fighting against Virginia. This is understandable when realizing that in 1861, the US was a young united nation. Loyalty to the states that created the USA, was for many soldiers the reason they fought for their home states. For the most part, the idea that Southern military men were fighting for slavery is a mistaken notion.

Answer 7

Because he wanted to take sides with his home state Virgina. He didnt agree with slavery, but he felt his first loyalty was to his flag

Answer 8

he grew up in the south and did not want to fight against his people.