Robert E. Lee died at his home in Lexington, Virginia on October 12, 1870

Robert Edward Lee was born on January 19, 1807, at Stratford Hall, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the youngest son of Revolutionary War hero Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee and Ann Hill Carter Lee. His father’s financial troubles, and eventual departure for the West Indies, left the family in financial peril. Raised largely by his mother in Alexandria, Virginia, Lee developed a strong sense of duty and restraint that marked his character throughout his life.

In 1825 he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated second in the class of 1829 (behind Charles Mason) with no demerits, earning the nickname “Marble Model.” Commissioned a brevet second lieutenant, in the Corps of Engineers (the most vaunted branch of the Army), he spent the next fifteen years on coastal and harbor fortification projects along the Atlantic seaboard.

On June 30, 1831, Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, the only daughter of George Washington Parke Custis and a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. The marriage linked him to Arlington House and the Washington tradition he consciously emulated. The couple had seven children. Lee’s military career advanced slowly until the Mexican-American War. Serving on the staff of General Winfield Scott, during the 1847 campaign from Veracruz to Mexico City, he distinguished himself in reconnaissance and engineering. Scott later called him the best soldier he had ever seen in the field. Lee received three brevet promotions for gallantry, emerging as a colonel. (Brevet promotions are field promotions and do not represent a person’s rank in the Regular Army.)

After the war he returned to engineering duties. From 1852 to 1855 he served as superintendent of West Point, where he trained many future Civil War officers – from both sides. In 1855 he transferred to the 2nd Cavalry, as lieutenant colonel, and served on the Texas frontier. In October 1859 he commanded the U.S. Marines who suppressed John Brown’s Raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.

When the Secession Crisis deepened, in early 1861, President Abraham Lincoln offered Lee command of the Federal armies being raised to preserve the Union. Lee, who had opposed secession, declined. After Virginia left the Union on April 17, 1861, he resigned his U.S. army commission, on April 20, and accepted command of Virginia’s Rebel forces. President Jefferson Davis soon made him a full general in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Lee would assume command of that army in June 1862, after General Joseph E. Johnston was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines.

Over the next three years Lee conducted a series of aggressive campaigns against numerically superior Union forces. He defeated Major General George B. McClellan in the Seven Days Battles (June–July 1862), routed Major General John Pope at the Battle of Second Manassas (August 1862), and fought to a bloody stalemate at the Battle of Antietam (September 1862), once again against McClellan, before withdrawing into Virginia. He smashed Major General Ambrose Burnside at the Battle of Fredericksburg (December 1862) – and won his most brilliant tactical victory, against Major General Joe Hooker, at the Battle of Chancellorsville (May 1863). The death of Lieutenant General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, from friendly-fire wounds suffered at Chancellorsville, would haunt Lee after his most daring victory.

Lee’s two invasions of the North ended in defeat: Antietam, and the decisive loss at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1863). From 1864 onward he faced Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant (overall commander of all U.S. Army forces) in a grinding war of attrition. After heavy losses at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, and Cold Harbor (Overland Campaign), Lee’s army would be pinned in the trenches around Petersburg and Richmond. In February 1865, Davis named him general-in-chief of all Confederate armies, but the position came too late to alter the outcome.

On April 9, 1865, with his army reduced to roughly 28,000 effectives, and cut off from supplies, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. In his farewell order to the troops, Lee attributed the result to “overwhelming numbers and resources.” He was paroled and returned home. Arlington had been seized by federal authorities and turned into a national cemetery; Lee never regained it.

In the autumn of 1865, Lee accepted the presidency of Washington College (later Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia. Under his leadership the institution recovered from wartime damage, enrollment grew, and he emphasized practical education and personal honor. He publicly urged Southerners to accept the results of the war and rebuild, though privately he remained embittered by defeat and Reconstruction. His health, already undermined by wartime illness (including possible heart disease), steadily declined.

On the evening of September 28, 1870, after a vestry meeting, Lee suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak coherently. He lingered for two weeks, finally developing pneumonia. On the morning of October 12, 1870, he died at his home in Lexington, at the age of 63. According to tradition his last words were “Strike the tent,” though contemporary accounts are uncertain. He was buried beneath the college chapel. The South went into widespread mourning; within days memorial associations formed that would later elevate him as the central figure of the Lost Cause tradition. His life spanned the early republic, the Mexican War, the Civil War, and the first years of Reconstruction, and his decisions and campaigns shaped the course of American history for generations.

Robert E. Lee spent his life demonstrating honor – and his familial ties to George Washington. He privately believed his father had tarnished the family reputation and he did everything possible to overcome his father’s legacy. While many would call him a dishonorable traitor for resigning his U.S. Army commission, joining the Confederate States of America and fighting the Union armed forces, he would single-handedly dissuade most southern men from taking to the hills and fighting “their country” in guerrilla style fights. While he was a slave owner, he manumitted the Custis slaves. And while he knew he may end up facing imprisonment – or execution – for treason, he fully returned to civilian life, mourning the assassination of Abraham Lincoln with, “…shock, moral condemnation, and the view that the murder was both a grave crime and a serious setback for the defeated South.” (from private conversations and personal letters) On this 156th anniversary of Lee’s death, we can celebrate the history of our country’s past and look forward to a future better than today.

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