SUPER ORIGINAL 1865 Civil War Print Confederate General Robert E Lee CSA sword

NICE - Original Steel Engraved Print. For offer, a nice print! Fresh from a prominent estate in Upstate NY. Never offered on the market until now. Vintage, Old, Original, Antique, NOT a Reproduction - Guaranteed!!

From the original painting by Nast. Johnson, Fry & Company, New York. Full portrait of the general, with sword. Measures just under 11 x 7 1/2 inches. Light crease to lower lh corner.

If you collect 19th / 20th century military, Victorian era Americana history, American military, veterans, etc. This is a treasure you will not see again! Add this to your image or paper / ephemera collection. Perhaps genealogy research importance too. 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.

He commanded 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 this time, he served throughout the United States, distinguished himself during the MexicanAmerican War, and served as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy.

He was also the husband of Mary Anna Custis Lee, adopted great-granddaughter of George Washington. 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. 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.

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. 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. As commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, he fought most of his battles against armies of significantly larger size, and managed to win many of them. Lee built up a collection of talented subordinates, most notably James Longstreet, Stonewall Jackson, and J.

Stuart, who along with Lee were critical to the Confederacy's battlefield success. [1][2] In spite of his success, his two major strategic offensives into Union territory both ended in failure. Lee's aggressive and risky tactics, especially at Gettysburg, which resulted in high casualties at a time when the Confederacy had a shortage of manpower, have come under criticism. The family seat, Lee's birthplace.

Lee was born at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, to Henry Lee III and Anne Hill Carter Lee on January 19, 1807. [4] His ancestor, Richard Lee I, emigrated from Shropshire, England to Virginia in 1639.

[21][citation not found] Although Mary Lee accompanied her husband to Hampton Roads, she spent about a third of her time at Arlington, though the couple's first son, Custis Lee was born at Fort Monroe. Although the two were by all accounts devoted to each other, they were different in character: Robert Lee was tidy and punctual, qualities his wife lacked. Mary Lee also had trouble transitioning from being a rich man's daughter to having to manage a household with only one or two slaves. [22] Beginning in 1832, Robert Lee had a close but platonic relationship with Harriett Talcott, wife of his fellow officer Andrew Talcott. Lee's early duty station.

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. [25] Lee had hoped to rent a house in Washington for his family, but was not able to find one; the family lived at Arlington, though Lieutenant Lee rented a room at a Washington boarding house for when the roads were impassable. [26][citation not found] In mid-1835, Lee was assigned to assist Andrew Talcott in surveying the southern border of Michigan.

[27] While on that expedition, he responded to a letter from an ill Mary Lee, which had requested he come to Arlington, But why do you urge my immediate return, & tempt one in the strongest manner? Mary Lee, who had recently given birth to their second child, remained bedridden for several months. In October 1836, Lee was promoted to first lieutenant. Lee served as an assistant in the chief engineer's office in Washington, D.

Around 1842, Captain Robert E. Lee arrived as Fort Hamilton's post engineer. Lee, around age 38, and his son William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, around age 8, c. While Lee was stationed at Fort Monroe, he married Mary Anna Randolph Custis (18081873), great-granddaughter of Martha Washington by her first husband Daniel Parke Custis, and step-great-granddaughter of George Washington, the first president of the United States.

Mary was the only surviving child of George Washington Parke Custis, George Washington's stepgrandson, and Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis, daughter of William Fitzhugh[30] and Ann Bolling Randolph. Robert and Mary married on June 30, 1831, at Arlington House, her parents' house just across the Potomac from Washington. Artillery served as honor guard at the marriage.

They eventually had seven children, three boys and four girls:[citation needed]. George Washington Custis Lee (Custis, "Boo"); 18321913; served as major general in the Confederate Army and aide-de-camp to President Jefferson Davis, captured during the Battle of Sailor's Creek; unmarried. Mary Custis Lee (Mary, "Daughter"); 18351918; unmarried.

On May 1, 1864, General Lee was present at the baptism of General A. Hill's daughter, Lucy Lee Hill, to serve as her godfather. This is referenced in the painting Tender is the Heart by Mort Künstler. [32] He was also the godfather of actress and writer Odette Tyler, the daughter of brigadier general William Whedbee Kirkland. Lee around age 43, when he was a brevet lieutenant-colonel of engineers, c.

Lee distinguished himself in the MexicanAmerican War (18461848). He was one of Winfield Scott's chief aides in the march from Veracruz to Mexico City. 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. [34] He also fought at Contreras, Churubusco, and Chapultepec and was wounded at the last.

Close observations of their commanders constituted a learning process for both Lee and Grant. [35] The MexicanAmerican War concluded on February 2, 1848. After the Mexican War, Lee spent three years at Fort Carroll in Baltimore harbor.

Cuban revolutionary Narciso López intended to forcibly liberate Cuba from Spanish rule. In 1849, searching for a leader for his filibuster expedition, he approached Jefferson Davis, then a United States senator.

Davis declined and suggested Lee, who also declined. 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. [39] He was reluctant to enter what he called a "snake pit", but the War Department insisted and he obeyed. His wife occasionally came to visit.

During his three years at West Point, Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee improved the buildings and courses and spent much time with the cadets.

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. Mary Custis's inheritance in 1857.

Christ Church, Alexandria, where the Lees worshiped. 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. Custis's will encompassed vast landholdings and hundreds of slaves balanced against massive debts, and required Custis's former slaves to be emancipated by my executors in such manner as to my executors may seem most expedient and proper, the said emancipation to be accomplished in not exceeding five years from the time of my decease.

[42] Lee tried to hire an overseer to handle the plantation in his absence, writing to his cousin, I wish to get an energetic honest farmer, who while he will be considerate & kind to the negroes, will be firm & make them do their duty. [43] But Lee failed to find a man for the job, and had to take a two-year leave of absence from the army in order to run the plantation himself. Lee's more strict expectations and harsher punishments of the slaves on Arlington plantation nearly led to a slave revolt, since many of the slaves had been given to understand that they were to be made free as soon as Custis died, and protested angrily at the delay. [44] In May 1858, Lee wrote to his son Rooney, I have had some trouble with some of the people. Reuben, Parks & Edward, in the beginning of the previous week, rebelled against my authorityrefused to obey my orders, & said they were as free as I was, etc.

I succeeded in capturing them & lodging them in jail. They resisted till overpowered & called upon the other people to rescue them. "[43] Less than two months after they were sent to the Alexandria jail, Lee decided to remove these three men and three female house slaves from Arlington, and sent them under lock and key to the slave-trader William Overton Winston in Richmond, who was instructed to keep them in jail until he could find "good & responsible slaveholders to work them until the end of the five-year period.

By 1860 only one slave family was left intact on the estate. Some of the families had been together since their time at Mount Vernon. In 1859, three of the Arlington slavesWesley Norris, his sister Mary, and a cousin of theirsfled 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[46] and June 21, 1859[47]), 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.

Norris claimed that Lee encouraged the whipping, and that when the overseer refused to do it, called in the county constable to do it instead. Unlike the anonymous letter writers, he does not state that Lee himself whipped any of the slaves. According to Norris, Lee frequently enjoined [Constable] Williams to'lay it on well,' an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done. The Norris men were then sent by Lee's agent to work on the railroads in Virginia and Alabama.

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... With a pass from General Custis Lee.

[50][51] 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. They broadly agree that Lee had a group of escaped slaves recaptured, and that after recapturing them he hired them out off of the Arlington plantation as a punishment; but they disagree over the likelihood that Lee flogged them, and over the charge that he personally whipped Mary Norris.

Freeman described them as "Lee's first experience with the extravagance of irresponsible antislavery agitators" and asserted that There is no evidence, direct or indirect, that Lee ever had them or any other Negroes flogged. 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. Lee, found the claims that Lee had personally whipped Mary Norris "extremely unlikely, " but found it not at all unlikely that Lee had ordered the runaways whipped: corporal punishment (for which Lee substituted the euphemism'firmness') was (believed to be) an intrinsic and necessary part of slave discipline. Although it was supposed to be applied only in a calm and rational manner, overtly physical domination of slaves, unchecked by law, was always brutal and potentially savage.

In 2003, Bernice-Marie Yates's The Perfect Gentleman, cited Freeman's denial and followed his account in holding that, because of Lee's family connections to George Washington, he was a prime target for abolitionists who lacked all the facts of the situation. Lee biographer Elizabeth Brown Pryor concluded in 2008 that "the facts are verifiable, " based on the consistency of the five extant descriptions of the episode (the only element that is not repeatedly corroborated is the allegation that Lee gave the beatings himself), as well as the existence of an account book that indicates the constable received compensation from Lee on the date that this event occurred.

In 2014, Michael Korda wrote that Although these letters are dismissed by most of Lee's biographers as exaggerated, or simply as unfounded abolitionist propaganda, it is hard to ignore them. 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. [A]lthough it seems unlikely that he would have done any of the whipping himself, he may not have flinched from observing it to make sure his orders were carried out exactly.

Lee's views on race and slavery. Several historians have noted the paradoxical nature of Lee's beliefs and actions concerning race and slavery. While Lee protested he had sympathetic feelings for blacks, they were subordinate to his own racial identity. [60] While Lee held slavery to be an evil institution, he also saw some benefit to blacks held in slavery. [61] While Lee helped assist individual slaves to freedom in Liberia, and provided for their emancipation in his own will, [62] he believed the enslaved should be eventually freed in a general way only at some unspecified future date as a part of God's purpose.

[60][63] Slavery for Lee was a moral and religious issue, and not one that would yield to political solutions. [64] Emancipation would sooner come from Christian impulse among slave masters before "storms and tempests of fiery controversy" such as was occurring in "Bleeding Kansas". [60] 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.

While both Robert and his wife Mary Lee were disgusted with slavery, they also defended it against abolitionist demands for immediate emancipation for all enslaved. Lee argued that slavery was bad for white people but good for black people, [66] claiming that he found slavery bothersome and time-consuming as an everyday institution to run.

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:[67]. 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.

How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence. Parke Custis freed his slaves in his will. [69] In the same tradition, before leaving to serve in Mexico, Lee had written a will providing for the manumission of the only slaves he owned. [70] Parke Custis was a member of the American Colonization Society, which was formed to gradually end slavery by establishing a free republic in Liberia for African-Americans, and Lee assisted several ex-slaves to emigrate there. Also, according to historian Richard B.

She wrote that Lee's private views on race and slavery. Which today seem startling, were entirely unremarkable in Lee's world. No visionary, Lee nearly always tried to conform to accepted opinions. His assessment of black inferiority, of the necessity of racial stratification, the primacy of slave law, and even a divine sanction for it all, was in keeping with the prevailing views of other moderate slaveholders and a good many prominent Northerners.

[75][76] He considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service, [77][78][79] and Lee did not speak out publicly on the subject of slavery prior to the Civil War. [80][81] 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. [82] There are various historical and newspaper hearsay accounts of Lee personally whipping a slave, but they are not direct eyewitness accounts.

He was definitely involved in administering the day-to-day operations of a plantation and was involved in the recapture of runaway slaves. [83] One historian noted that Lee separated slave families, something that prominent slave-holding families in Virginia such as Washington and Custis did not do. [66] In 1862, Lee freed the slaves that his wife inherited, but that was in accordance with his father-in-law's will.

After the War, Lee told a congressional committee that blacks were "not disposed to work" and did not possess the intellectual capacity to vote and participate in politics. [84] Lee also said to the committee that he hoped that Virginia could "get rid of them, " referring to blacks. [84] While not politically active, Lee defended Lincoln's successor Andrew Johnson's approach to Reconstruction, which according to Foner, abandoned the former slaves to the mercy of governments controlled by their former owners. "[85] According to Foner, "A word from Lee might have encouraged white Southerners to accord blacks equal rights and inhibited the violence against the freed people that swept the region during Reconstruction, but he chose to remain silent.

[84] Lee was also urged to condemn the white-supremacy [86] organization Ku Klux Klan, but opted to remain silent. In the generation following the war, Lee, though he died just a few years later, became a central figure in the Lost Cause interpretation of the war. The argument that Lee had always somehow opposed slavery, and freed his wife's slaves, helped maintain his stature as a symbol of Southern honor and national reconciliation.

Lee initially remained loyal to the Union after Texas seceded. John Brown led a band of 21 abolitionists who seized the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in October 1859, hoping to incite a slave rebellion. President James Buchanan gave Lee command of detachments of militia, soldiers, and United States Marines, to suppress the uprising and arrest its leaders. [87] By the time Lee arrived that night, the militia on the site had surrounded Brown and his hostages. At dawn, Brown refused the demand for surrender.

Lee attacked, and Brown and his followers were captured after three minutes of fighting. Lee's summary report of the episode shows Lee believed it "was the attempt of a fanatic or madman". Lee said Brown achieved "temporary success" by creating panic and confusion and by "magnifying" the number of participants involved in the raid. Lee relieved Major Heintzelman at Fort Brown, and the Mexican authorities offered to restrain their citizens from making predatory descents upon the territory and people of Texas... This was the last active operation of the Cortina War.

Rip Ford, a Texas Ranger at the time, described Lee as dignified without hauteur, grand without pride... He evinced an imperturbable self-possession, and a complete control of his passions... Possessing the capacity to accomplish great ends and the gift of controlling and leading men.

When Texas seceded from the Union in February 1861, General David E. Twiggs surrendered all the American forces (about 4,000 men, including Lee, and commander of the Department of Texas) to the Texans. Twiggs immediately resigned from the U. Army and was made a Confederate general. Lee went back to Washington and was appointed Colonel of the First Regiment of Cavalry in March 1861.

Lee's colonelcy was signed by the new president, Abraham Lincoln. Three weeks after his promotion, Colonel Lee was offered a senior command (with the rank of Major General) in the expanding Army to fight the Southern States that had left the Union. Fort Mason, Texas was Lee's last command with the United States Army.

Writing to George Washington Custis in January, Lee stated. The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of the North, as you say.

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.

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. 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 the expansion of slavery to the new western territories, and fear of itswhich? Lee supported the Crittenden Compromise, which would have constitutionally protected slavery.

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. In Washington that day, [91] Lee was offered by presidential advisor Francis P. Blair a role as major general to command the defense of the national capital. 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?

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". 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. 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 to not 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 wanted to support the Confederacy, but Lee's three sons joined the Confederate military only after their father's decision.

Forty percent of Virginian officers stayed with the North. At the outbreak of war, Lee was appointed to command all of Virginia's forces, but upon the formation of the Confederate States Army, he was named one of its first five 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.

[97] 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. [98] 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 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 night time 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 Jackson was improved, and two additional batteries covered river approaches. [99] 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.

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 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 Confederate President Jefferson Davis, the former U. While in 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. Commander, Army of Northern Virginia (June 1862 June 1863). In the spring of 1862, in the Peninsula Campaign, the Union Army of the Potomac under General George B.

Lee now got his first opportunity to lead an army in the field the force he renamed the Army of Northern Virginia, signalling his confidence that the Union army would be driven away from Richmond. Early in the war, Lee had been called "Granny Lee" for his allegedly timid style of command. [101] Confederate newspaper editorials objected to him replacing Johnston, opining that Lee would be passive, waiting for Union attack. And for the first three weeks of June, he did not attack, instead strengthening Richmond's defenses. Lee mounted on Traveller (September 1866).

This success completely 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 simply "Marse Robert", a term of respect and affection.

Lee's army barely withstood the Union assaults, then retreated to Virginia the next day. This narrow Confederate defeat gave President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to issue his Emancipation Proclamation, [105] which put the Confederacy on the diplomatic and moral defensive. Disappointed by McClellan's failure to destroy Lee's army, Lincoln named Ambrose Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac.

There were 12,600 Union casualties to 5,000 Confederate; one of the most one-sided battles in the Civil War. [107] After this victory, Lee reportedly said It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it. "[107] At Fredericksburg, according to historian Michael Fellman, Lee had completely entered into the "spirit of war, where destructiveness took on its own beauty.

After the bitter Union defeat at Fredericksburg, President Lincoln named Joseph Hooker commander of the Army of the Potomac. In May 1863, Hooker maneuvered to attack Lee's army via Chancellorsville, Virginia. But Hooker was defeated by Lee's daring maneuver: dividing his army and sending Stonewall Jackson's corps to attack Hooker's flank. Lee won a decisive victory over a larger force, but with heavy casualties, including Jackson, his finest corps commander, who was accidentally killed by his own troops.

In the summer of 1863, Lee invaded the North again, marching through western Maryland and into south central Pennsylvania. He encountered Union forces under George G. Meade at the three-day Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in July; the battle would produce the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War. With some of his subordinates being new and inexperienced in their commands, J.

Lee's decision on the third day, against the judgment of his best corps commander General Longstreet, to launch a massive frontal assault on the center of the Union line turned out to be disastrous. The assault known as Pickett's Charge was repulsed and resulted in heavy Confederate losses. The general rode out to meet his retreating army and proclaimed, All this has been my fault. [110] Lee was compelled to retreat. Despite flooded rivers that blocked his retreat, he escaped Meade's ineffective pursuit.

In 1864 the new Union general-in-chief, Lt. Grant, sought to use his large advantages in manpower and material resources to destroy Lee's army by 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 Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House and Cold Harbor.

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.

Lee with son Custis (left) and aide Walter H. Taylor (right) by 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... [along with] gradual and general emancipation.

Lee's first battle of the Civil War. Severely criticized, Lee was nicknamed "Granny Lee". Lee was sent to SC and GA to supervise fortifications. June 25 July 1, 1862.

Tactical stalemate but strategic Union victory. The Confederates lost an opportunity to gain foreign recognition, Lincoln moved forward on his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. With Lee's troops and supplies depleted, Confederates remained in place south of the Rappahannock.

[117] Lee would never personally invade the North again after this battle. Rather he was determined to defend Richmond and eventually Petersburg at all costs. Lee's tactical victory, yet Grant continued his offensive, circling east and south advancing on Richmond and Petersburg. Although beaten and unable to take Lee's defenses, Grant continued the Union offensive, circling east and south advancing on Richmond and Petersburg. North Anna had proved to be a relatively minor affair when compared to other Civil War battles.

As Grant continued his attempts to maneuver around Lee's right flank and lure him into a general battle in the open. Although Grant was able to continue his offensive, Grant referred to the Cold Harbor assault as his "greatest regret" of the war in his memoirs. Union attempt to break Confederate siege lines at Richmond, the Confederate capital. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S.

[119] After the surrender Grant gave Lee's army much-needed food rations; they were paroled to return to their homes, never again to take up arms against the Union. Lee in 1869 photo by Levin C. Video icon Booknotes interview with Emory Thomas on Robert E. Lee: A Biography, September 10, 1995, C-SPAN.

After the war, Lee was not arrested or punished (although he was indicted[120]), but he did lose the right to vote as well as some property. Lee's prewar family home, the Custis-Lee Mansion, was seized by Union forces during the war and turned into Arlington National Cemetery, and his family was not compensated until more than a decade after his death. In 1866 Lee counseled southerners not to resume fighting, of which Grant said Lee was "setting an example of forced acquiescence so grudging and pernicious in its effects as to be hardly realized".

[122] Lee joined with Democrats in opposing the Radical Republicans who demanded punitive measures against the South, distrusted its commitment to the abolition of slavery and, indeed, distrusted the region's loyalty to the United States. [123][124] Lee supported a system of free public schools for blacks, but forthrightly opposed allowing blacks to vote. "My own opinion is that, at this time, they [black Southerners] cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the [vote] would lead to a great deal of demagogism, and lead to embarrassments in various ways, " Lee stated.

[125] Emory Thomas says Lee had become a suffering Christ-like icon for ex-Confederates. President Grant invited him to the White House in 1869, and he went. Nationally he became an icon of reconciliation between the North and South, and the reintegration of former Confederates into the national fabric. General Lee and his Confederate officers in their first meeting since Appomattox, August 1869.

[127] He accepted an offer to serve as the president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia, and served from October 1865 until his death. The Trustees used his famous name in large-scale fund-raising appeals and Lee transformed Washington College into a leading Southern college, expanding its offerings significantly, adding programs in commerce and journalism, and incorporating the Lexington Law School.

Lee was well liked by the students, which enabled him to announce an "honor system" like that of West Point, explaining that we have but one rule here, and it is that every student be a gentleman. To speed up national reconciliation Lee recruited students from the North and made certain they were well treated on campus and in town. Several glowing appraisals of Lee's tenure as college president have survived, depicting the dignity and respect he commanded among all.

While at Washington College, Lee told a colleague that the greatest mistake of his life was taking a military education. During his time as president of Washington College, he defended his father in a biographical sketch. President Johnson's amnesty pardons.

Oath of amnesty submitted by Robert E. On May 29, 1865, President Andrew Johnson issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon to persons who had participated in the rebellion against the United States. There were fourteen excepted classes, though, and members of those classes had to make special application to the President.

Lee sent an application to Grant and wrote to President Johnson on June 13, 1865. Being excluded from the provisions of amnesty & pardon contained in the proclamation of the 29th Ulto; I hereby apply for the benefits, & full restoration of all rights & privileges extended to those included in its terms. I graduated at the Mil.

However, he opposed the Congressional Republican program that took effect in 1867. In February 1866, he was called to testify before the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction in Washington, where he expressed support for Johnson's plans for quick restoration of the former Confederate states, and argued that restoration should return, as far as possible, to the status quo ante in the Southern states' governments (with the exception of slavery). Lee, oil on canvas, Edward Calledon Bruce, 1865. Lee told the committee that every one with whom I associate expresses kind feelings towards the freedmen. They wish to see them get on in the world, and particularly to take up some occupation for a living, and to turn their hands to some work.

" Lee also expressed his "willingness that blacks should be educated, and... That it would be better for the blacks and for the whites. " Lee forthrightly opposed allowing blacks to vote: "My own opinion is that, at this time, they [black Southerners] cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the [vote] would lead to a great deal of demagogism, and lead to embarrassments in various ways. In an interview in May 1866, Lee said: The Radical party are likely to do a great deal of harm, for we wish now for good feeling to grow up between North and South, and the President, Mr. Johnson, has been doing much to strengthen the feeling in favor of the Union among us.

The relations between the Negroes and the whites were friendly formerly, and would remain so if legislation be not passed in favor of the blacks, in a way that will only do them harm. In 1868, Lee's ally Alexander H. Stuart drafted a public letter of endorsement for the Democratic Party's presidential campaign, in which Horatio Seymour ran against Lee's old foe Republican Ulysses S. Lee signed it along with thirty-one other ex-Confederates. The Democratic campaign, eager to publicize the endorsement, published the statement widely in newspapers.

"[139] However, it also called for the restoration of white political rule, arguing that "It is true that the people of the South, in common with a large majority of the people of the North and West, are, for obvious reasons, inflexibly opposed to any system of laws that would place the political power of the country in the hands of the negro race. But this opposition springs from no feeling of enmity, but from a deep-seated conviction that, at present, the negroes have neither the intelligence nor the other qualifications which are necessary to make them safe depositories of political power. In his public statements and private correspondence, Lee argued that a tone of reconciliation and patience would further the interests of white Southerners better than hotheaded antagonism to federal authority or the use of violence. Lee repeatedly expelled white students from Washington College for violent attacks on local black men, and publicly urged obedience to the authorities and respect for law and order. [141] He privately chastised fellow ex-Confederates such as Jefferson Davis and Jubal Early for their frequent, angry responses to perceived Northern insults, writing in private to them as he had written to a magazine editor in 1865, that It should be the object of all to avoid controversy, to allay passion, give full scope to reason and to every kindly feeling.

"Recumbent Statue" of Robert E. Lee asleep on the battlefield, Lee Chapel, Lexington, Virginia. On September 28, 1870, Lee suffered a stroke.

He died two weeks later, shortly after 9 a. On October 12, 1870, in Lexington, Virginia, from the effects of pneumonia. According to one account, his last words on the day of his death, were Tell Hill he must come up!

Robert Edward Lee in art at the Battle of Chancellorsville in a stained glass window of the Washington National Cathedral. Among the supporters of the Confederacy, Lee came to be even more revered after his surrender than he had been during the war, when Stonewall Jackson had been the great Confederate hero. In an address before the Southern Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia in 1874, Benjamin Harvey Hill described Lee in this way.

He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbour without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile.

He was not given full direction of the Southern war effort until late in the conflict. Historian Eric Foner writes that at the end of his life.

Lee had become the embodiment of the Southern cause. A generation later, he was a national hero. The 1890s and early 20th century witnessed the consolidation of white supremacy in the post-Reconstruction South and widespread acceptance in the North of Southern racial attitudes.

Stone Mountain Issue of 1970. Lee has been commemorated on U.

A second "regular-issue" stamp was issued in 1955. He was commemorated with a 32-cent stamp issued in the American Civil War Issue of June 29, 1995.

From its installation in 1884 until its removal in 2017, the most prominent monument in New Orleans was a 60-foot (18 m)-tall monument to General Lee. A 16.5-foot (5.0 m) statue of Lee stood tall upon a towering column of white marble in the middle of Lee Circle. The statue of Lee, which weighs more than 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg) faced the north. Lee Circle is situated along New Orleans's famous St. The New Orleans streetcars roll past Lee Circle and New Orleans's best Mardi Gras parades go around Lee Circle (the spot is so popular that bleachers are set up annually around the perimeter for Mardi Gras).

Around the corner from Lee Circle is New Orleans's Confederate museum, which contains the second-largest collection of Confederate memorabilia in the world. [160] The statue of General Lee was removed on May 19, 2017, the last of four Confederate monuments in New Orleans to be taken down. In a tribute to Lee Circle (which had formerly been known as Tivoli Circle), former Confederate soldier George Washington Cable wrote. In Tivoli Circle, New Orleans, from the centre and apex of its green flowery mound, an immense column of pure white marble rises in the... Majesty of Grecian proportions high up above the city's house-tops into the dazzling sunshine...

(Silent South, 1885, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine). Arlington House, The Robert E.

Lee Memorial, also known as the CustisLee Mansion, [162][163] is a Greek revival mansion in Arlington, Virginia, that was once Lee's home. It overlooks the Potomac River and the National Mall in Washington, D. During the Civil War, the grounds of the mansion were selected as the site of Arlington National Cemetery, in part to ensure that Lee would never again be able to return to his home. The United States designated the mansion as a National Memorial to Lee in 1955, a mark of widespread respect for him in both the North and South.

They did rename Lee Park, Emancipation Park. The prospect of the statues being removed and the parks being renamed brought many out-of-towners, described as white supremacist and alt-right, to Charlottesville in the Unite the Right rally of August 2017, in which 3 people died. For several months the monuments were shrouded in black. As of October 2018, the fate of the statue of Lee is unresolved.

The name of the park it is located in was changed again by the City Council, to Market Street Park, in July 2018. In Baltimore's Wyman Park, a large double equestrian statue of Lee and Jackson is located directly across from the Baltimore Museum of Art.

[169] The stained glass of Lee shows him on horseback at Chancellorsville; it was sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. [170] In 2017, these windows were removed by a vote of the cathedral's governing board. The cathedral plans to keep the windows and eventually display them in historical context. An equestrian statue of Lee was installed in Robert E. Lee Park, in Dallas, until 2017; and in Austin, a statue of Lee is on display at the main mall of the University of Texas at Austin.

A statue of Robert E. Lee is one of two statues (the other is Washington) representing Virginia in Statuary Hall in the Capitol in Washington, D.

Lee is one of the figures depicted in bas-relief carved into Stone Mountain near Atlanta. Accompanying him on horseback in the relief are Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis. The birthday of Robert E.

Lee is celebrated or commemorated in several states. In Texas, he is celebrated as part of Confederate Heroes Day on January 19, Lee's birthday. [172] In Alabama and Mississippi, his birthday is celebrated on the same day as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, [173][174] while in Georgia, this occurred on the day after Thanksgiving before 2016, when the state stopped officially recognizing the holiday.

[175][176] In Virginia, LeeJackson Day was celebrated on the Friday preceding Martin Luther King, Jr. Day which is the third Monday in January, [177] until 2020, when the Virginia legislature eliminated the holiday, making Election Day a state holiday instead. Lee Chapel on the campus of Washington and Lee University. One United States college and one junior college are named for Lee: Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia; and Lee College in Baytown, Texas, respectively.

Lee Academy in Bishopville, South Carolina. In 1900, Lee was one of the first 29 individuals selected for the Hall of Fame for Great Americans (the first Hall of Fame in the United States), designed by Stanford White, on the Bronx, New York, campus of New York University, now a part of Bronx Community College. [179][180] However, his bust was removed in August 2017 by order of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Lee is featured on the 1925 Stone Mountain Memorial half dollar.

Lee, National Statuary Hall, Washington, D. Edward Virginius Valentine, sculptor, 1909.

Statue of Lee in Murray, Kentucky. Lee in honor of this Confederate General. During the next year, she became one of the South's most famous Confederate blockade runners, successfully making more than twenty runs through the Union blockade.

The Mississippi River steamboat Robert E. Lee was named for Lee after the Civil War. It was the participant in an 1870 St. Louis New Orleans race with the Natchez VI, which was featured in a Currier and Ives lithograph.

Union Army colonel rank insignia. Confederate States of America General-collar. § Breveted for conduct in the Battle of Cerro Gordo.

He is played by Martin Sheen in the former and by Lee's descendant Robert Duvall in the latter. Lee is portrayed as a hero in the historical children's novel Lee and Grant at Appomattox (1950) by MacKinlay Kantor.

List of memorials to Robert E. Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials. The item "SUPER ORIGINAL 1865 Civil War Print Confederate General Robert E Lee CSA sword" is in sale since Saturday, December 19, 2020. This item is in the category "Collectibles\Militaria\Civil War (1861-65)\Original Period Items\Posters & Prints".

• Modified Item: No
• Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
• Theme: Militaria
• Original/Reproduction: Original
• Conflict: Civil War (1861-65)