ROBERT EDWARD LEE, THE MAN WHO LED THE CONFEDERATE ARMIES
Robert E. Lee, 1807
171. The Great General of the Confederacy. Robert E. Lee was born in Virginia in 1807. He went to school at Alexandria, where George Washington once lived, and became a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Wins fame in Mexico
In charge at West Point
In the war with Mexico Lee earned honor and fame. He rose rapidly in rank. Starting as captain, he became major, lieutenant-colonel, and then colonel. When the Mexican War was over, he took charge of the Military Academy at West Point. After three years, he decided to give up the work at West Point and go West to fight the Indians.
Lee goes with his state
About this time the people began to insist that, in the United States, slavery must be given up. Even the army officers and men quarreled about it. Lee believed in the Union and did not want the South to leave it. But when Virginia followed other slave states out of the Union and into the Confederacy, Lee went with his native state.
In command of army defending Richmond
When the war began, Lee, as general, had command of the Virginia troops. After the battle of Fair Oaks, in which General Joseph E. Johnston was wounded, General Lee took charge of the army defending Richmond.
Compels McClellan to retreat
Invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania
172. Lee Fights Battle after Battle. Lee at once attacked the Union army which was trying to take Richmond. In a seven days' battle he forced McClellan, the Union general, to retreat. He then struck the army of Pope a fatal blow and marched with his victorious soldiers into Maryland. A great battle was fought at Antietam (1862) and Lee returned to Virginia. He won two great victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. In the latter battle he lost Stonewall Jackson, his best general. After this, his army rested and ranks filled, General Lee moved rapidly through Maryland and into Pennsylvania. The North became alarmed, but a great Union army was already hurrying to meet the Confederate forces.
Greatest battle of the war
Pickett's charge
The loss
The two armies met at Gettysburg, and there for three days was fought the greatest battle of the Civil War. On the last day General Pickett made his famous charge. Fifteen thousand southern soldiers charged across the valley—more than a mile wide—right up to the muzzles of the Union guns. But the help they expected from another direction did not arrive, and they had to retreat. Lee's army was defeated. More than fifty thousand men—including the killed, wounded, and missing on both sides—were lost at Gettysburg.
PICKETT'S CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG
This heroic assault marked the turn of the Confederate tide
Lee never invades again
173. Facing a Powerful Army. General Lee then went back across the Potomac, never to invade the North again. From then onward, little was done until, in 1864, General Grant took command of all the Union forces. Then followed three great battles—the "Wilderness," so called because it was fought in a thick forest of tangled underbrush lying in Virginia just south of the upper portion of the Rapidan; Spottsylvania, fought near the Spottsylvania courthouse a little farther southward, and Cold Harbor, fought a few miles northeast of Richmond.
Lee's troops wearing out
General Lee's troops were wearing out. There were no more men to take the places of those killed and wounded. Food and clothing became scarce, and other supplies were hard to get. General Lee was now made commander in chief over all the Confederate armies. He immediately put Joseph E. Johnston back in command of his old army in the West, but it was too late.
SCENE OF WAR AROUND WASHINGTON AND RICHMOND
Sheridan blocks the way
Lee decided in 1865 that Richmond must be given up. He wanted to take his army to Danville, Virginia, on the way to join the army of General Joseph E. Johnston, in North Carolina, but at Appomattox his troops met General Sheridan's cavalry.
Terms of surrender
174. The Confederacy Was Lost. General Lee received a letter from General Grant asking him to surrender. The two generals met at a farmhouse and agreed upon terms. Grant gave the officers and men permission to take their horses home "to do their spring plowing."
ROBERT EDWARD LEE
From a portrait painted by Browne, now in the Westmoreland Club, Richmond, Virginia
The next morning Lee, surrounded by his sorrowing men, mounted his horse, Traveler, and rode slowly away to his home in Richmond. The other Confederate armies surrendered one by one.
President of Washington College
Dies in 1870
After the war General Lee was elected president of Washington College at Lexington, Virginia, now Washington and Lee University. He greatly enjoyed his work of building up the young manhood of the South. He died at Lexington in 1870. A monument to the memory of this great man has been erected at Richmond, and another at Lexington.