Robert E. Lee

1807

Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was an American Confederate general best known as a commander of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Almost 110 years after the conclusion of the Civil War and his denial for amnesty by Secretary of State William Seward, Lee was officially pardoned by President Gerald Ford, and given a posthumous restoration of his full rights of citizenship. ==Early life and education== Lee was born at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, to Henry Lee III and Anne Hill Carter Lee on January 19, 1807.

1811

In 1811, the family, including the newly born sixth child, Mildred, moved to a house on Oronoco Street. In 1812 Lee's father moved permanently to the West Indies.

1812

In 1811, the family, including the newly born sixth child, Mildred, moved to a house on Oronoco Street. In 1812 Lee's father moved permanently to the West Indies.

1825

Lee entered West Point in the summer of 1825.

1829

In June 1829, Lee was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers.

After graduation, while awaiting assignment, he returned to Virginia to find his mother on her deathbed; she died at Ravensworth on July 26, 1829. ==Military engineer career== On August 11, 1829, Brigadier General Charles Gratiot ordered Lee to Cockspur Island, Georgia.

In 1831, it became apparent that the existing plan to build what became known as Fort Pulaski would have to be revamped, and Lee was transferred to Fort Monroe at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula (today in Hampton, Virginia). While home in the summer of 1829, Lee had apparently courted Mary Custis whom he had known as a child.

1830

She accepted him with her father's consent in September 1830, while he was on summer leave, and the two were wed on June 30, 1831. Lee's duties at Fort Monroe were varied, typical for a junior officer, and ranged from budgeting to designing buildings.

1831

In 1831, it became apparent that the existing plan to build what became known as Fort Pulaski would have to be revamped, and Lee was transferred to Fort Monroe at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula (today in Hampton, Virginia). While home in the summer of 1829, Lee had apparently courted Mary Custis whom he had known as a child.

She accepted him with her father's consent in September 1830, while he was on summer leave, and the two were wed on June 30, 1831. Lee's duties at Fort Monroe were varied, typical for a junior officer, and ranged from budgeting to designing buildings.

Robert and Mary married on June 30, 1831, at Arlington House, her parents' house just across the Potomac from Washington.

1832

Beginning in 1832, Robert Lee had a close but platonic relationship with Harriett Talcott, wife of his fellow officer Andrew Talcott. Life at Fort Monroe was marked by conflicts between artillery and engineering officers.

1834

Lee duly moved there, then discharged all workers and informed the War Department he could not maintain laborers without the facilities of the fort. In 1834, Lee was transferred to Washington as General Gratiot's assistant.

from 1834 to 1837, but spent the summer of 1835 helping to lay out the state line between Ohio and Michigan.

1835

from 1834 to 1837, but spent the summer of 1835 helping to lay out the state line between Ohio and Michigan.

1836

In October 1836, Lee was promoted to first lieutenant. Lee served as an assistant in the chief engineer's office in Washington, D.C.

1837

from 1834 to 1837, but spent the summer of 1835 helping to lay out the state line between Ohio and Michigan.

As a first lieutenant of engineers in 1837, he supervised the engineering work for St.

1842

Around 1842, Captain Robert E.

1843

(Rob); 1843–1914; served as captain in the Confederate Army (Rockbridge Artillery); married twice; surviving children by second marriage Mildred Childe Lee (Milly, "Precious Life"); 1846–1905; unmarried All the children survived him except for Annie, who died in 1862.

1846

(Rob); 1843–1914; served as captain in the Confederate Army (Rockbridge Artillery); married twice; surviving children by second marriage Mildred Childe Lee (Milly, "Precious Life"); 1846–1905; unmarried All the children survived him except for Annie, who died in 1862.

1847

Soon after his release the following year, the family moved to the city of Alexandria which at the time was still part of the District of Columbia (it retroceded back to Virginia in 1847), both because there were then high quality local schools there, and because several members of Anne's extended family lived nearby.

He was instrumental in several American victories through his personal reconnaissance as a staff officer; he found routes of attack that the Mexicans had not defended because they thought the terrain was impassable. He was promoted to brevet major after the Battle of Cerro Gordo on April 18, 1847.

1848

The Mexican–American War concluded on February 2, 1848. After the Mexican War, Lee spent three years at Fort Carroll in Baltimore harbor.

1849

In 1849, searching for a leader for his filibuster expedition, he approached Jefferson Davis, then a United States senator.

1850

Both decided it was inconsistent with their duties. ==Early 1850s: West Point and Texas== The 1850s were a difficult time for Lee, with his long absences from home, the increasing disability of his wife, troubles in taking over the management of a large slave plantation, and his often morbid concern with his personal failures. In 1852, Lee was appointed Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point.

He served under Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston at Camp Cooper, Texas; their mission was to protect settlers from attacks by the Apache and the Comanche. ==Late 1850s: Arlington plantation and the Custis slaves== In 1857, his father-in-law George Washington Parke Custis died, creating a serious crisis when Lee took on the burden of executing the will.

1852

Both decided it was inconsistent with their duties. ==Early 1850s: West Point and Texas== The 1850s were a difficult time for Lee, with his long absences from home, the increasing disability of his wife, troubles in taking over the management of a large slave plantation, and his often morbid concern with his personal failures. In 1852, Lee was appointed Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point.

1854

Custis Lee graduated in 1854, first in his class. Lee was enormously relieved to receive a long-awaited promotion as second-in-command of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Texas in 1855.

1855

By the end of the war, he had received additional brevet promotions to lieutenant colonel and colonel, but his permanent rank was still captain of engineers, and he would remain a captain until his transfer to the cavalry in 1855. For the first time, Robert E.

Custis Lee graduated in 1854, first in his class. Lee was enormously relieved to receive a long-awaited promotion as second-in-command of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Texas in 1855.

1856

Countering Southerners who argued for slavery as a positive good, Lee in his well-known analysis of slavery from an 1856 letter (see below) called it a moral and political evil.

In an 1856 letter to his wife, he maintained that slavery was a great evil, but primarily due to adverse impact that it had on white people: In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country.

1857

He served under Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston at Camp Cooper, Texas; their mission was to protect settlers from attacks by the Apache and the Comanche. ==Late 1850s: Arlington plantation and the Custis slaves== In 1857, his father-in-law George Washington Parke Custis died, creating a serious crisis when Lee took on the burden of executing the will.

1858

In May 1858, Lee wrote to his son Rooney, "I have had some trouble with some of the people.

1859

Some of the families had been together since their time at Mount Vernon. ===The Norris case=== In 1859, three of the Arlington slaves—Wesley Norris, his sister Mary, and a cousin of theirs—fled for the North, but were captured a few miles from the Pennsylvania border and forced to return to Arlington.

On June 24, 1859, the anti-slavery newspaper New York Daily Tribune published two anonymous letters (dated June 19, 1859 and June 21, 1859), each claiming to have heard that Lee had the Norrises whipped, and each going so far as to claim that the overseer refused to whip the woman but that Lee took the whip and flogged her personally.

1860

Before the outbreak of the War, in 1860, Lee voted for John C.

Breckinridge, who was the extreme pro-slavery candidate in the 1860 presidential election, not John Bell, the more moderate Southerner who won Virginia. Lee himself owned a small number of slaves in his lifetime and considered himself a paternalistic master.

1861

When Virginia's 1861 Richmond Convention declared secession from the Union, Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command.

1862

He led the Army of Northern Virginia from 1862 until its surrender in 1865 and earned a reputation as a skilled tactician. A son of Revolutionary War officer Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III, Lee was a top graduate of the United States Military Academy and an exceptional officer and military engineer in the United States Army for 32 years.

During the first year of the Civil War, he served in minor combat operations and as a senior military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862 during the Peninsula Campaign following the wounding of Joseph E.

(Rob); 1843–1914; served as captain in the Confederate Army (Rockbridge Artillery); married twice; surviving children by second marriage Mildred Childe Lee (Milly, "Precious Life"); 1846–1905; unmarried All the children survived him except for Annie, who died in 1862.

with a pass from General Custis Lee." Lee freed the Custis slaves, including Wesley Norris, after the end of the five-year period in the winter of 1862, filing the deed of manumission on December 29, 1862. Biographers of Lee have differed over the credibility of the account of the punishment as described in the letters in the Tribune and in Norris's personal account.

In 1862, Lee freed the slaves that his wife inherited, but that was in accordance with his father-in-law's will. Foner writes that "Lee's code of gentlemanly conduct did not seem to apply to blacks" during the War, as he did not stop his soldiers from kidnapping free black farmers and selling them into slavery.

1863

Lee then won two decisive victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville before launching a second invasion of the North in the summer of 1863, where he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg by the Army of the Potomac under George Meade.

According to the interview, Norris was sent to Richmond in January 1863 "from which place I finally made my escape through the rebel lines to freedom." But Federal authorities reported that Norris came within their lines on September 5, 1863, and that he "left Richmond ...

1864

Grant took command of Union armies in the spring of 1864.

He was also related to Helen Keller through Helen's mother, Kate, and was a distant relative of Admiral Willis Augustus Lee. On May 1, 1864, General Lee was present at the baptism of General A.P.

1865

He led the Army of Northern Virginia from 1862 until its surrender in 1865 and earned a reputation as a skilled tactician. A son of Revolutionary War officer Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III, Lee was a top graduate of the United States Military Academy and an exceptional officer and military engineer in the United States Army for 32 years.

Grant engaged Lee's army in bloody but inconclusive battles at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania before the lengthy Siege of Petersburg, which was followed in April 1865 by the capture of Richmond and the destruction of most of Lee's army, which he finally surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. After the war, Lee was not arrested or punished (although he was indicted), but he did lose the right to vote as well as some property.

In 1865, Lee became president of Washington College (later Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia; in that position, he supported reconciliation between North and South.

1866

He has left me an unpleasant legacy." Wesley Norris himself spoke out about the incident after the war, in an 1866 interview printed in an abolitionist newspaper, the National Anti-Slavery Standard.

It seems incongruously out of character for Lee to have whipped a slave woman himself, particularly one stripped to the waist, and that charge may have been a flourish added by the two correspondents; it was not repeated by Wesley Norris when his account of the incident was published in 1866.

1870

Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was an American Confederate general best known as a commander of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Lee accepted "the extinction of slavery" provided for by the Thirteenth Amendment, but opposed racial equality for African Americans. After his death in 1870, Lee became a cultural icon in the South and is largely hailed as one of the Civil War's greatest generals.

2000

The usage at Arlington and elsewhere in Virginia among people of Lee's station forbade such a thing." In 2000, Michael Fellman, in The Making of Robert E.




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