Lee went to the Military Academy at West Point. It was at that fine institution that Lee first came to be called “the marble man,” a name given to him by his fellow cadets in admiration of his impeccable character. He would graduate second in his class of 1829, without a single demerit to his name. Because of his high standing, Lee was given the opportunity to choose his branch of service, and he elected to serve in the elite Corps of Engineers.
As an engineer, Lee was sent to various posts throughout the United States. His work encompassed building fortifications at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, Fort Monroe, Virginia, and Fort Hamilton, New York. While stationed at Fort Monroe, Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. One of his major accomplishments prior to the Mexican War was rerouting the flow of the Mississippi River to protect the harbor at St. Louis, Missouri. It was not until 1846 that Robert E. Lee was called to war.
When war broke out between the United States and Mexico in 1846, Lee was first sent to serve on the staff of General John E. Wool in Texas. He was then transferred to the staff of General Winfield Scott, a move that would greatly influence Lee’s life. Lee participated in the entire campaign, from the amphibious invasion at Vera Cruz (the first such in U.S. history) to the final victory at Mexico City. Lee was instrumental in the American victories at Cerro Gordo, Chapultepec, and Mexico City. General Scott mentioned Lee numerous times in his official reports, something he didn’t do for any other officer. Scott used the word “indefatigable” to describe Lee’s service around Mexico City, in which Lee was in the saddle for 60 hours until he finally collapsed from exhaustion and a small wound. Robert E. Lee received the brevet rank of Colonel for his service in Mexico.
On his return to the United States, Colonel Lee had trouble adjusting to life in the peacetime army. He was named superintendent of West Point in 1852, a job that he excelled at but didn’t much enjoy. In 1855, Lee volunteered to join new cavalry units that were being sent to fight Indians in Texas. He was named Lieutenant Colonel of the newly formed 2nd Cavalry and sent to Fort Mason, Texas.
Lee once again chaffed at duty in the peacetime army, especially duty that took him so far from his family and friends. Upon the death of his father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis (the adopted grandson of George Washington), Colonel Lee returned to Virginia to act as executor of his estate at Arlington. While Lee was at Arlington trying to sort through his father-in-law’s estate, the country he had served so faithfully was tearing itself apart.
Robert E. Lee could only watch as his country slowly unraveled. Lee had always been morally opposed to both the institution of slavery and the doctrine of secession. He had written in a letter to his son Custis one of his most famous remarks on the subject: “In this enlightened age there are few, I believe, but will acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.” He was also known to have remarked that secession “is nothing but revolution.” Still, Lee could not bring himself to raise his hand against his family and friends. On April 18, 1861, Lee was offered the command of the army Lincoln was raising to put down the Southern “rebellion.” He declined. He tendered his resignation on April 20, 1861, in words that are now immortal: “Save in defense of my native state, I never desire again to draw my sword.”
Virginia would call on her native son to come to her defense. Governor John Letcher appointed Lee as general of all Virginia troops. General Lee can be credited with the easy transfer of Virginia troops into Confederate service, and it was due greatly to his efforts at mobilization and armament that made the Confederate victory at First Manassas possible. After the Virginia troops had been mustered into Confederate service, General Lee was without a command and so served as a military advisor to President Jefferson Davis. He would serve in that capacity until June 1, 1862.
By the spring of 1862, it looked as though the Confederacy would soon take its last breath. Southern forces had suffered defeat in the West at Fort Donelson and Shiloh, and George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac was within 5 miles of Richmond. Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston refused to engage the Yankees until May 31, 1862, within sight of the city spires. He was wounded in the Battle of Seven Pines, and Jefferson Davis then did the Confederacy his greatest service of the war: he named Robert E. Lee to command of what would become the Army of Northern Virginia. Within 90 days, General Lee not only drove McClellan away from Richmond but also defeated another Union force under John Pope at Manassas and invaded Maryland. Never before had such a small force done so much in so short a time. The Army of Northern Virginia, under Lee’s leadership, would become one of the greatest fighting forces in world history. Outnumbered and outgunned in every major battle of the war, Robert E. Lee would drive his forces to victory time after time. He suffered defeat only once before the final collapse, and that was on the fields of Gettysburg. In every other major battle in the Eastern Theater from June 1, 1862-April 2, 1865, it would be the Southern determination to win, or at the very least not lose, that would carry the day.
On April 9, 1865, after 3 years of heroic struggle, General Lee was forced by overwhelming resources and numbers to surrender the proud Army of Northern Virginia, reduced to half-starving and half-naked men. Historian James Robertson has said that Appomattox “was one of those few times in history where the victor stood in awe of the vanquished.”
Robert E. Lee gave perhaps his greatest service to the South at the end of the war. Although approached by many businesses and institutions to use his name in exchange for very generous salaries, General Lee accepted the presidency of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia (which would become Washington and Lee University). The college had been ransacked by the invading Yankees, and there were only four professors on staff. In five years, Robert E. Lee would turn Washington College into a model for higher education. He died in the president’s house on October 12, 1870.
Robert E. Lee truly is an American hero and icon. He was so much admired by both North and South that none other than Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, put his name forward in 1868 to challenge U.S. Grant for the Presidency. He is the ideal example of a gentleman and a soldier. He was driven not by ambition or personal want, but by a sense of duty, honor, and loyalty. These words: honor, loyalty, duty, gentleman, may seem quaint and out of place in today’s world. That is a shame. There are some who would say that a man like Robert E. Lee could never really have existed, and that is because no one like him exists today. We as a people have forgotten General Lee, consigned him to the dustbin of history’s losers, of the politically incorrect. When we do this, we do a disservice not to General Lee but to ourselves. There is much Robert E. Lee can still teach us.