Robert E. Lee was a Confederate general during the American Civil War. He was born in 1807 in Virginia to a prominent family and attended West Point, graduating without demerits. During his military career, he fought in the Mexican-American War and initially opposed secession from the Union. However, when Virginia seceded, he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army to defend his native state, becoming the senior military advisor to Jefferson Davis and the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. He is remembered as one of the primary commanders of the Confederate forces during the Civil War.

1. Robert E. Lee
By: Adam Roush

2. Stats
Birth name
Robert Edward Lee
Nickname
"Marble Man"
Born
January 19, 1807
Stratford Hall, Virginia, U.S.
Died
October 12, 1870 (aged 63)
Lexington, Virginia, U.S.
Buried at
● Lee Chapel
● Washington and Lee University
● Lexington, Virginia, U.S.
Allegiance
● United States of America
● Confederate States of America
Service/branch
● United States Army
● Confederate States Army

3. Stats Cont.
Years of service
● 1829–1861 (U.S. Army)
● 1861–1865 (C.S. Army)
Rank
● Colonel (U.S. Army)
● General (C.S. Army)
Commands held
● Superintendent, U.S. Military Academy
● Army of Northern Virginia
Battles/wars
● Mexican–American War
● Harpers Ferry Raid
● American Civil War
Other work
President of Washington and Lee University

4. Early Life
● Lee was born at Stratford Hall Plantation in
Westmoreland County, Virginia, the son of Major
General Henry Lee III (Light Horse Harry) (1756–1818),
Governor of Virginia, and his second wife, Anne Hill
Carter (1773–1829). His birth date has traditionally been
recorded as January 19, 1807, but according to the
historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor, "Lee's writings indicate
he may have been born the previous year."[8]

5. Early Life cont.
● One of Lee's great-great grandparents, Henry Lee I, was a prominent
Virginian colonist of English descent.[9]
Lee's family is one of Virginia's first
families, originally arriving in Virginia from England in the early 1600s with
the arrival of Richard Lee I, Esq., "the Immigrant" (1618–64).[10]
His mother
grew up at Shirley Plantation, one of the most elegant homes in Virginia.[11]
Lee's father, a tobacco planter, suffered severe financial reverses from
failed investments.[12]
Little is known of Lee as a child; he rarely spoke of his boyhood as an adult.[13]
Nothing is known of his relationship with his father who, after leaving his family,
mentioned Robert only once in a letter. When given the opportunity to visit his
father's Georgia grave, he remained there only briefly yet, while as president of
Washington College, he defended his father in a biographical sketch while
editing Light Horse Harry's memoirs.

6. Early Life cont.
Little is known of Lee as a child; he rarely spoke of his boyhood as an adult.[13]
Nothing is known of his
relationship with his father who, after leaving his family, mentioned Robert only once in a letter. When
given the opportunity to visit his father's Georgia grave, he remained there only briefly yet, while as
president of Washington College, he defended his father in a biographical sketch while editing Light
Horse Harry's memoirs.[14]
In 1809, Harry Lee was put in debtors prison; soon after his release the
following year, Harry and Anne Lee and their five children moved to a small house on Cameron Street
in Alexandria, Virginia, both because there were then high quality local schools there, and because
several members of her extended family lived nearby.[15]
In 1811, the family, including the newly born
sixth child, Mildred, moved to a house on Oronoco Street, still close to the center of town and with the
houses of a number of Lee relatives close by.[16]
In 1812, Harry Lee was badly injured in a political riot
in Baltimore and traveled to the West Indies. He would never return, dying when his son Robert was
eleven years old.[17]
Left to raise six children alone in straitened circumstances, Anne Lee and her
family often paid extended visits to relatives and family friends.[18]
Robert Lee attended school at
Eastern View, a school for young gentlemen, in Fauquier County, and then at the Alexandria
Academy, free for local boys, where he showed an aptitude for mathematics. Although brought up to
be a practicing Christian, he was not confirmed in the Episcopal Church until age 46.[19]

7. Civil War
Lee privately ridiculed the Confederacy in letters in early 1861, denouncing secession as "revolution"
and a betrayal of the efforts of the founders. Writing to his son William Fitzhugh, Lee stated, "I can
anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union." While he was not
opposed in principle to secession, Lee wanted all peaceful ways of resolving the differences between
North and South—such as the Crittenden Compromise—to be tried first, and was one of the few to
foresee a long and difficult war.[60]
The commanding general of the Union Army, Winfield Scott, told Lincoln he wanted Lee for a top
command. Lee accepted a promotion to colonel on March 28.[61]
He had earlier been asked by one of
his lieutenants if he intended to fight for the Confederacy or the Union, to which Lee replied, "I shall
never bear arms against the Union, but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in the defense of
my native state, Virginia, in which case I shall not prove recreant to my duty."[62]
Meanwhile, Lee
ignored an offer of command from the CSA. After Lincoln's call for troops to put down the rebellion, it
was obvious that Virginia would quickly secede. Lee turned down an April 18 offer by presidential aide
Francis P. Blair to command the defense of Washington D.C. as a major general, as he feared that the
job might require him to invade the South. When Lee asked Scott, who was also a Virginian, if he
could stay home and not participate in the war, the general replied "I have no place in my army for
equivocal men."[60]

8. Optional

9. Citations
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia