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