Robert
E. Lee, the fourth son of Colonel Henry Lee and Ann Hill Carter, was
born in Stratford, Virginia on 19th January, 1807. After graduating
second in a class of 46 from the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point in 1829, he was commissioned into the Engineering Corps.
He served under Winfield Scott in the
US Army and saw action in the Mexican
War (1846-48) where he won three brevets for gallantry.
Lee was appointed superintendent at West
Point from 1852 to 1855 when he left to become lieutenant colonel
in the 2nd Cavalry in Texas. In 1859 he led the company of U.S. Marines
that captured John Brown at Harper's
Ferry. in October, 1859.
In February, 1861 Winfield Scott recalled
Lee to Washington and President Abraham Lincoln
offered him the post of field commander of the Union
Army. Lee declined the offer and although he opposed slavery
and secession, he felt that his first
loyalty was to Virginia and resigned his commission. He returned to
the South and became military adviser to President Jefferson
Davis. In July he was asked to organize the Confederate
Army defending the South Atlantic coast.
President Jefferson Davis recalled Lee
to Richmond in March, 1862. It was Lee's
plan that was carried out by Thomas Stonewall
Jackson that prevented reinforcements from reaching George
McClellan and the Union Army, whose
army was posing a serious threat to the capital of the Confederacy.
General Joseph E. Johnston was badly
wounded at Fair Oaks Lee was given
command of the Army of Northern Virginia. For the next two years,
Lee with inferior numbers, frustrated attempts by the Union
Army to capture Richmond.
In April, 1863, General Joseph Hooker,
the commander of the Army of the Potomac, decided to attack Lee's
army that had been entrenched on the south side of the Rappahonnock
River since the battle of Fredericksburg.
Hooker crossed the river and took up position at Chancellorsville.
Although outnumbered two to one, Lee opted to split his Confederate
Army into two groups. Lee left 10,000 men under Jubal
Early, while on 2nd May, he sent Thomas
Stonewall Jackson to attacked the flank of Hooker's army. The
attack was successful but after returning from the battlefield Jackson
was accidentally shot by one of his own men. Jackson's left arm was
successfully amputated but he developed pneumonia
and he died eight days later.
On the 3rd May, James Jeb Stuart, who
had taken command of Jackson's troops, mounted another attack and
drove Joseph Hooker back further. The
following day Lee and Jubal Early joined
the attack on the Union Army. By 6th
May, Hooker had lost over 11,000 men, and decided to retreat from
the area.
Lee now decided to take the war to the north. The Confederate
Army reached Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
on 1st July. The town was quickly taken but the Union
Army, led by Major General George Meade,
arrived in force soon afterwards and for the next two days the town
was the scene of bitter fighting. Attacks led by James
Jeb Stuart and James Longstreet
proved costly and by the 5th July, Lee decided to retreat south. Both
sides suffered heavy losses with Lee losing 28,063 men and Meade 23,049.
In March, 1864, Ulysses S. Grant was named
lieutenant general and the commander of the Union
Army. He joined the Army of the Potomac where he worked with George
Meade and Philip Sheridan. They
crossed the Rapidan and entered the Wilderness. When Lee heard the
news he sent in his troops, hoping that the Union's superior artillery
and cavalry would be offset by the heavy underbrush of the Wilderness.
Fighting began on the 5th May and two days later smoldering paper
cartridges set fire to dry leaves and around 200 wounded men were
either suffocated or burned to death. Of the 88,892 men that Grant
took into the Wilderness, 14,283 were casualties and 3,383 were reported
missing. Lee lost 7,750 men during the fighting.
After the battle Ulysses S. Grant moved
south and on May 26th sent Philip Sheridan
and his cavalry ahead to capture Cold Harbor from the Confederate
Army. Lee was forced to abandon Cold Harbor and his whole army
well dug in by the time the rest of the Union
Army arrived. Grant's ordered a direct assault but afterwards
admitted this was a mistake losing 12,000 men "without benefit
to compensate".
Grant now headed quickly towards Richmond
and was able to take Petersburg before Lee had time to react. However,
Pierre T. Beauregard was able to
protect the route to the city before the arrival of Lee's main army.
In March, 1865, William Sherman joined
Ulysses S. Grant and the main army at
Petersburg. On 1st April Sherman attacked at Five Forks. The Confederates,
led by Major General George Pickett,
were overwhelmed and lost 5,200 men. On hearing the news, Lee decided
to abandon Richmond and join Joseph
E. Johnston in an attempt to halt Sherman's army in South Carolina.
Lee was only able to muster an army of 8,000 men. He probed the Union
Army at Appomattox but faced by 110,000 men he decided the cause was
hopeless. He contacted Ulysses S. Grant
and after agreeing terms on 9th April, surrendered his army at Appomattox
Court House. Grant issued a brief statement: "The war is over;
the rebels are our countrymen again and the best sign of rejoicing
after the victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations in the
field."
After the war Lee became president of Washington College. Although
President Andrew Johnson never granted
him official amnesty he continued to work for reconciliation. Robert
Edward Lee died on 12th October, 1870.
Joseph
Leyendecker
Saturday Evening Post (1940)
(1)
Robert E. Lee, letter to General Winfield
Scott (20th April, 1861)
Since my interview with you on the 18th April I have felt that
I ought no longer to retain my commission in the Army. I, therefore,
tender my resignation, which I request you will recommend for acceptance.
It would have been presented at once but for the struggle it has cost
me to separate myself from a service to which I have devoted the best
years of my life and all the ability I possessed.
(2)
Robert E. Lee, letter to his sister, Anne Marshall (20th April,
1861)
With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty
of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to
raise my land against my relatives, my children, my home. I have,
therefore, resigned my commission in the Army, and save in defense
of my native state, with the sincere hope that my poor services may
never be needed, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword.
(3)
Mary Boykin Chesnut,
Richmond, Virginia, diary entry (1st January, 1864)
One more year of "Stonewall" would have saved us. Chickamauga
is the only battle we have gained since "Stonewall" died,
and no results follow as usual. "Stonewall" was not so much
killed by a Yankee; he was shot by his own men; that is hard. General
Lee can do no more than keep back Meade. "One of Meade's armies,
you mean," said I, "for they have only to double on him
when Lee whips one of them." If General Lee had had Grant's resources,
he would have bagged the last Yankee or have had them all safe back
in Massachusetts.
(4)
General Oliver
Howard
summarized the state of the Confederate Army
after the battle of Chancellorsville
in May, 1863.
We could gather little hope from the splendid condition of Lee's
army. It had been reorganized. Its numerous brigades were grouped
into divisions and the divisions into three army corps, and cavalry.
Stonewall Jackson, it is true, was no more, but the three lieutenant
generals - Longstreet, A. P. Hill, and Ewell - were not wanting in
ability or experience. They were trusted by Lee and believed in by
the troops and people.
(5)
John Singleton Mosby, Memoirs
of Colonel John S. Mosby (1917)
MY first meeting with General Robert
E. Lee was in August, 1862, when I brought the news of Burnside's
reinforcement of Pope, a story I have told in the preceding pages.
The next time we met was at his headquarters in Orange, about two
months after Gettysburg. He did not seem in the least depressed, and
was as buoyant and aggressive as ever. He took a deep interest in
my operations, for there was nothing of the Fabius in his character.
Lee was the most aggressive man I met in the war, and was always ready
for an enterprise. I believe that his interest in me was largely due
to the fact that his father, "Light Horse Harry", was a
partisan officer in the Revolutionary War.
After General Stuart was killed, in May, 1864, I reported directly
to General Lee. During the siege of Petersburg I visited him three
times - twice when I was wounded. Once, when I got out of the ambulance,
he was standing near, talking to General Longstreet. When he saw me
hobbling up to him on crutches, he came to meet me, introduced me
to General Longstreet, and said, "Colonel, the only fault I have
ever had to find with you is that you are always getting wounded."
Such a speech from General Lee more than repaid me for my wound.
The last time I saw him during the war was about two months before
the surrender. I had been wounded again. He was not only kind, but
affectionate, and asked me to take dinner with him, though he said
he hadn't much to eat. There was a leg of mutton on the table; he
remarked that some of his staff officers must have stolen it.
After dinner, when we were alone, he talked very freely. He said that
in the spring of 1862, Joe Johnston ought not to have fallen back
from the Rapidan to Richmond, and that he had written urging him to
turn against Washington. He also said that when Joe Johnston evacuated
his lines at Yorktown, in May of that year, he should have given battle
with his whole force on the isthmus at Williamsburg, instead of making
a rear-guard fight.
(6)
General Robert E. Lee, General Order No. 73 (28th June, 1863)
The commanding
general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army,
and through it the whole people, that the perpetration of the barbarous
outrages upon the unarmed and the defenseless, and the wanton destruction
of private property that have marked the course of the enemy in our
own country. It must be remembered that we make war only on armed
men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have
suffered without whose favor and support our efforts must all prove
in vain.
(7)
Carl Schurz wrote about the relative merits
of Robert E. Lee, William Sherman
and Ulysses S. Grant in his autobiography
published in 1906.
In the opinion of many competent persons, he was the ablest commander
of them all. I remember a remarkable utterance of his when we were
speaking of Grant's campaign. "There was a difference,"
Sherman said, "between Grant's and my way of looking at things.
Grant never cared a damn about what was going on behind the enemy's
lines, but it often scared me like the devil." He admitted, and
justly so, that some of Grant's successes were owing to this very
fact, but also some of his most conspicuous failures. Grant believed
in hammering - Sherman in maneuvering. It had been the habit of the
generals commanding the Army of the Potomac to cross the Rappahannock,
to get their drubbing from Lee, and then promptly to retreat and recross
the Rappahannock again in retreat. He sturdily went on, hammering
and hammering, and, with his vastly superior resources, finally hammered
Lee's army to pieces, but with a most dreadful sacrifice of life on
his own part. Now, comparing Grant's campaign for the taking of Richmond
with Sherman's campaign for the taking of Atlanta - without losing
sight of any of the differences of their respective situations - we
may well arrive at the conclusion that Sherman was the superior strategist
and the greater general.
(8)
Brigadier General Horace Porter recorded General Robert Lee's
surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant
on 9th April, 1865.
The contrast between the two commanders was striking and could not
fail to attract marked attention as they sat ten feet apart facing
each other. General Grant, then nearly forty-three years of age, was
five feet eight inches in height, with shoulders slightly stooped.
His hair and full beard were a nutbrown, without a trace of gray in
them. He had on a single-breasted blouse, made of dark-blue flannel,
unbuttoned in front, and showing a waistcoat underneath. He had no
sword, and a pair of shoulder straps was all there was about him to
designate his rank. In fact, aside from these, his uniform was that
of a private soldier.
Lee, on the other hand, was fully six feet in height and quite erect
for one of his age, for he was Grant's senior by sixteen years. His
hair and full beard were a silver-gray, and quite thick, except that
the hair had become a little thin in front. He wore a new uniform
of Confederate gray, buttoned up to the throat, and at his side he
carried a long sword of exceedingly fine workmanship, the hilt studdied
with jewels
(9)
Robert E. Lee, farewell message to the Army of Northern Virginia (9th
April, 1865)
After four years of arduous service, marked
by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia
has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.
I need not tell the survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who
have remained steadfast to the last, and I have consented to this
result from no distrust of them; but, feeling that valor and devotion
could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that would
have attended the continuation to the contest, I have determined to
avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared
them to their countrymen.
(10)
Robert E. Lee, letter to Josiah Tattnall (7th September, 1865)
The war being at an end, the Southern
states having laid down their arms and the questions at issue between
them and the Northern states having been decided, I believe it to
be the duty of everyone to unite in the restoration of the country
and the re-establishment of peace and harmony. These considerations
governed me in the counsels I gave to others and induced me on the
13th June to make application to be included in the terms of the amnesty
proclamation.
(11)
Robert E. Lee was cross-examined by Jacob Howard, the senator from
Michigan, as a Congressional committee held on 17th February, 1866.
Howard asked Lee if he believed the "colored population"
should vote in elections.
My own
opinion is that, at this time, they cannot vote intelligently, and
that giving them the right of suffrage would open the door to a great
deal of demagogism, and lead to embarrassments in various ways. What
the future may prove, how intelligent they may become, with what eyes
they may look upon the interests of the state in which they may reside,
I cannot say more than you can.
(12)
Robert E. Lee was cross-examined by Jacob Howard, the senator
from Michigan, as a Congressional committee held on 17th February,
1866. Howard questioned Lee about what happened at Andersonville
Prison Camp.
I suppose
they suffered from want of ability on the part of the Confederate
States to supply them with their wants. At the very beginning of the
war there was suffering of prisoners on both sides, but as far as
I could I did everything in my power to establish the cartel (of prisoner
exchange) as agreed upon. I made several efforts to exchange the prisons
after the cartel was suspended. I offered to General Grant, around
Richmond, that we should ourselves exchange all the prisoners in our
hands. I offered to send to City Point all the prisoners in Virginia
and North Carolina over which my command extended, provided they returned
an equal number of mine, man for man. I reported this to the War Department,
and received an answer that they could place at my command all the
prisoners at the South if the proposition was accepted. I heard nothing
more on the subject.
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