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General Robert Edward Lee
A Biography
(1807- 1870)
Robert E. Lee was born in Stratford
Hall, near Montross, Virginia, on January 19, 1807. He grew up with a
great love of all country life and his state. This stayed with him for the
rest of his life. He was a very serious boy and spent many hours in his
father's library. He loved to play with some his friends, swim, and he
loved to hunt. Lee looked up to his father and always wanted to know what
he was doing. George Washington and his father, "Light-Horse Harry Lee,"
were his heroes. He wanted to be just like his father when he grew up.
In the 1820's, the entrance requirements for West Point were not close to as
strict as they are now. It still was not that easy to become a cadet.
Robert Lee entered the United States Military Academy at West Point where his
classmates admired him for his brilliance, leadership, and his love for his
work. He graduated from the academy
with high honors in 1829, and he was ranked as a second lieutenant in the Corps
of Engineers at the age of 21. Lee served for seventeen months at Fort Pulaski
on Cockspur Island, Georgia. In 1831, the army transferred him to Fort
Monroe, Virginia, as assistant engineer. While he was stationed there, he
married Mary Anna Randolph Custis who was Martha Washington's
great-granddaughter. They lived in her family home in Arlington on a
hill overlooking Washington D.C. They had seven children which were three
sons and four daughters. Lee served as an assistant in the chief
engineer's office in Washington from 1834 to 1837, but then he spent the summer
of 1835 helping to lay out the boundary line between Ohio and Michigan. In
1837, he got his first independent important job. As a first lieutenant of
engineers, he supervised the engineering work for St. Louis harbor and for the
upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. His work there earned him a
promotion to captain. In 1841, he was transferred to Fort Hamilton in New
York harbor, where he took charge of building fortifications. When war broke out
between the United States and Mexico in
1846, the army sent Lee to Texas to serve as assistant engineer under General
John E. Wool. All his superior officers, especially General
Winfield Scott, were impressed with Lee. Early in the war, Lee supervised
the construction of bridges for Wool's march toward the Mexican border. He
then did excellent work on scouting trips. Lee later was helping
General
Winfield Scott plan a great battle. The Army was about to attack Vera
Cruz, a large Mexican town on the sea. The attack began. Soldiers
fired huge guns at the walls of Vera Cruz. One of the men at the guns happened
to be Robert's brother, Smith Lee. When he could, Lee went to stand by his
brother's gun. "I could see his white teeth through all the smoke of the
fire"1 Lee said, in a letter to Mary. The Mexicans soon gave up Vera
Cruz. General Scott thanked Lee for his work. Now the Army could
move on to the Mexican capital. The march to Mexico City would be hard.
General Scott asked Lee to find the best way to go. And he asked him to
see what Santa Anna, the Mexican general, was doing. To get news for
Scott, Lee went behind the lines of enemy soldiers. This was dangerous
work. Once when Lee was behind enemy lines he heard voices. Mexican
soldiers were coming to drink at a spring. Lee jumped under a log.
More
Mexicans came. They sat on the log and talked. Lee had to hide there
until dark. Lee found out many things for Scott. Once he even found
a secret road for the army. He was extremely brave. At Cerro Gordo
he led the first line of men into battle. The Americans won. Lee
then wrote to his son, Custis, "You have no idea what a horrible sight a field
of battle is."2 Then came the biggest battle of the war. The
Americans attacked a fort outside Mexico City. Lee planned the attack.
For days he worked without sleep. He found out where the Mexican soldiers
were. He knew where to put the big guns. It was easy for the Army to
take the fort. The American Army marched right into Mexico City. The
war was now officially over. Lee's engineering skill made it possible for
American troops to cross the difficult mountain passes on the way to the
capital. During the march to Mexico
City, Lee was promoted to brevet lieutenant colonel. He was promoted to
brevet colonel before the war ended. All of the official reports praised
Lee highly. Scott said that his "success in Mexico was largely due to
skill, valor, and undaunted courage of Robert E. Lee...the greatest military
genius in America."3 After three years at Fort Carrol in Baltimore harbor, Lee
became the superintendent of West Point in 1852. He would have preferred
duty in the field, instead of at a desk, but worked at his post without
complaint. During his three years at West Point, he improved the
buildings, the courses, and spent a lot of time with the cadets. There was
one cadet, Jeb Stuart, later served as one of Lee's best cavalry officers.
Lee earned a very good reputation during his service there as a fair and kind
superintendent. In 1855, Lee became a lieutenant colonel of cavalry and
was
assigned to duty on the Texas frontier. There he helped protect settlers
from attacks by the Apache and Comanche Indians. Once again he proved to
be an excellent soldier and organizer. But these were not happy years for
Lee. He did not like to be away from his family for long periods of time,
mostly because of his wife who was becoming weaker and weaker every minute.
Lee came home to see her as often as possible. He happened to be in
Washington at the time of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859, and was
sent there to arrest Brown and restore order. He did this very quickly and
returned to his regiment in Texas. When Texas seceded from the Union in
1861, Lee was called to Washington D.C. to wait for further orders. Unlike
many Southerners, Lee did not believe in slavery and did not favor secession.
He felt that slavery had an evil effect on masters as well as slaves. Long
before the war, he had freed the few slaves whom he had inherited. Lee
greatly admired George Washington, and hated the thought of a divided nation.
But he came to feel that his state was protecting the very liberty, freedom, and
legal principles for which Washington had fought. He was willing to leave
the union, as Washington had left the British Empire, to fight what the South
called a second war of independence. Lee had great difficulty in deciding
whether to stand by his native state or remain with the Union, even though
Lincoln offered him the field command of
the United States Army. He wrote his sister, "...in my own person I
had to meet the question whether I should take part against my native state.
With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an
American citizen, I had not been able to make up my mind to raise my
hand 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 upon to draw my sword."4 Lee grieved at parting from the friends
whom he had served with in other wars. The break with General Scott was
especially hard because they were two very close friends. For a time after Lee
joined the Confederate Army, he had no troops under his command. He served
in Richmond, Virginia, as military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson
Davis, and in May 1861, was appointed a full general. In the fall, he
succeeded in halting a threatened invasion from western Virginia. Later,
he took charge of protecting the coast of South Carolina against invasion.
When Lee returned to Richmond, in 1862, he helped draw up plans for the
Confederate forces in Virginia, then under the command of General Joseph E.
Johnston. Johnston was wounded on May 31, 1862, in the Battle of Fair Oaks
(Seven Pines). The next day, Lee took command of Johnston's army, which he
called the Army of Northern Virginia.5 From his first day of command, Lee faced
what looked like an impossible task. Union General George B. McClellan had
approached within 7 miles of Richmond with 100,000 men. Three forces were
closing in on the Confederate troops of General Stonewall Jackson in
the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. A fourth Union force was camped on the
Rappahannock River, ready to aid McClellan. In the series of engagements,
known as the Battle of the Seven Days, Lee forced McClellan to retreat.
This campaign taught Lee the need for simpler methods and organization.
Jackson had earlier conducted a brilliant campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, and
became Lee's most trusted subordinate. Jackson was so devoted to Lee that
he said he would follow him into a battle blindfolded. With Jackson's
help, Lee won a major victory over General John Pope in the second Battle of
Bull Run, in August, 1862. He was then free to invade Maryland.
Unfortunately, McClellan intercepted a battle order which a Confederate staff
officer had carelessly lost. Knowing Lee's plan in advance, McClellan
halted him in the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg). Lee returned to
Virginia to reorganize his army. General Ambrose E. Burnside led an attack
against Lee in December, 1862, at Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was on this
occasion that Lee made a statement that has since become very famous. Fog
covered the battlefield early in the morning before the battle began. As it
lifted and the Confederate command saw thousands of troops, Lee remarked, "It is
well that war is so terrible- we would grow too fond of it."6 Lee's troops badly
defeated the Union forces. Lee could not take advantage of his victory.
The Northern troops had been too
cleverly placed, and could fall back without breaking any of their lines of
communication. The Confederates had few reserves of men and supplies.
Lee felt that his army could not win the war by fighting defensively, and that
it was too costly simply to hold the enemy without destroying it. First he
had to fight another defensive battle. General Joseph Hooker, who had
taken over from Burnside, attacked Lee at Chancellorsville in the Spring of
1863. The Confederate forces won a great victory, but they paid a horrible
price for it. Stonewall Jackson died there. He was accidentally shot
by
his own men when he went ahead of his line of battle to scout. Determined
to take the offense, Lee moved into Pennsylvania and encountered the Northern
army which was now under General George G. Meade, at Gettysburg. Hard
fighting continued for three days, from July 1-3, 1863. The Confederates
met their defeat in what proved to be a turning point of the war. Always
generous to those under him, Lee insisted on taking the blame for the failure of
the campaign. In the Spring of 1864, Lee first faced General Ulysses S. Grant.
In a series of fierce and very bloody battles called the
Wilderness Campaign, Grant pounded the army of northern Virginia to pieces with
this larger army and guns. Lee held out for nine months in the siege of
Petersburg, but his tired hungry men finally had to retreat. Early in
1865, Lee was made general in chief of all the Confederate armies.
Richmond fell in April, 1865, and Lee's ragged army retreated westward.
Northern forces cut off and surrounded Lee's troops at Appomattox Court House,
Virginia, where Lee surrendered to Grant, on April 9, 1865. Grant tried to
make the surrender as easy as possible, and allowed the Confederate troops to
take their horses home for Spring plowing. As Lee made his last ride down
the lines on his famous horse Traveler, he told his army, "Men, we have fought
through the war together. I have done my best for you; my heart is too
full to say more." Lee's defeat at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, marked the
end of his brilliant military career.
Source:
http://www.cyberessays.com/History/58.htm
Note:
I found this to be an interesting biography of General Robert E. Lee because it
illustrates
his relation with General Winfield Scott. This story was copied from an essay
website
so please credit your sources properly and do not plagurize.