Robert E. Lee

(noun)

(January 19, 1807– October, 12 1870) A career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War.

Related Terms

(noun)

(1807–1870) A career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War.

Related Terms

Examples of Robert E. Lee in the following topics:

  • Lee's Surrender at Appomattox

    • Robert E.
    • Lee surrendered to Ulysses S.
    • Grant's Army of the Potomac and General Robert E.
    • Lee's Army of Northern Virginia ended with Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.
    • Grant sat at the simple wooden table on the right while Robert E.

  • The Battle of Fredericksburg

    • McClellan had stopped Robert E.
    • Lee at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland, but had not been able to destroy Lee's army, nor did he pursue Lee back into Virginia aggressively enough for Lincoln.
    • The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11–15, 1862, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, between General Robert E.
    • Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General Ambrose Burnside.
    • Bureaucratic delays prevented Burnside from receiving the necessary pontoon bridges in time, and Lee moved his army to block the crossings.

  • The Second Bull Run and the Battle of Antietam

    • Robert E.
    • Lee's Army of Northern Virginia against Union Maj.
    • On that same day, the wing of Lee's army commanded by Maj.
    • After pursuing Confederate General Robert E.
    • Lee into Maryland, Union Army Maj.

  • The Battle of Chancellorsville

    • The campaign pitted Union Army Major General Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac against General Robert E.
    • Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
    • After this string of defeats, President Abraham Lincoln became convinced that the Union’s real strategy should lie with defeating General Robert E.
    • Lee’s forces rather than capturing the Confederate capital.
    • In his Fredericksburg headquarters, Lee was initially in the dark about the Union intentions.

  • Stalemate in the Eastern Theater

    • The Second Battle of Bull Run, fought August 28–30, 1862, was the culmination of Robert E.
    • The Union army was pushed further back in retreat, allowing Lee an opening to the north into Maryland.
    • Meade defeated Lee in a three-day battle fought by 160,000 soldiers with 51,000 casualties.
    • The imaginations of both Northerners and Southerners were captured by the epic struggles between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, under Robert E.
    • Lee, and the Union Army of the Potomac, under a series of less successful commanders.

  • McClellan's Peninsular Campaign

    • McClellan was initially successful against Confederate General Joseph E.
    • Johnston, but the emergence of aggressive General Robert E.
    • Lee turned the subsequent Seven Days Battles into a humiliating Union defeat.
    • Johnston was wounded and replaced on June 1 by the more aggressive Robert E.
    • Nonetheless, Confederate morale was high following the battles, and Lee continued his aggressive strategies in the Second Battle of Bull Run and the Maryland Campaign.

  • The Confederacy's Defeat

    • Robert E.
    • Lee's surrender on April 9, 1865.
    • Lee's army fought a series of battles in the Appomattox Campaign against Grant that ultimately stretched thin his lines of defense.
    • Lee's extended lines were mostly on small sections of thirty miles of strongholds around Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia.
    • Mosby's raiders disbanded on April 21; General Joseph E.

  • Grant's Pursuit of Lee

    • Meade, and other forces against Confederate General Robert E.
    • Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
    • Lee's army was able to get into position to block this movement.
    • Here, Lee had an opportunity to defeat portions of Grant's army, but illness prevented Lee from attacking in time to trap Grant.
    • By engaging Lee's forces and not permitting them to escape, Grant forced Lee into an untenable position.

  • The Battle of Gettysburg

    • Union Major General George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate General Robert E.
    • Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North.
    • Elements of Meade's and Lee's armies initially collided at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, as Lee urgently concentrated his forces there.
    • Lee led his army on a torturous retreat back to Virginia.
    • This is because, after Gettysburg, Lee's army conducted no more strategic offensives, whereas prior to Gettysburg, Lee had established a reputation as an almost invincible general, achieving stunning victories against superior numbers.

  • Conclusion: Reasons for Union Victory

    • During the Gettysburg Campaign, General Robert E.
    • Lee’s troops were advancing further north than they had ventured previously during the war, but the Union Army was able to reverse their advance after defeating the Confederates in the Battle of Gettysburg.
    • President Lincoln and his advisors at the time believed that had the Union been successful in completely destroying Lee’s forces, the war could have been ended then and there.
    • In early April 1865, Lee’s army was fighting Grant’s forces in a series of battles in the Appomattox Campaign that stretched Lee’s lines of defenses very thin.
    • At 8:30 a.m. the morning of April 9, Lee requested a meeting with Grant, and during that meeting he surrendered his troops, leading to a series of surrenders across theaters.