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Person1807 – 1870

Robert E. Lee

Also called: Robert Edward Lee, General Lee

Confederate general who led the Army of Northern Virginia to many victories, lost at Gettysburg and surrendered at Appomattox in 1865

Son of the Revolutionary War hero “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, he graduated second in his class at West Point and made his name in the Mexican War. In 1861 he declined Lincoln’s government’s offer of a Union command and followed his home state of Virginia into the Confederacy. Leading the Army of Northern Virginia from 1862, he repeatedly defeated larger Union armies, but was badly beaten at Gettysburg and surrendered to Grant at Appomattox in 1865. After the war he was president of Washington College (today Washington and Lee University). Long revered in the South as a symbol of the “Lost Cause”, he remains the subject of debate over how he should be commemorated.

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5 related events

  1. 1
    1859John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferrycommander

    The abolitionist John Brown seized the federal armory at Harpers Ferry to start a slave uprising, but was overpowered by Marines, captured and hanged that December.

  2. 2
    1862Battle of Antietamcommander

    McClellan’s Union army stopped Lee’s invasion of the North at Sharpsburg, Maryland; with some 23,000 casualties it was the bloodiest single day in American history.

  3. 3
    1863Battle of Chancellorsvillecommander

    Lee defeated Hooker’s Union army, more than twice his size, with a daring division of his forces; but Stonewall Jackson was shot by his own men and died.

  4. 4
    1863Battle of Gettysburgcommander

    Lee’s army, invading Pennsylvania, fought Meade’s Union army for three days and lost when Pickett’s Charge collapsed — the largest battle of the war and its turning point.

  5. 5
    1865Surrender at Appomattoxcommander

    Driven from Richmond, Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the Civil War.

People who appear alongside

  • Stonewall Jackson1824 – 1863

    Confederate general who earned the name “Stonewall” at First Bull Run and was mortally wounded by his own men at Chancellorsville

  • John Brown1800 – 1859

    Abolitionist who advocated armed struggle; he fought in Kansas and in 1859 raided the Harpers Ferry armory, for which he was hanged

  • Frederick Douglass1818 – 1895

    Born enslaved in Maryland, he escaped to become the leading abolitionist orator and writer, and recruited Black soldiers for the Union

  • George B. McClellan1826 – 1885

    Union general who built the Army of the Potomac but was overcautious; he checked Lee at Antietam and lost the 1864 election to Lincoln as the Democratic candidate

  • Abraham Lincoln1809 – 1865

    16th US president (1861–1865) who preserved the Union in the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation; assassinated just after the war ended

  • George G. Meade1815 – 1872

    Union general who took command of the Army of the Potomac three days before Gettysburg and repulsed Lee there

  • Ulysses S. Grant1822 – 1885

    Union general who took Vicksburg, became general-in-chief in 1864 and received Lee’s surrender; 18th US president (1869–1877)

  • Jefferson Davis1808 – 1889

    Mississippi politician, former US secretary of war and senator, and the only president of the Confederacy (1861–1865)

Themes this person appears in

  • The American Civil War1850 – 1865

    From the Compromise of 1850 to Lincoln’s assassination — a nation divided over slavery fought four years of civil war, preserving the Union and ending slavery