Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Wood - painter - was born in 1971.

Respect the civil authorities, be peaceful, and work to rebuild the south.

please he didnt care about others he saved himself

Because it was the state capital of Pennsylvania, and a place of great military importance as a training centre for the Union armies, as well as a big rail junction.

By defeating Lee, he pretty much ended the Civil War. But he lost several times to Lee in the last year of the war, but had unlimited resources that Lee could not match.

NEW RESPONDENT

The matter is worth being explained from the point of view of

Union grand strategy of 1864.

After his appointment to General in Chief, he reorganized the Union Army and its chain of command and, in full accordance with Lincoln he made up a general plan of operations.

Based upon what that plan foresaw, all Union armies, fighting on the various war fronts had to act in a coordinated way, as per the orders given them by the General Staff.

The main objectives were:

1- of maintain all Confederate fronts under the greatest pressure possible in order to make impossible or, extremely difficult, the displacement of reserves and supplies between the Western and Eastern Front and vice verse,

2 - of destroy the adversary armies.

Grant, who had elected his Headquarters by the Army of Potomac, applying those concepts and using the strategic intimidation by menacing Richmond succeeded in making Lee pinned down to his initiative, his endless pressure and deprived of his freedom of movement, until the Confederate general was forced to fight within about thirty kilometers from the Capital of the Confederacy.

Sherman's March to the Sea and the definitive conquest of the Shenandoah Valley signed the ultimate fate of Lee's army: the surrender of Appomattox.

Of course Grant was able to carry out successfully his campaign also thanks to the great resources at his disposal. Anyhow it's worth remembering that those resources existed also when McClellan was General in Chief and was supported by the whole Union, but he was not up to the task and the Union top military leaders of those years either.

Because after the Battle of Five Forks, on Apr. 1, 1865 and the breakthrough of his front, Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia were about to be encircled.

Therefore he decided that Petersburg and Richmond had to be evacuated.

Robert E Lee and Ulysses S Grant were the commanding generals of the Confederate and Union armies, respectively.

At the time, Washington, D.C. was the most fortified city in the world. Lee did not have a siege train that could successfully attack the city.

NEW RESPONDENT

Lee's strategic thought about the Maryland Campaign he was planning had been exhaustively illustrated by the letter he sent to Jefferson Davis on Sept. 3, 1862, as follows:

QUOTE

Headquarters Alexandria & Leesburg Road

Near Dranesville, Virginia

September 3, 1862

Mr. President:

The present seems the most propitious time since the commencement of the war for the Confederate Army to enter Maryland. The two grand armies of the United States that have been operating in Virginia, though now united, are much weakened and demoralized. Their new levies, of which I understand sixty thousand men have already been posted in Washington, are not yet organized, and will take some time to prepare for the field. If it is ever desired to give material aid to Maryland and afford her an opportunity of throwing off the oppression to which she is now subject, this would seem the most favorable. After the enemy had disappeared from the vicinity of Fairfax Court House and taken the road to Alexandria & Washington, I did not think it would be advantageous to follow him farther. I had no intention of attacking him in his fortifications, and am not prepared to invest them. If I had possessed the necessary munitions, I should be unable to supply provisions for the troops. I therefore determined while threatening the approaches to Washington, to draw the troops into Loudon, where forage and some provisions can be obtained, menace their possession of the Shenandoah Valley, and if I found practicable, to cross into Maryland.

The purpose, if discovered, will have the effect of carrying the enemy north of the Potomac, and if prevented, will not result in much evil. The army is not properly equipped for an invasion of an enemy's territory. It lacks much of the material of war, is feeble in transportation, the animals being much reduced, and the men are poorly provided with clothes, and in thousands of instances are destitute of shoes. Still we cannot afford to be idle, and though weaker than our opponents in men and military equipments, must endeavor to harass, if we cannot destroy them. I am aware that the movement is attended with much risk, yet I do not consider success impossible, and shall endeavor to guard it from loss. As long as the army of the enemy are employed on this frontier I have no fears for the safety of Richmond, yet I earnestly recommend defence, by land and water, in the most perfect condition. A respectable force can be collected to defend its approaches by land, and the steamer Richmond I hope is now ready to clear the river of hostile vessels. Should Genl [Braxton] Bragg find it impracticable to operate to advantage on his present frontier, his army, after leaving sufficient garrisons, could be advantageously employed in opposing the overwhelming numbers which it seems to be the intention of the enemy now to concentrate in Virginia. I have already been told by prisoners that some of [General Don Carlos] Buell's cavalry have been joined to Genl Pope's army, and have reason to believe that the whole of McClellan's, the larger portions of Burnside's & Cox's and a portion of [General David] Hunter's, are united to it. What occasions me most concern is the fear of getting out of ammunition. I beg you will instruct the Ordnance Department to spare no pains in manufacturing a sufficient amount of the best kind, & to be particular in preparing that for the artillery, to provide three times as much of the long range ammunition as of that for smooth bore or short range guns.

The points to which I desire the ammunition to be forwarded will be made known to the Department in time. If the Quartermaster Department can furnish any shoes, it would be the greatest relief.

We have entered upon September, and the nights are becoming cool.

I have the honor to be with high respect, your ob't servant

R. E. Lee

UNQUOTE

The home actually belonged to Lee's wife's family. She was a Custis, decended from Washington's wife's family. They named it Arlington.

Henry Lee married the wealthy Anne Hill Carter and then remarried Matilda Lee in April 8, 1782

They hoped to receive recognition from one or more major European countries such as England, France, Spain, and Germany; and to force the North to the negotiating table.

Robert E. Lee, a hero in the War with Mexico, did not accept command of the Union Armies during the Civil War, because he felt he owed more loyalty to the state of Virginia than to the country of the United States of America.

Anne Hill Lee

Robert E. Lee met and married Mary Ann Randolph Custis of Arlington. She was the only daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington and the adopted grandson of George Washington.

After giving birth to a second child in 1835, Mary was struck by arthritis. Despite her disability, Mary bore him five more children. He and Mary had seven children total: William Henry Fitzhugh, George Washington Custis, Mary Custis, Annie Carter, Eleanor Agnes, Robert Edward and Mildred Childe.

See the related link.

Yes, the estate but was confiscated form him/his family during the civil war. It was then turned into a cemetery. It actually belonged to his wife's family.

Lee did not take part in either of the campaigns involving Georgia.

In the first year of the war, he was unsuccessfully trying to occupy Western Virginia, and then appointed as Jefferson Davis's military advisor.

After that, he spent the whole war in Northern Virginia, except when he briefly entered Maryland and Pennsylvania - to be repulsed both times.

I would like to improve the answer as follows.

Gen R.E. Lee provided to build the great fortified line, covering the vital railroad connecting Charleston (South Carolina) and Savannah (Georgia) in Nov. - Dec. 1861, before having been appointed Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia./// I wish to further improve this answer. In years before the War Between the States Lee was an officer in the U.S. Army Engineer Corps. He did spend some time overseeing construction of coastal fortifications along the Georgia/South Carolina coast.

President of Washington College, later changed to Washington and Lee College.

No, Zachary Taylor's daughters were married to Lt. Col. William W.S. Bliss (Taylor's secretary), and Jefferson Davis(president of the Confederacy).

Answer: No, I don't believe he did. All he did was exactly what all the other generals in the war were doing, and that was defending his home and family. The generals in the north would have done the same thing if they were southerners and vice versa.

Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant as General of the Army accepted General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, April 9, 1865. Grant would later be elected president in 1868 and serve two terms.

Robert E. Lee was once the superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point between the years of 1852 and 1855.

Lee was around five feet eleven inches, and weighed around two hundred pounds.

He was against it, and hoped that his home-state of Virginia would not vote Confederate.

But when it did, he believed that he was a Virginian first and an American second. So he resigned his commission and joined the Confederates.

Never heard that one.

You might be thinking of his crushing victory at Fredericksburg, when he danced around hugging other officers - a unique case of this dignified and aloof aristocrat suddenly letting rip.