[Sidenote: =Robert E. Lee, 1807=]
=171. The Great General of the Confederacy.= Robert E. Lee was born
in Virginia in 1807. He went to school at Alexandria, where George
Washington once lived, and became a cadet at the United States Military
Academy at West Point.
[Sidenote: =Wins fame in Mexico=]
[Sidenote: =In charge at West Point=]
In the war with Mexico Lee earned honor and fame. He rose rapidly in
rank. Starting as captain, he became major, lieutenant-colonel, and
then colonel. When the Mexican War was over, he took charge of the
Military Academy at West Point. After three years, he decided to give
up the work at West Point and go West to fight the Indians.
[Sidenote: =Lee goes with his state=]
About this time the people began to insist that, in the United States,
slavery must be given up. Even the army officers and men quarreled
about it. Lee believed in the Union and did not want the South to leave
it. But when Virginia followed other slave states out of the Union and
into the Confederacy, Lee went with his native state.
[Sidenote: =In command of army defending Richmond=]
When the war began, Lee, as general, had command of the Virginia
troops. After the battle of Fair Oaks, in which General Joseph E.
Johnston was wounded, General Lee took charge of the army defending
Richmond.
[Sidenote: =Compels McClellan to retreat=]
[Sidenote: =Invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania=]
=172. Lee Fights Battle after Battle.= Lee at once attacked the Union
army which was trying to take Richmond. In a seven days' battle he
forced McClellan, the Union general, to retreat. He then struck the
army of Pope a fatal blow and marched with his victorious soldiers
into Maryland. A great battle was fought at Antietam (1862) and Lee
returned to Virginia. He won two great victories at Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville. In the latter battle he lost Stonewall Jackson, his
best general. After this, his army rested and ranks filled, General
Lee moved rapidly through Maryland and into Pennsylvania. The North
became alarmed, but a great Union army was already hurrying to meet the
Confederate forces.
[Sidenote: =Greatest battle of the war=]
[Sidenote: =Pickett's charge=]
[Sidenote: =The loss=]
The two armies met at Gettysburg, and there for three days was fought
the greatest battle of the Civil War. On the last day General Pickett
made his famous charge. Fifteen thousand southern soldiers charged
across the valley--more than a mile wide--right up to the muzzles of
the Union guns. But the help they expected from another direction did
not arrive, and they had to retreat. Lee's army was defeated. More than
fifty thousand men--including the killed, wounded, and missing on both
sides--were lost at Gettysburg.
[Illustration: PICKETT'S CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG
_This heroic assault marked the turn of the Confederate tide_]
[Sidenote: =Lee never invades again=]
=173. Facing a Powerful Army.= General Lee then went back across the
Potomac, never to invade the North again. From then onward, little
was done until, in 1864, General Grant took command of all the Union
forces. Then followed three great battles--the "Wilderness," so called
because it was fought in a thick forest of tangled underbrush lying in
Virginia just south of the upper portion of the Rapidan; Spottsylvania,
fought near the Spottsylvania courthouse a little farther southward,
and Cold Harbor, fought a few miles northeast of Richmond.
[Sidenote: =Lee's troops wearing out=]
General Lee's troops were wearing out. There were no more men to take
the places of those killed and wounded. Food and clothing became
scarce, and other supplies were hard to get. General Lee was now made
commander in chief over all the Confederate armies. He immediately put
Joseph E. Johnston back in command of his old army in the West, but it
was too late.
[Sidenote: =Sheridan blocks the way=]
Lee decided in 1865 that Richmond must be given up. He wanted to take
his army to Danville, Virginia, on the way to join the army of General
Joseph E. Johnston, in North Carolina, but at Appomattox his troops met
General Sheridan's cavalry.
[Illustration: SCENE OF WAR AROUND WASHINGTON AND RICHMOND]
[Sidenote: =Terms of surrender=]
=174. The Confederacy Was Lost.= General Lee received a letter from
General Grant asking him to surrender. The two generals met at a
farmhouse and agreed upon terms. Grant gave the officers and men
permission to take their horses home "to do their spring plowing."
The next morning Lee, surrounded by his sorrowing men, mounted his
horse, Traveler, and rode slowly away to his home in Richmond. The
other Confederate armies surrendered one by one.
[Illustration: ROBERT EDWARD LEE
_From a portrait painted by Browne, now in the Westmoreland Club,
Richmond, Virginia_]
[Sidenote: =President of Washington College=]
[Sidenote: =Dies in 1870=]
After the war General Lee was elected president of Washington College
at Lexington, Virginia, now Washington and Lee University. He greatly
enjoyed his work of building up the young manhood of the South. He died
at Lexington in 1870. A monument to the memory of this great man has
been erected at Richmond, and another at Lexington.