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Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, toward the end of which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army.
Jun 12, 2023 · Robert E. Lee was one of the most significant and enduring figures of the American Civil War era. Known for his unwavering sense of duty, tactical brilliance, and dignified leadership, he left an indelible mark on the nation’s history, forever personifying the nobility and tragedy of the Confederate cause.
Confederate General. Regarded as the war’s finest general, Robert E. Lee was a master of the organization of war. The country’s most experienced general in 1861, he declined President Lincoln’s...
- Overview
- Context
- Battle
- Surrender and aftermath
Battle of Appomattox Court House, (April 9, 1865), one of the final battles of the American Civil War. After a weeklong flight westward from Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee briefly engaged Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant before surrendering to the Union at Appomattox Court House. This signaled the beginning of the end ...
Grant and his Army of the Potomac began their siege of Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, in June 1864. After weathering nearly 10 months of starvation and desertions, Lee resolved to abandon the cities altogether and regroup in North Carolina with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. First, however, Lee hoped to reverse his fortunes and attacked Fort Stedman outside Petersburg on March 25, 1865. Lee’s failure at Fort Stedman and a spectacular defeat at Five Forks on April 1 forced Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia to evacuate Richmond and Petersburg on the night of April 2, 1865.
American Civil War Events
Battle of Fort Sumter
April 12, 1861 - April 14, 1861
Shenandoah Valley campaigns
July 1861 - March 1865
On April 8 Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia paused its march a mile from the small village of Appomattox Court House. Lee intended to resupply there before heading to Lynchburg, Virginia, and then south to Danville, Virginia. Unanticipated was the arrival of Union cavalry coming from the south under Gen. Philip H. Sheridan’s command. That evening Union Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer successfully led some of the cavalry against the Confederate supply trains at the nearby Appomattox Station. Although shaken, Lee hoped to break through to Lynchburg the next day.
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On the morning of April 9, Lee ordered his cavalry, under the command of Gen. John B. Gordon, to attack Sheridan’s cavalry, which had blocked the Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Road. Lee commanded an army of nearly 27,000 soldiers, which paled in comparison to Grant’s force of some 63,000 troops, but he still intended to force his way through Union lines. The Confederate cavalry initially held their own and even succeeded in driving the Union horsemen from their position atop a nearby ridge. However, Gordon saw thousands of Union troops quickly approaching and sent word to Lee that his position was hopeless unless the infantry supported them. Lee’s infantry, however, was engaged with Grant’s Army of the James, which had approached the Confederates from the west under cover of night. Faced with no route of escape to Lynchburg, Lee agreed to negotiate terms of surrender.
Grant agreed to let Lee choose the meeting place at which they would discuss terms, so his aide chose the home of Wilmer McLean, a retired Virginia militia officer. With McLean’s consent, Lee arrived at 1:00 pm. Grant is said to have arrived a half hour later. Under the terms of surrender, Grant would not charge any member of the Army of Northern Virginia with treason, instead placing them on parole after the confiscation of their weapons. Lee agreed to these terms and departed the McLean residence at 4:00 pm.
While Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House marked the end of the war in Virginia, it was not the end of the Civil War as a whole. Johnston’s Army of Tennessee was still being chased by Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Smaller Confederate armies continued to fight throughout the Deep South and west of the Mississippi River. The war would not be officially declared won for the Union until August 20, 1866.
Discover how Robert E Lee's tactics brought him significant victory during the Civil War and how his is different and similar with that of Ulysses S. Grant.
Apr 27, 2017 · Lee’s commitment to the Confederate nation dominated his actions and thinking during the most famous and important period of his life. A letter from Lee to P.G.T. Beauregard in October 1865 provides an excellent starting point to examine his conception of loyalty.
Robert E. Lee was against slavery but when the American Civil War started, his home state of Virginia sided with the Confederacy. Lee thought that his allegiance lay with his home state and so he left the US Army and went back to Virginia.
