Robert E. Lee

• 1807-1870
• Washington and Lee College is named after him
• 63 years old when he died
• Had two horses Grace Darling and Traveller
• Had 7 kids
• One of his daughters, Annie, died of Typhoid
• His wife, Mary Custis was the step great-granddaughter of George Washington.
• His father, an officer in the Revolutionary war was well-liked by Washington

He was tall, a brilliant man, a great leader, and an even better engineer! He was soft spoken but rigid in military discipline. He loved his state and his family and was a Christian by religion. He was a hero of the Mexican War and lead the marines that captured John Brown at Harpers Ferry. Had Virginia stayed in the union he would have been commander of their army after Winfield Scott retired.

Appomattox Court House, which despite the name was actually a small village rather than a single building. The specific building where the surrender was concluded was the home of Wilmer McLean.

Lee was Commandant at West Point prior to the Civil War. He resigned when he was offered the command of the Union Army, from President Lincoln, but took the command of the Confederate Army.

Believe it or not, Ulysses S. Grant actually owned slaves, and Robert E. Lee did not. It is so sad that so many people just follow the crowd instead of truly looking for the truth on the Civil War. Both were very good, wise, and noble men, fighting a war that was over so much more than slavery. As i mentioned at the beginning , if the north's main general owned slaves and the south's did not, was the Civil War really about slavery, or about something more than that? You answer the question. Ulysses was a god man and especially a good president, I am not prejudice against him; but Robert E. Lee was so much more, for he fought for a cause hidden today, and still kept going.

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I disagree. Does anyone really believe that 620,000 men, two per cent of the population of the entire United States prior to the Civil War, died over "... so much more than Slavery" ?

THAT is the position of the crowd --- THAT is what has been taught in our schools since the close of the first decade following the Civil War

Did the South lose 280,000 plus men, and have one-fourth to one-third of its surviving soldiers with at least one limb missing, over the issue of Tariffs (which was a major bone of contention between the increasingly industrial North and the Agricultural South) ? Please.

Did the average Confederate soldier fight to defend slavery ? We are asked. Did the average Union soldier fight to free the slaves ?

Let me respond to those questions by asking some of my own.

Did the US Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Coast Guard fight in World War II to free France, to save Britain, to help those poor Belgians ? Did we fight in Vietnam to guarantee the freedom of the South Vietnamese ? In Iraq to liberate the Iraqis ?

In all those instances, the answer is, essentially, No --- but that is what they did (the South Vietnamese government's failure of nerve led to the victory of the Vietcong.)

When the Union private slogged his way through the Wilderness in 1864; when his Confederate counterpart routed the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville a year earlier, they were mostly fighting for their state, their country, or both --- But it was the issue of Slavery that put them there.

Without the existence of Slavery, there would have been no Civil War. That is the essential element at the core of the conflict. To contend otherwise, as we have been doing for the past 140-150 years, is simply wrong.

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Grant was a terrible President. His ownership of slaves was circumstantial and relatively fleeting.

As for Lee, if you could go back in time and talk to General Pickett, you'd get a vastly different opinion of Robert E. Lee than we normally hear. General Lee was a risk taker who against all reasonable judgment sent Pickett's forces to their death... simply because Lee's "blood was up." Generals Montgomery and Eisenhower, touring the Gettysburg Battlefield after WWII, both agreed that Lee and Meade should have been subject to courtmartial for their actions during those pivotal three days of July 1-3, 1863.

They called Grant a butcher, but every time Grant outmaneuvered Lee during the 1864 campaign, and it was more frequent that one would expect, Lee successfully sped his forces through territory with which he was familiar and turned to face Grant again. If Grant was a butcher, so was Lee.

Robert E. Lee was a patrician and he wears well. Grant was not, and grates on our sense of civility. Remember this though, Lee defeated every Union general he faced, until he came up against Grant.

Of course, Grant had been used to that throughout the entire war.

Lee was asked by Lincoln to be in charge of the entire Union Army but he turned it down. When Virginia seceded from the Union in April 1861, Lee decided to follow his own state and fought for the Confederate Army. Lee's greatest victories were the Seven day battles. In the spring of 1864, the new Union commander, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, began a series of campaigns to wear down Lee's army.

During the American Civil War, General Robert E. Lee led his army into Pennsylvania in 1863 with the hope of achieving several objectives. First, he aimed to relieve the pressure on northern Virginia, the scene of many battles in the previous years. Second, he intended to ravage Northern soil in order to demoralize the North's will to fight. Third, he hoped to secure a decisive military victory over any Northern armies that might oppose him, perhaps leading to the seizure of the North's capital.

Robert E. Lee became the leading general in the Confederate army. His goal was to win as many battles against the Union as possible and force the Union to simply give up on its war to end the Confederate rebellion.

Robert E. lee had taken an oath, as did all West Point graduates did to defend the United States. He however, believed he could not fight against his home state, so he resigned and later took a position in the Confederate army. Before he resigned his US Army commission, he had been asked to take on a significant position in the US Army. In those days, loyalty to one's state was important, as opposed to today's standards.

Robert E. Lee is best remembered as the commander(leader) of the Confederate army during the Civil War. As a young man, he attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was involved in the War with Mexico. Interestingly, President Lincoln offered Lee a field command in the U.S. Army when the Civil War broke out. Although Lee opposed slavery and the idea of secession, he felt that his allegiance belonged to his family, friends, and state. He declined the President's offer, resigned his commission in the U.S. Army, and returned to his plantation in Virginia. He surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865. He was born in Stratford, Westmoreland County, Virginia on January 19, 1807. He died in Lexington, Virginia on October 12, 1870.

Commander of the confederate army

Robert E. Lee became the commander of the Confederate Army in the last few months of the Civil War. Until that time Jefferson Davis had tried to micromanage a number of battles from Richmond, Virginia. That was especially costly in the case of the Battle of Vicksberg. Instead of having General Joseph E. Johnson be in charge of all Confederate forces, Davis insisted on having two armies use different strategies. After the fiasco in Atlanta, the Confederate congress lost confidence in Davis. When Fort Monroe fell and no east coast port remained in Confederate hands, the Confederate Congress put all Confederate troops under Lee. Before that, he was the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.

A very poor one. The battle has been described as actually being three separate battles, as the northerners made unconnected, unsupported attacks in the north of the field, then the center, then the south. This allowed the Confederates to move troops to the threatened sectors to meet each attack. The north had the south outnumbered three to one on the field, and had they attacked simultaneously on all sectors of the field could undoubtedly have overwhelmed the Confederates and ended the war then and there. As it was, it was all the Confederates could do to hang on desperately through the three separate Union attacks. Union commander McClellan had seven corps in his army, and two of them took no part in the battle and did not fire a shot all day.

Lee lost 20,000-28,000. The South never kept records of the soldiers they lost, but they did keep record of the Generals they lost. At Gettysburg they lost General Armistead, General Garnett, and General Pettigrew, all from General George Pickett's division. General Sam Hood was also wounded in Gettysburg. He lived and would live through the Civil War, despite taking six more bullets.

4 reasons 1. winning the seven days battle and the second bull run gave Robert E. Lee the confidence to fight the Union. 2. the invasion helped out the farmers so they can rest during the Harvest season. 3. Lee hoped that a victory in the North would have France and Britain join forces with them. 4. lastly so that the Confederates could steel food from the Northern farms.

Basically yes he was.

Lee was capable of being both bold and aggressive when necessary but was also understand the value of defending fortified positions.

Lee was not afraid to take enourmous risks, he frequently split his Army in the face of a superior enemy and used it to out manoveur and destroy larger forces. The most famous example of this is Chancellorville where leaving only a few brigades to defend his front he sent Jacksons entire wing of the army on a flanking march that crushed the Union position and ended the immediate threat to Richmond.

Following this and other victories Lee became something of a bogeyman for Union commanders and often caused unwarranted hesitancy and fear in his opponants minds.

After the death of Jackson he was however unable to find a replacement corps commander of suitable iniative and aggression and this was the main reason for the dfeat at Gettysburg.

Towards the end of the war dwindling numbers of Confederate troops and the strategy of the Union forces under US Grant forced Lee to abandon his prefered style of a war of manouver and instead dig trenches and other field fortifications. He proved to be equally adept at this aspect of warfare and inflicted further tactical defeats on Union forces as they tried to storm Confederate defenses.

Ultimately Lee's forces where worn down by a relentless was of attrition and handicapped by the need to defend ever longer trench lines against a numerically superior enemy, Lee was eventually forced to surrender his army which largely marked the end of armed Confederate resistance.

Lee's weaknesses were that when 'his blood was up' meaning he was in an aggressive state of mind he would tend to prefer frontal attacks on the enemy which resulted in heavy losses for his forces, the most famous example if Picketts Charge on the third day of Gettyburg, another noticable example would the battle of Malvern Hill. As stated he found it hard to find a replacement for Jackson and Lee was never able to operate as effectively offensively again, his choices to replace Jackson (Ewell and Hill) in retrospect turned out to be poor choices

no; Robert E Lee was confederate. He surrendered to Ulyssess S Grant(Union) in 1865.

Name of General Lee's Horse That most noble of all steeds was named Traveller. There is a very fun book by that title. It puports to be a first person account of the war as told by the horse. More information: Although it is true that Traveller was the more famous of Gneral Lee's mounts, he also rode a mare called Lucy Long for a period as well. Lucy was a present to General Lee from General J.E.B. Stuart in 1862, and General Lee rode Lucy Long for two years until, when in the lines around Petersburg, she got with foal. He sent her to the rear and once more mounted Traveller. xaver

He had three others:, Brown Roan, Richmond, and Ajax.

Pickett's division was only one of several confederate units ordered to attack that day. To understand why Picketts charge was ordered, you have to understand the larger picture. The reason for Robert E. Lee's campaign against the North at this time in the war was his desire to follow up his victory at Chancellorsville with a successful invasion far enough into the North that the northern politicians would be convinced to give up their support of the war. In other words, he hoped to destroy their morale and their will to fight by gaining so much ground that they would think their cause hopeless. His advance into the north was stopped at Gettysburg where a fierce battle took place over three days. On the third day, Lee hoped to finally win the battle. He ordered the union lines bombarded with cannonfire and then 12,000 confederate troops were to charge across the open field. Picketts charge was just one part of that attack, but has gained historical significance due to the 50% loss of Confederate soldiers, including nearly all the officers who participated that day.

He is one of the most famous and prominent generals of the Confederate South.

Robert E. Lee was the most successful of the Confederate generals. He was on the side of the South. The South's states included Virgina,Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia,Texas,Mississippi,Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina and Louisiana.

By turning down a senior position in the Union army, of which he would probably have become General-in-Chief in a few months.

Even though he disapproved of secession, he felt he should go with his state (Virginia), and so he resigned from the US Army to join the Confederates.

His string of victories in summer 1862 brought England and France close to granting recognition to the Confederacy and sending military aid, but his momentum was checked by the unexpected defeat at Antietam. Two more spectacular wins followed, but the second one cost him his most brilliant lieutenant Stonewall Jackson, and his health also started to fail at this time. Defeat at Gettysburg (sometimes called the Confederate High Watermark) ended his glory days, and he was on the defensive from that point onwards until he surrendered to U.S. Grant at Appomattox.

He had been appointed to the newly-created post of General-in-Chief of the Confederates at the end of January 1865, too late to make any difference.

He remains the embodiment of the Lost Cause - a popular but largely-mythical legend of courage, honour and noble leadership.

Robert E. Lee surrendered the soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865. He only surrendered this army as he had no authority to surrender any other troops. The surrender took place at the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia in the home of Wilmer McLean.

General Lee felt that if the Confederacy had any chance to win they had to win a battle on Northern soil. A raid into Pennsylvania and the capture of Harrisburg would shock the Union and strengthen the Northern peace movements.