Occupation U.S. Army Officer and General of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia

Overview

Robert E. Lee was born on January 19, 1807, on the plantation of Stratford Hall, Virginia, just south of the Potomac River. Lee’s father died in disgrace and disrepute when his son was eleven years old, a victim of bad business decisions and poor health, leaving Lee to be brought up by his mother in Alexandria, Virginia. In 1825 he secured an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he achieved exceptional marks, graduating second in the class of 1829. Assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers, Lee spent much of the next sixteen years shifting from post to post, performing noteworthy work on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers as well as the harbor facilities at St. Louis between 1837 and 1840.

In 1846 Lee jumped at the chance to see action in the Mexican-American War; early the following year he was assigned to the staff of Winfield Scott, and he distinguished himself during Scott’s campaign from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. After the war, he won appointment as superintendent at West Point, a post he held from 1852 to 1855, and then became a lieutenant colonel assigned to the newly established Second U.S. Cavalry. Upon the death of his father-in-law in 1857, Lee returned home to Virginia and established a residence at Arlington, just across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. He found managing the slaves at Arlington an onerous business and gained notoriety in 1859 when the New York Tribune reported that Lee had whipped some of the very slaves that he was supposed to free under the terms of his father-in-law’s will. Later that year, he hurried west to Harpers Ferry to take command of a detachment of U.S. Marines to subdue the abolitionist John Brown, who had seized a federal arsenal as the first step in his plan to incite a slave insurrection.

Lee anxiously watched as several southern states declared that they were seceding from the United States in the aftermath of the election of Abraham Lincoln. As of early 1861 Lee was determined not to take part in any conflict so long as Virginia remained in the Union. On the heels of Virginia’s decision to secede, made in the wake of Lincoln’s call for troops after the Union surrender of Fort Sumter, Lee turned down a general’s commission in the U.S. Army, resigned his colonelcy, and joined first the Virginia militia and then the Confederate forces, winning elevation to general in a matter of months. From June 1862 until April 1865 he led the Army of Northern Virginia, winning plaudits for his generalship, but he found himself forced to surrender to Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. After the war, Lee accepted the presidency of Washington College (which was renamed Washington and Lee University after his death), in Lexington, Virginia. Although he advised his fellow former Confederates to accept the outcome of the war, he remained uneasy about emancipation and contemplated writing a history of his army’s operations to suggest that the South had been overwhelmed and not outfought. After a short illness, he died on October 12, 1870.

Time Line

Explanation and Analysis of Documents

Although Lee was engaged in a successful military career in the U.S. Army, he tended to identify himself as a Virginian and sympathized with the interests of the slaveholding South. Regarding slavery itself, his views reflected a mixture of misgivings about the impact of slavery on whites and a belief that the institution was the best that could be done for blacks so long as they lived in the United States. He never doubted white supremacy; he blamed abolitionists for the controversy over slavery. Once he identified his interests with those of the Confederacy, Lee looked to wage aggressive war in order to beat back Union battalions and weaken northern public support for the war effort. He was always aware of the wider dimensions of his military operations; by 1865 he was prepared to accept the enlistment of African Americans in the Confederate army as a means of reviving his military manpower. Never questioning the correctness of the Confederate cause, even in defeat, Lee steadfastly maintained that the Union victory was the result of overwhelming resources, not superior military skill.

The documents produced by Lee—primarily personal correspondence—focus upon two themes. First, Lee dealt throughout his adult life, in various ways, with questions of slavery, freedom, and race. He was a slaveholder, and for a brief period he managed a plantation. Never did he question white supremacy or black inferiority, and if he questioned slavery at all, it was because it presented a burden to southern whites and not because of its impact upon the lives of southern blacks. He faulted abolitionists for their agitation of the slavery question. However, as a pragmatic matter, he came to accept that in order for the Confederacy to survive, it might have to enlist blacks into military service and offer them the reward of freedom. Lee’s second realm of concern was that of military strategy. As a military commander, Lee demonstrated an appreciation of the broader concerns of national policy and an understanding that the manner in which war is waged should be shaped by the ends sought in waging it. He was acutely aware of the importance of public support for any war effort, and at several opportune moments he suggested to the Confederate president Jefferson Davis that northern morale and public opinion were viable targets of Confederate war making.

Letter to Mary Lee (1856)

In 1831 Robert E. Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis at Arlington House, Virginia. Mary was a granddaughter of Martha Washington (the wife of George Washington); by wedding her, Lee married into the Washington legacy and benefited from the estate of the Custis family, including Arlington and its slaves. For the next twenty-five years Lee was often away from his wife while serving in the military, including during the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848. In 1856 he was on duty in Texas when he read President Franklin Pierce’s annual message to Congress, and he hurried to share his impressions with his wife.

The year 1856 had proved a critical one in American politics, with the discussion over slavery and its expansion looming large. In his last annual message to Congress, Pierce blamed northern agitators for the violence of the past year, whether it took place on the plains of Kansas, as pro-slavery and antislavery forces vied to determine the fate of that territory, or on Capitol Hill; the Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner was beaten by the South Carolina representative Preston Brooks in the Senate chamber in retaliation for a speech by Sumner attacking slavery and its advocates, particularly Brooks’s kinsman Senator Andrew Butler.

In the letter to his wife, Lee expresses his relief that the Republican Party failed to prevail in the presidential contest that had concluded the previous month. Agreeing with Pierce, Lee charges that the North bore responsibility for the sectional crisis because of northerners’ continual agitation against slavery. Although Lee considers slavery “a moral & political evil,” he argues that its primary victims were whites. Black slaves, he asserts, “are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically.” Lee expresses the belief that if it is to be successful, emancipation must come gradually, and he measures that process in centuries and millennia, not months or years. He defers to God’s will over the question of when slavery should end, meanwhile deploring any agitation of the issue as needless and counterproductive. In short, Lee was a supporter of the “peculiar institution” of slavery and shared in its white supremacist assumptions. Never did he hold southern whites accountable for their role in the sectional crisis that exploded in violence in the 1860s.

Letter to Custis Lee (1861)

The debate over slavery and its future escalated during the late 1850s. In November 1860 the antislavery Republican Party at last triumphed in the presidential contest with the election of Abraham Lincoln. Several southern states then hastened to declare that they would leave the Union and set up their own slaveholding republic in order to protect slavery from the encroachment of a Republican-controlled White House. Texas was among the first states to secede; as it prepared to do so, Colonel Lee contemplated his own next move. He shared his thoughts in a letter that was most probably addressed to his son Custis.

In this letter of 1861 Lee again blames the crisis on northern agitators, although he displays impatience with convoluted theories of secession. It would be better, he thought, to label the departure of the southern states for what it was—a revolution, with the goal of independence. Regardless, he admits to having no interest in serving on the side of the United States in any war that might result. If fighting were to break out, he would assess his fortunes according to what the state of Virginia decided to do. If it stayed within the Union, he would set aside his commission and watch from the sidelines; if Virginia cast its fate with the Confederacy, he would side with his state and offer his military services. He professes to deplore the idea of a country held together by force rather than sentiment, explicitly noting that he would not take up arms against the Confederacy. Not until Virginia chose to secede and join the Confederacy in the wake of the Union surrender of Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s call for volunteers did Lee’s course become clear. Any notion that he might have led U.S. forces against the Confederacy is belied by his own correspondence from when he was considering his options.

Letter to Jefferson Davis (1862)

Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia on June 1, 1862. At that time, the men of the Union general George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac could see the church spires in the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia. Within a month, however, Lee succeeded in driving McClellan away from Richmond and toward the James River. Once he learned that the Union high command had decided to order McClellan to evacuate his position and take his army north via water to join John Pope’s Army of Virginia in central Virginia, Lee moved quickly to strike at Pope before McClellan arrived in full force. After smashing Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run (also called Second Manassas) at the end of August, Lee decided to advance into Maryland. The decision reflected his belief that the Confederacy’s best chance to achieve independence lay in undermining support for the Union war effort through a series of Confederate victories. Invading Maryland, he believed, might well bolster the cause of secession in that state; it might also persuade European powers that the time had come to intervene. For the moment, it appeared that Lee had indeed caught the Union off balance, with its armies still recovering from defeat.

In September 1862 Lee decided to take the war north of the Potomac River into Maryland and Union territory. Even as he pressed forward, Lee thought it time to alert Jefferson Davis to the possible political advantages to be gained by coupling an invasion north of the Potomac with a call for peace negotiations, to result in the recognition of Confederate independence. As he puts it, it “would show conclusively to the world that our sole object is the establishment of our independence and the attainment of an honorable peace.” Nothing came of this proposal; in less than two weeks Lee had returned to Virginia after having held off McClellan at the Battle of Antietam in the bloodiest day of combat in the American Civil War.

Letter to Jefferson Davis (1863)

Although he scored several key victories in his first year as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee bemoaned the fact that he could not transform any of those battlefield triumphs into an event of far larger strategic significance. After he beat back a series of Union attacks at Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, despite the damage he inflicted upon the enemy, he regretted that the outcome was not beneficial enough. Nor was he completely satisfied with the results of his most spectacular battlefield triumph, at Chancellorsville (April 30–May 6, 1863), where he defeated an enemy force twice the size of his own, though at heavy cost. Once more he chose to cross the Potomac north; once more he sought to impress his president with the political advantages that might accrue from such an offensive.

In this letter to Davis, Lee argues that it is important for Confederate politicians to say nothing that might dampen talk of a peaceful resolution of the conflict by northerners. By 1863 some northern Democrats were charging that the war was a failure, that reunion by coercion was doomed, and that the time had come to negotiate a settlement. Whether Confederate independence would be part of such a settlement remained open to discussion. Lee argues, then, that it would be best not to preclude any efforts at negotiation; if such negotiations were to take place, northerners might well come to accept Confederate independence as talks dragged on without evidence of Union progress on the battlefield. Implicit in Lee’s letter is the notion that Confederate resources were not inexhaustible: “Our resources in men are constantly diminishing.” Lee believes it critical for the Confederacy to use whatever means are available, including deception, to weaken northern resolve. Thus, he concludes, it would be important to welcome any talk of negotiations without mentioning any preconditions, including the recognition of Confederate independence. Lee remarks that should his invasion of Pennsylvania prove a success, that result would add to the northern cry for peace and an acceptance of an independent Confederacy.

Davis might well have replied that to enter into such negotiations without any assurance regarding independence could demoralize support for the Confederacy in the South. Other observers might have noted that Lee was perhaps overestimating the number of northerners willing to talk peace, especially at a time when the Union general Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of Tennessee was laying siege to Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Confederate defeat at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which proved costly in terms of both manpower and leadership losses, rendered the discussion moot. Lee may have at first secured the upper hand on the battlefield, but by the end of 1863 it was evident that his victories had come at such a cost that he was unable to exploit them to much advantage.

Letter to Jefferson Davis (1864)

If Lee understood that his defeat at Gettysburg represented a setback for Confederate fortunes in 1863, he did not assume that it represented the turning point of the war. As spring came to Virginia in 1864, he prepared once more to check Union offensive operations in that state. He looked forward to meeting Grant in battle. In a March 1864 letter to Davis, Lee shared his speculations about Grant’s plans based upon close observation of northern newspaper reports about the Union general’s activities. Lee professes to believe it obvious that Grant will plan to make Richmond the objective of a spring campaign and, as the new Union commander, will come to Virginia to supervise that offensive. Lee remarks, “Energy and activity on our part, with a constant readiness to seize any opportunity to strike a blow, will embarrass, if not entirely thwart the enemy in concentrating his different armies, and compel him to conform his movements to our own.” In short, Lee holds that Confederate commanders must be ready to repel Union advances and take the initiative when necessary, even undertaking offensive operations of their own.

Lee’s stance remained aggressive, as he was looking to land a blow to keep his foe off balance and perhaps seize the initiative; he repeatedly sought reinforcements to enable him to take advantage of whatever opportunities presented themselves. He was also mindful that 1864 was an election year, such that Union military reverses might well lead to the repudiation of Lincoln and the Republicans at the polls. However, in May and June 1864, he discovered that in Grant he had met a general who matched up well against him. Grant refused to surrender the initiative and seemed undeterred from achieving his objectives. By June, Lee found himself clinging to Richmond and Petersburg, fending off Grant’s efforts to cut his supply lines. Lee’s efforts to regain the offensive failed; if Grant could not defeat Lee outright, he at least pinned the Confederacy’s most able military leader in place while Union armies elsewhere scored the military triumphs that reassured the reelection of Abraham Lincoln.

Letter to Andrew Hunter (1865)

During the course of the Civil War, Lee did not question the cause of the preservation of slavery. His army swept through the countryside of Maryland and Pennsylvania looking to gather up blacks suspected of being fugitive slaves; in 1864 he put black Union prisoners of war to work on fortifications within range of Union weaponry, relenting only when Grant responded in kind by deploying Confederate prisoners in the same way. Lee dragged his feet when it came to emancipating his family’s slaves in accordance with his father-in-law’s will. Desperation for manpower, however, drove him to consider the idea of enlisting black slaves in the Confederate army, especially when it became a topic of political debate in the winter of 1864–1865.

Although Lee prided himself on being apolitical, he often gave advice and shared his sentiments privately, and nowhere was his willingness to do so more evident than in this letter to Andrew Hunter, a member of the Virginia state legislature who had solicited Lee’s views on the subject of black enlistment for the Confederacy. Lee’s response, written in January 1865, is richly suggestive of the way in which he sought to balance the preferred ideal from a white southern perspective with the reality of the Confederacy’s situation. Although he still praises slavery as the best way to define the relationship between black and white Americans, he recognizes that with the Union now tapping into black manpower to bolster its military effort, if the Confederacy did not do the same, it would be overwhelmed and crushed. He professes to be, unlike some others, willing to offer emancipation to black soldiers and their families as a reward for faithful military service. Noteworthy in light of modern-day controversies about the extent and nature of black service in the Confederate armies is Lee’s failure to mention any such service as a way to combat objections to the plan for enlisting blacks. In later years Lee would claim that he had always been in favor of gradual emancipation, but this letter sets that claim in a more limited context, suggesting that he would have preferred emancipation only if accompanied by the colonization of the former slaves and other blacks outside the United States.

General Order No. 9 (1865)

Lee looked to continue the Civil War through 1865. His first mission early in the year was to evade Grant and evacuate Richmond and Petersburg in such a fashion as to render a pursuit difficult. However, his initial effort to achieve this proved a disaster when his attack on Fort Stedman of March 25 was soundly repulsed; a week later, after Grant took the offensive, Lee abandoned Richmond and Petersburg and headed west. Grant then launched a vigorous pursuit, cutting off Lee’s efforts to venture into North Carolina and smashing his rear guard. Hungry and ill supplied, Lee’s command began to disintegrate, until at last he accepted the inevitable and surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House.

By the next day, the staff officer Charles Marshall had drafted a farewell order, which Lee edited before issuing it to the twenty-five thousand or so men who remained in the ranks. The order states nothing about the cause for which the Confederates had been fighting; Lee suggests that the ultimate outcome was due to their being overwhelmed by superior Union numbers, and he commends the men on their bravery and sacrifice. These themes would help form the basis of what is sometimes called the mythology of the Lost Cause, including the notion that the Confederacy was overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers despite their soldiers’ superior fighting ability. Lee concludes, “With an increasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous considerations for myself, I bid you all an affectionate farewell.”

Impact and Legacy

Had there been no American Civil War, Robert E. Lee would have been remembered, if at all, as an extremely competent army officer. His brilliant military leadership brought the Confederacy as close as it ever came to battlefield victory, but at heavy costs that would be felt during the latter years of the war, as Lee found he could no longer replace his losses. Moreover, as tremendous as some of his military triumphs might have been, he proved unable to exploit them, and both of his invasions north across the Potomac River resulted in defeats that might have turned into disasters were it not for the inability of Union forces to capitalize on their own opportunities. Nevertheless, the Confederacy may have survived as long as it did because of Lee’s leadership, and not until he encountered Grant did he find himself unable to reverse Union offensives.

After the war, Lee came to be portrayed as a simple soldier who went along with his state because he embraced a simple conception of duty. In truth, not all Virginians shared his particular notions of duty and loyalty, including George H. Thomas, who rose to become one of the Union’s greatest generals. Nor was he nearly as opposed to slavery as some eulogists would have it: His writings suggest that he was comfortable with white supremacy and that his commitment to abolition was strictly practical and qualified by conditions. He understood the advantages of abolition primarily in relation to the potential impact on military operations. While identifying himself as a Virginian, Lee took the southern view when it came to slavery, emphasizing that it was a burden upon white people but the best status that blacks could enjoy in first the United and then the Confederate States of America.

For most of the years since the end of the Civil War, Lee has been accorded iconic status by many Americans, although he has always had his critics. Several biographical efforts sought to celebrate his greatness as a general and his goodness of character while distancing his persona from issues of slavery and the nature of the Confederate cause. Indeed, for some, Lee became the model of southern honor and gentility; his image was used to refashion the essence of Confederate identity as being detached from slavery and white supremacy. In more recent years, some scholars have raised questions about Lee both as a general and as a white southerner, especially regarding his views on slavery and race, and have rendered him as a somewhat more complex character. However, old images die hard, and as the bicentennial of Lee’s birth passed, it was clear that many white Americans still held him in high regard.

Essential Quotes

Questions for Further Study

Key Sources

Major collections of Robert E. Lee’s papers can be found at the Virginia Historical Society and the Library of Congress; smaller collections are at the University of Virginia, the Library of Virginia, the Museum of the Confederacy, the Huntington Library (in San Marino, California), and Duke University, as well as at Lee’s birthplace in Stratford Hall and at Washington and Lee University. Many of Lee’s formal dispatches appear in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. (1880–1901). A published collection is Clifford Dowdey, ed., The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee (1961).

Further Reading