Editing Robert E. Lee (section)

===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>