General Robert E. Lee

(noun)

(January 19, 1807–October 12, 1870) A career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War.

Related Terms

  • Seven Days Battles
  • Army of Northern Virginia

Examples of General Robert E. Lee in the following topics:

  • The Battle of Chancellorsville

    • The campaign pitted Union Army Major General Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac against General Robert E.
    • Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
    • After this string of defeats, President Abraham Lincoln became convinced that the Union’s real strategy should lie with defeating General Robert E.
    • Lee’s forces rather than capturing the Confederate capital.
    • Union cavalry under Major General George Stoneman began a long distance raid against Lee's supply lines at about the same time.
  • The Battle of Fredericksburg

    • He replaced Major General Don Carlos Buell with Major General William S.
    • McClellan had stopped Robert E.
    • Lee at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland, but had not been able to destroy Lee's army, nor did he pursue Lee back into Virginia aggressively enough for Lincoln.
    • The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 11–15, 1862, in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, between General Robert E.
    • Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General Ambrose Burnside.
  • Grant's Pursuit of Lee

    • General Grant's Union Army pursued General Lee's Confederate Army in the Overland Campaign, resulting in an important victory for the Union.
    • Lieutenant General Ulysses S.
    • Grant, general-in-chief of all Union armies, directed the actions of the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General George G.
    • Meade, and other forces against Confederate General Robert E.
    • Major General William Tecumseh Sherman succeeded Grant in command of most of the western armies.
  • Lee's Surrender at Appomattox

    • Robert E.
    • Grant's Army of the Potomac and General Robert E.
    • The terms were as generous as Lee could hope for: His men would not be imprisoned or prosecuted for treason.
    • The second and last major stage in the peace-making process, concluding the American Civil War, was the surrender of General Joseph E.
    • Grant sat at the simple wooden table on the right while Robert E.
  • The Second Bull Run and the Battle of Antietam

    • Robert E.
    • Lee's Army of Northern Virginia against Union Maj.
    • On that same day, the wing of Lee's army commanded by Maj.
    • After pursuing Confederate General Robert E.
    • Lee into Maryland, Union Army Maj.
  • The Battle of Gettysburg

    • Union Major General George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate General Robert E.
    • Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, ending Lee's invasion of the North.
    • Elements of Meade's and Lee's armies initially collided at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, as Lee urgently concentrated his forces there.
    • This is because, after Gettysburg, Lee's army conducted no more strategic offensives, whereas prior to Gettysburg, Lee had established a reputation as an almost invincible general, achieving stunning victories against superior numbers.
    • Describe General Lee's and General Meade's strategies at the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Confederacy's ultimate defeat.
  • McClellan's Peninsular Campaign

    • Union General George B.
    • McClellan was initially successful against Confederate General Joseph E.
    • Johnston, but the emergence of aggressive General Robert E.
    • Lee turned the subsequent Seven Days Battles into a humiliating Union defeat.
    • Johnston was wounded and replaced on June 1 by the more aggressive Robert E.
  • Conclusion: Reasons for Union Victory

    • During the Gettysburg Campaign, General Robert E.
    • Lee’s troops were advancing further north than they had ventured previously during the war, but the Union Army was able to reverse their advance after defeating the Confederates in the Battle of Gettysburg.
    • President Lincoln and his advisors at the time believed that had the Union been successful in completely destroying Lee’s forces, the war could have been ended then and there.
    • In early April 1865, Lee’s army was fighting Grant’s forces in a series of battles in the Appomattox Campaign that stretched Lee’s lines of defenses very thin.
    • At 8:30 a.m. the morning of April 9, Lee requested a meeting with Grant, and during that meeting he surrendered his troops, leading to a series of surrenders across theaters.
  • Stalemate in the Eastern Theater

    • The Second Battle of Bull Run, fought August 28–30, 1862, was the culmination of Robert E.
    • Lee’s offensive campaign against Union General Alexander Pope’s Army of Virginia while it was isolated from General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, which was stationed near Richmond.
    • General George G.
    • The imaginations of both Northerners and Southerners were captured by the epic struggles between the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, under Robert E.
    • Lee, and the Union Army of the Potomac, under a series of less successful commanders.
  • The Confederacy's Defeat

    • Robert E.
    • Lee's surrender on April 9, 1865.
    • Lee's extended lines were mostly on small sections of thirty miles of strongholds around Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia.
    • The Army of Northern Virginia surrendered on April 9, followed by General St.
    • Mosby's raiders disbanded on April 21; General Joseph E.
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