Editing Robert E. Lee (section)

==Civil War==
===Resignation from United States Army===
[[File:Robert E Lee in 1863.png|thumb|Lee in [[Confederate States Army]] uniform in 1863]]
Unlike many Southerners who expected a glorious war, Lee correctly predicted it as protracted and devastating.<ref name="pryor20110419">{{cite web |url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/the-general-in-his-study |title=The General in His Study  |website=Disunion |date=April 19, 2011 |access-date=April 19, 2011 |author=Pryor, Elizabeth Brown}}</ref> He privately opposed the new [[Confederate States of America]] in letters in early 1861, denouncing secession as "nothing but revolution" and an unconstitutional betrayal of the efforts of the [[Founding Fathers]]. Writing to George Washington Custis in January, Lee stated:
{{blockquote|The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of the North, as you say. I feel the aggression, and am willing to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle I contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an American citizen, I take great pride in my country, her prosperity and institutions, and would defend any State if her rights were invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for "perpetual union", so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled.<ref name="auto2">{{cite web |url=https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Lee_Evils_of_Anarchy.pdf |title=Robert E. Lee to George Washington Custis Lee |publisher=The Library of America, 2011 |website=The Civil War: The First Year Told By Those Who Lived It |date=1906 |access-date=19 November 2016 |author=[[J. William Jones]]}}</ref>}}

Despite opposing secession, Lee said in January that "we can with a clear conscience separate" if all peaceful means failed. He agreed with secessionists in most areas, rejecting the Northern abolitionists' criticisms and their prevention of the expansion of slavery to the new western territories, and fear of the North's larger population. Lee supported the [[Crittenden Compromise]], which would have constitutionally protected slavery.<ref name="test">{{cite web|url=http://www.americanheritage.com/content/robert-e-lee%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cseverest-struggle%E2%80%9D|first=Elizabeth Brown|last=Pryor|title=Robert E. Lee's 'Severest Struggle'|publisher=American Heritage|year=2008}}</ref>

Lee's objection to secession was ultimately outweighed by a sense of personal honor, reservations about the legitimacy of a strife-ridden "Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets", and his duty to defend his native Virginia if attacked.<ref name="auto2" /> He was asked while leaving Texas by a lieutenant if he intended to fight for the Confederacy or the Union, to which Lee replied, "I shall never bear arms against the Union, but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in the defense of my native state, Virginia, in which case I shall not prove recreant to my duty".<ref>{{harvnb|Freeman|1934|p=425}}.</ref><ref name="test"/>

Although Virginia had the most slaves of any state, it was more similar to Maryland, which stayed in the Union, than to the Deep South; a convention voted against secession in early 1861. Winfield Scott, commanding general of the Union Army and Lee's mentor, told Lincoln he wanted him for a top command, telling Secretary of War [[Simon Cameron]] that he had "entire confidence" in Lee. Lee accepted a promotion to colonel of the [[1st Cavalry Regiment (United States)|1st Cavalry Regiment]] on March 28, again swearing an oath to the United States.<ref>{{harvnb|Freeman|1934|pp=431–447}}.</ref><ref name="test"/> Meanwhile, Lee ignored an offer of command from the Confederacy. After Lincoln's call for troops to put down the rebellion, a second Virginia convention in Richmond voted to secede{{r|kearns}} on April 17, and a May 23 referendum would likely ratify the decision. That night Lee dined with his brother [[Sydney Smith Lee|Smith]] and cousin [[Samuel Phillips Lee|Phillips]], naval officers. Because of Lee's indecision, Phillips went to the War Department the next morning to warn that the Union might lose his cousin if the government did not act quickly.<ref name="test"/>

In Washington that day,{{r|pryor20110419}} Lee was offered by presidential advisor [[Francis P. Blair]] a role as major general to command the [[Civil War Defenses of Washington|defense of the national capital]]. He replied:
{{blockquote|Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?<ref name="kearns">{{cite book|first=Doris Kearns|last=Goodwin|title=Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln|url=https://archive.org/details/teamofrivalspoli00good|url-access=registration|year=2005|publisher=Simon and Schuster|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/teamofrivalspoli00good/page/350 350]|isbn=978-1416549833}}</ref>}}

Lee immediately went to Scott, who tried to persuade him that Union forces would be large enough to prevent the South from fighting, so he would not have to oppose his state; Lee disagreed. When Lee asked if he could go home and not fight, the fellow Virginian said that the army did not need equivocal soldiers and that if he wanted to resign, he should do so before receiving official orders. Scott told him that Lee had made "the greatest mistake of your life".<ref name="test"/>

Lee agreed that to avoid dishonor he had to resign before receiving unwanted orders. While historians have usually called his decision inevitable ("the answer he was born to make", wrote [[Douglas Southall Freeman]]; another called it a "no-brainer") given the ties to family and state, an 1871 letter from his eldest daughter, Mary Custis Lee, to a biographer described Lee as "worn and harassed" yet calm as he deliberated alone in his office. People on the street noticed Lee's grim face as he tried to decide over the next two days, and he later said that he kept the resignation letter for a day before sending it on April 20. Two days later the Richmond convention invited Lee to the city. It elected him as commander of Virginia state forces before his arrival on April 23, and almost immediately gave him George Washington's sword as symbol of his appointment; whether he was told of a decision he did not want without time to decide, or did want the excitement and opportunity of command, is unclear.<ref name=Davis21>{{harvnb|Davis|1999|p=21}}.</ref><ref name="test"/>{{r|pryor20110419}}

A cousin on Scott's staff told the family that Lee's decision so upset Scott that he collapsed on a sofa and mourned as if he had lost a son, and asked not to hear Lee's name. When Lee told family his decision, he said "I suppose you will all think I have done very wrong", as the others were mostly pro-Union; only Mary Custis was a secessionist, and her mother especially wanted to choose the Union, but told her husband that she would support whatever he decided. Many younger men like nephew [[Fitzhugh Lee|Fitzhugh]] wanted to support the Confederacy, but Lee's three sons joined the Confederate military only after their father's decision.<ref name="test"/>{{r|pryor20110419}}

Most family members, like his brother Smith, also reluctantly chose the South, but Smith's wife and Anne, Lee's sister, still supported the Union; Anne's son joined the Union Army, and no one in his family ever spoke to Lee again. Many cousins fought for the Confederacy, but Phillips and John Fitzgerald told Lee in person that they would uphold their oaths; [[John H. Upshur]] stayed with the Union military despite much family pressure; [[Roger Jones (Inspector General)|Roger Jones]] stayed in the Union army after Lee refused to advise him on what to do; and two of [[Philip Richard Fendall II|Philip Fendall]]'s sons fought for the Union. Forty percent of Virginian officers stayed with the North.<ref name="test"/>{{r|pryor20110419}}

===Early role===
At the outbreak of war, Lee was appointed to command all of Virginia's forces, which then encompassed the [[Provisional Army of Virginia]] and the [[Virginia State Navy]].  He was appointed a Major General by the Virginia Governor, but upon the formation of the Confederate States Army, he was named one of its first five [[Full General (CSA)|full generals]]. Lee did not wear the insignia of a Confederate general, but only the three stars of a Confederate colonel, equivalent to his last U.S. Army rank.<ref name=Davis49>{{harvnb|Davis|1999|p=49}}.</ref> He did not intend to wear a general's insignia until the Civil War had been won and he could be promoted, in peacetime, to general in the Confederate Army.

Lee's first field assignment was commanding Confederate forces in western Virginia, where he was defeated at the [[Battle of Cheat Mountain]] and was widely blamed for Confederate setbacks.<ref>{{harvnb|Fellman|2000|loc=§&nbsp;6}}.</ref> He was then sent to organize the coastal defenses along the Carolina and Georgia seaboard, appointed commander, "Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida" on November 5, 1861. Between then and the fall of [[Battle of Fort Pulaski|Fort Pulaski]], April 11, 1862, he put in place a defense of Savannah that proved successful in blocking Federal advance on Savannah. Confederate fort and naval gunnery dictated nighttime movement and construction by the besiegers. Federal preparations required four months. In those four months, Lee developed a defense in depth. Behind Fort Pulaski on the Savannah River, [[Fort James Jackson|Fort Jackson]] was improved, and two additional batteries covered river approaches.<ref>Fort Pulaski's masonry was impervious to round shot, but it was penetrated in 30 hours by [[Parrott rifle]] guns, much to the surprise of senior commanders of both sides. In the future, Confederate breastworks defending coastal areas were successfully protected against rifle-fired explosive projectiles with banks of dirt and sand such as at Fort McAllister. Later, holding the city of Savannah would allow two additional attempts at breaking the Union blockade with ironclads [[USS Atlanta (1861)|''CSS Atlanta'']] (1862) and [[CSS Savannah (ironclad)|''CSS Savannah'']] (1863).</ref> In the face of the Union superiority in naval, artillery and infantry deployment, Lee was able to block any Federal advance on Savannah, and at the same time, well-trained Georgia troops were released in time to meet McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. The city of Savannah would not fall until [[Sherman's March to the Sea|Sherman's approach from the interior]] at the end of 1864.

At first, the press spoke to the disappointment of losing Fort Pulaski. Surprised by the effectiveness of large caliber Parrott Rifles in their first deployment, it was widely speculated that only betrayal could have brought overnight surrender to a [[Seacoast defense in the United States|Third System Fort]]. Lee was said to have failed to get effective support in the Savannah River from the three sidewheeler gunboats of the Georgia Navy. Although again blamed by the press for Confederate reverses, he was appointed military adviser to [[President of the Confederate States|Confederate President]] [[Jefferson Davis]], the former [[United States Secretary of War|U.S. Secretary of War]]. While in [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]], Lee was ridiculed as the 'King of Spades' for his excessive digging of trenches around the capitol. These trenches would later play a pivotal role in battles near the end of the war.<ref>''Foot Soldier: The Rebels''. Prod. A&E Television Network. Karn, Richard. The History Channel. 1998. DVD. A&E Television Networks, 2008.</ref>

===Army of Northern Virginia commander (June 1862 – June 1863)===
{{Further|Army of Northern Virginia}}
[[File:General R. E. Lee and Traveler.jpg|thumb|left|Lee mounted on his horse [[Traveller (horse)|Traveller]] in September 1866]]
In the spring of 1862, during the [[Peninsula Campaign]], the Union [[Army of the Potomac]] under General [[George B. McClellan]] advanced on Richmond from [[Fort Monroe]]. Progressing up the Peninsula, McClellan forced Gen. [[Joseph E. Johnston]] and the Army of Virginia to retreat to a point just north and east of the Confederate capital.

Johnston was wounded at the [[Battle of Seven Pines]], on June 1, 1862, giving Lee his first opportunity to lead an army in the field&nbsp;– the force he renamed the [[Army of Northern Virginia|Army of ''Northern'' Virginia]], signalling confidence that the Union army could be driven away from Richmond. Early in the war, Lee had been called "Granny Lee" for his allegedly timid style of command.<ref>{{harvnb|Freeman|1934|p=602}}.</ref> Confederate newspaper editorials objected to him replacing Johnston, opining that Lee would be passive, waiting for Union attack. This seemed true, initially; for the first three weeks of June, Lee did not show aggression, instead strengthening Richmond's defenses.

However, on June 25, he surprised the Army of the Potomac and launched a rapid series of bold attacks: the [[Seven Days Battles]]. Despite superior Union numbers and some clumsy tactical performances by his subordinates, Lee's attacks derailed McClellan's plans and drove back most of his forces. Confederate casualties were heavy, but an unnerved McClellan, famed for his caution, retreated {{convert|25|mi}} to the lower [[James River (Virginia)|James River]], and abandoned the Peninsula completely in August. This success changed Confederate morale and the public's regard for Lee. After the Seven Days Battles, and until the end of the war, his men called him "Marse Robert", a term of respect and affection.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stiles |first1=Robert |title=Four Years under Marse Robert |date=1903 |publisher=Neale Publishing Company |location=New York |pages=17–20 |isbn=978-0722282922 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PPcLAAAAIAAJ&q=marse+robert |access-date=March 6, 2022}}</ref>

The setback, and the resulting drop in Union morale, impelled Lincoln to adopt a new policy of relentless, committed warfare.<ref>{{harvnb|McPherson|2008|p=99}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|McPherson|2008|pp=106–107}}.</ref> After the Seven Days, Lincoln decided he had to move to emancipate most Confederate slaves by executive order, as a military act, using his authority as commander-in-chief.<ref>{{harvnb|McPherson|2008|p=108}}.</ref> To make this possible, he needed a Union victory.

Wheeling to the north, Lee marched rapidly towards Washington, D.C. and defeated another Union army under Gen. [[John Pope (general)|John Pope]] at the [[Second Battle of Bull Run]] in late August. He eliminated Pope before reinforcements from McClellan arrived, knocking out an entire field command before another could arrive to support it. In less than 90 days, Lee had run McClellan off the Peninsula, defeated Pope, and moved the battle lines {{convert|82|mi}} north, from {{convert|6|mi}} north of Richmond to {{convert|20|mi}} south of Washington.

Lee chose to take the battle off southern ground and invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania, hoping to collect supplies in Union territory, and possibly win a victory that would sway [[United States elections, 1862|the upcoming Union elections]] in favor of ending the war. This was sent amiss when McClellan's men found a lost Confederate dispatch, [[Special Order 191]], revealing Lee's plans and movements. McClellan always exaggerated Lee's numerical strength, but now he knew the Confederate army was divided and could be destroyed in detail. Still, in a characteristic manner,  McClellan moved slowly; he failed to realize a spy had informed  Lee that he possessed the plans. Lee quickly concentrated his forces west of Antietam Creek, near [[Sharpsburg, Maryland]], where McClellan attacked on September 17. The [[Battle of Antietam]] was the single bloodiest day of the war, with both sides suffering enormous losses. Lee's army barely withstood the Union assaults, and retreated to Virginia the next day. The narrow Confederate defeat gave President [[Abraham Lincoln]] the opportunity to issue his [[Emancipation Proclamation]],<ref>{{harvnb|McPherson|2008|p=129}}.</ref> which put the Confederacy on the diplomatic and moral defensive.<ref>{{harvnb|McPherson|2008|pp=104–105}}.</ref>

Disappointed by McClellan's failure to destroy Lee's army, Lincoln named [[Ambrose Burnside]] the commander of the Army of the Potomac. Burnside ordered an attack across the [[Rappahannock River]] at [[Fredericksburg, Virginia]]. Delays in bridging the river allowed Lee's army ample time to organize strong defenses, and [[Battle of Fredericksburg|the Union frontal assault]] on December 13, 1862, was a disaster. There were 12,600 Union casualties to 5,000 Confederate, making the engagement one of the most one-sided battles in the Civil War.<ref name="Fellman124-125">{{harvnb|Fellman|2000|pp=124–125}}.</ref> After this victory, Lee reportedly said, "It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it."<ref name="Fellman124-125" /> At Fredericksburg, according to historian Michael Fellman, Lee had completely entered into the "spirit of war, where destructiveness took on its own beauty".<ref name="Fellman124-125" />

The bitter Union defeat at Fredericksburg prompted President Lincoln to appoint [[Joseph Hooker]] as the next commander of the Army of the Potomac. In May 1863, Hooker maneuvered to attack Lee's army by crossing the Rapahannock further upriver and positioning himself at the [[Chancellorsville, Virginia|Chancellorsville crossroads]]. Doing this could give him an opportunity to strike Lee in the rear, but the Confederate General barely managed to pivot his forces in time to face an attack. Hooker's command was nearly twice the size of Lee's but he nonetheless [[Battle of Chancellorsville|was beaten]] after Lee performed a daring movement that broke all terms of conventional warfare: dividing his army. Lee sent [[Stonewall Jackson]]'s corps to attack Hooker's exposed flank, on the opposite side of the battlefield. The significant victory that followed came with a price. Among the heavy casualties was Jackson, his finest corps commander, accidentally fired on by his own troops.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bigstory.ap.org/article/surgeon-stonewall-jackson-death-likely-pneumonia-0|title=Surgeon: Stonewall Jackson death likely pneumonia|last=Zongker|first=Brett|publisher=Associated Press|access-date=June 13, 2014|archive-date=July 14, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714212404/http://bigstory.ap.org/article/surgeon-stonewall-jackson-death-likely-pneumonia-0|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Even though he scored another impressive victory over an enemy army much larger than his own, Lee felt unsatisfied by the fact that he had made little territorial gains up to that point. Things were going poorly for the Confederacy in the West, and Lee started to grow restless; he devised a plan to once again invade the North, for similar reasons to before: relieve Virginia and its citizens of the weariness of battle, and potentially march on the Federal Capital and force terms of peace.

===Battle of Gettysburg===
{{Main|Battle of Gettysburg}}
Critical decisions came in May–June 1863, after Lee's smashing victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville. The western front was crumbling, as multiple uncoordinated Confederate armies were unable to handle General [[Ulysses S. Grant]]'s campaign against Vicksburg. The top military advisers wanted to save Vicksburg, but Lee persuaded Davis to overrule them and authorize yet another invasion of the North. The immediate goal was to acquire urgently needed supplies from the rich farming districts of Pennsylvania; a long-term goal was to stimulate peace activity in the North by demonstrating the power of the South to invade. Lee's decision proved a significant strategic blunder and cost the Confederacy control of its western regions, and nearly cost Lee his own army as Union forces cut him off from the South.<ref>Stephen W. Sears, "'We Should Assume the Aggressive': Origins of the Gettysburg Campaign", ''North and South: The Official Magazine of the Civil War Society'', March 2002, vol.&nbsp;5#4, pp.&nbsp;58–66; Donald Stoker, ''The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War'' (2010) p.&nbsp;295 says that "attacking Grant would have been the wiser choice" for Lee.</ref>

[[File:Thure de Thulstrup - L. Prang and Co. - Battle of Gettysburg - Restoration by Adam Cuerden.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.4|Battle of Gettysburg, by [[Thure de Thulstrup]]]]
Lee launched the [[Gettysburg Campaign]] when he abandoned his position on the Rapahannock and crossed the Potomac River into Maryland in June. Hooker mobilized his men and pursued, but was replaced by Gen. [[George G. Meade]] on June 28, a few days before the two armies [[Battle of Gettysburg|clashed]] at the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in early July; the battle produced the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War. Some of Lee's subordinates were new and inexperienced to their commands, and [[J.E.B. Stuart]]'s cavalry failed to perform effective reconnaissance. The first day was a surprise affair for both sides, and the Confederates managed to rally their forces first, pushing the panicked Union troops away from town, and towards key terrain that should have been taken by [[Richard S. Ewell|General Ewell]], but was not. The second day unfolded differently for the Confederates. They took too much time to assemble, and launched repeated failed assaults against the Union left flank over difficult terrain. Lee's decision on the third day, going against the advice of his best corps commander, Gen. [[James Longstreet]], to launch a massive frontal assault on the center of the Union line, was disastrous. It was carried out over a wide field, and has come to be known commonly as [[Pickett's Charge]]. Easily repulsed, Pickett's Charge, named after the [[George Pickett|general]] whose division participated, resulted in severe Confederate losses. Lee rode out to meet the remains of the division and proclaimed, "All this has been my fault."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/fremantle/fremantle.html#p135|last=Fremantle|first=Arthur James Lyon|title=Three Months in the Southern States|publisher=University of North Carolina|access-date=October 15, 2010}}</ref> He had no choice but to withdraw, and he escaped Meade's ineffective pursuit, slipping back into Virginia.

Following his defeat at Gettysburg, Lee sent a letter of resignation to President Davis on August 8, 1863, but Davis refused Lee's pleas to retire. That fall, Lee and Meade met again in two minor campaigns, [[Bristoe Campaign|Bristoe]] and [[Mine Run Campaign|Mine Run]], that did little to change the strategic standoff. The Confederate Army never fully recovered from the substantial losses incurred during the three-day battle in southern Pennsylvania. Civil War Historian [[Shelby Foote]] once stated, "Gettysburg was the price the South paid for having Robert E. Lee as commander."{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}

===Ulysses S. Grant and the Union offensive===
In 1864 the new Union general-in-chief, Lt. Gen. [[Ulysses S. Grant]], sought to use his large advantages in manpower and material resources to destroy Lee's army by [[attrition warfare|attrition]], pinning Lee against his capital of Richmond. Lee successfully stopped each attack, but Grant with his superior numbers kept pushing each time a bit farther to the southeast. These battles in the [[Overland Campaign]] included the [[Battle of the Wilderness|Wilderness]], [[Battle of Spotsylvania Court House|Spotsylvania Court House]] and [[Battle of Cold Harbor|Cold Harbor]].

Grant eventually was able to stealthily move his army across the [[James River (Virginia)|James River]]. After stopping a Union attempt to capture [[Petersburg, Virginia]], a vital railroad link supplying Richmond, Lee's men built elaborate trenches and were besieged in Petersburg, a development which presaged the [[trench warfare]] of [[World War I]]. Lee attempted to break the stalemate by sending [[Jubal A. Early]] on a raid through the [[Shenandoah Valley]] to Washington, D.C., but Early was defeated early on by the superior forces of [[Philip Sheridan]]. The [[Siege of Petersburg]] lasted from June 1864 until March 1865, with Lee's outnumbered and poorly supplied army shrinking daily because of desertions by disheartened Confederates.

===General in Chief===
[[File:Robt E Lee & Staff by Brady, 1865.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Lee with son Custis (left) and aide [[Walter H. Taylor]] (right) by [[Mathew Brady|Brady]], April 16, 1865]]

On February 6, 1865, Lee was appointed [[General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States]].

As the South ran out of manpower, the issue of arming the slaves became paramount. Lee explained, "We should employ them without delay&nbsp;... [along with] gradual and general emancipation". The first units were in training as the war ended.<ref>{{harvnb|Nolan|1991|pp=21–22}}.</ref><ref name=Davis61>{{harvnb|Davis|1999|p=61}}.</ref> As the Confederate army was devastated by casualties, disease and desertion, the Union attack on [[Petersburg, Virginia|Petersburg]] succeeded on April 2, 1865. Lee abandoned Richmond and retreated west. Lee then made an attempt to escape to the southwest and join up with Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee in North Carolina. However, his forces were soon surrounded and he surrendered them to Grant on April 9, 1865, at the [[Battle of Appomattox Court House]].<ref name=Davis233>{{harvnb|Davis|1999|p=233}}.</ref> Other Confederate armies followed suit and the war ended. The day after his surrender, Lee issued his [[Lee's Farewell Address|Farewell Address]] to his army.

Lee resisted calls by some officers to reject surrender and allow small units to melt away into the mountains, setting up a lengthy guerrilla war. He insisted the war was over and energetically campaigned for inter-sectional reconciliation. "So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South."<ref>{{harvnb|Nolan|1991|p=24}}.</ref>