RARE Antique Print 1897 Civil War Gettysburg Robert E Lee Invades North By Davis
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:237846 | Modified Item: No |
| Country/Region of Manufacture: United States |
Antique - Old Original Print
Lee's Invasion of the North
[1863 - Gettysburg Campaign]
by
J. Steeple Davis
1897
For offer - a very nice old print! Fresh from an estate in Upstate NY. Never offered on the market until now. Vintage, Old, antique, Original - NOT a Reproduction - Guaranteed !! This print shows Lee on his horse with his army, invading the North - 1863 Gettysburg campaign. Dated at lower left corner, with... artists signature. Looks to be printed on Japan paper. Entire print measures 9 7/8 x 6. Small thin, tissue sheet with title and information also included, which is smaller. In good to very good condition. A few small areas of paper remains on left edge on back. Please see photos. If you collect American art history, Americana, Western culture, military, etc., this is a nice one for your paper or ephemera collection. Combine shipping on multiple bid wins! 02033
The Gettysburg Campaign was a military invasion of Pennsylvania by the main Confederate army under General Robert E. Lee in summer 1863. The Union won a decisive victory at Gettysburg July 1–3, with heavy casualties on both sides. Lee managed to escape back to Virginia with most of his army. It was a turning point in the American Civil War, with Lee increasingly pushed back toward Richmond until his surrender in April 1865. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for a massive raid designed to obtain desperately needed supplies, to undermine civilian morale in the North, and to encourage anti-war elements. The Union Army of the Potomac was commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker and then (from June 28) by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade.
Lee's army slipped away from Federal contact at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on June 3, 1863. The largest predominantly cavalry battle of the war was fought at Brandy Station on June 9. The Confederates crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains and moved north through the Shenandoah Valley, capturing the Union garrison at Winchester, Virginia, in the Second Battle of Winchester, June 13–15. Crossing the Potomac River, Lee's Second Corps advanced through Maryland and Pennsylvania, reaching the Susquehanna River and threatening the state capital of Harrisburg. However, the Army of the Potomac was in pursuit and had reached Frederick, Maryland, before Lee realized his opponent had crossed the Potomac. Lee moved swiftly to concentrate his army around the crossroads town of Gettysburg.
The Battle of Gettysburg was the largest of the war. Starting as a chance meeting engagement on July 1, the Confederates were initially successful in driving Union cavalry and two infantry corps from their defensive positions, through the town, and onto Cemetery Hill. On July 2, with most of both armies now present, Lee launched fierce assaults on both flanks of the Union defensive line, which were repulsed with heavy losses on both sides. On July 3, Lee focused his attention on the Union center. The defeat of his massive infantry assault, Pickett's Charge, caused Lee to order a retreat that began the evening of July 4.
The Confederate retreat to Virginia was plagued by bad weather, difficult roads, and numerous skirmishes with Union cavalry. However, Meade's army did not maneuver aggressively enough to prevent Lee from crossing the Potomac to safety on the night of July 13–14.
BackgroundLee's plansMain article: Battle of ChancellorsvilleFurther information: Eastern Theater of the American Civil War and American Civil War
Northern Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania (1861-1865)
Gettysburg Campaign, (1863)Shortly after Lee's Army of Northern Virginia defeated Hooker's Army of the Potomac during the Chancellorsville Campaign (April 30 – May 6, 1863), Lee decided upon a second invasion of the North. Such a move would upset Union plans for the summer campaigning season, give Lee the ability to maneuver his army away from its defensive positions behind the Rappahannock River, and allow the Confederates to live off the bounty of the rich northern farms while giving war-ravaged Virginia a much needed break. Lee's army could also threaten Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and encourage the growing peace movement in the North.
Lee had numerous misunderstandings that shaped his strategy. Lee misread Northern opinion by his reliance on anti-war Copperhead newspapers for northern public opinion. Reading them, he assumed the Yankees must be just as war weary as southerners, and did not appreciate the determination of the Lincoln Administration. Lee did know he was seriously short of supplies for his own army, so he planned the campaign primarily as a full-scale raid that would seize supplies.[10] He wrote:
If we can baffle them [Yankees] in their various designs this year & our people are true to our cause...our success will be certain.... [and] next year there will be a great change in public opinion at the North. The Republicans will be destroyed [in the 1864 presidential election] & I think the friends of peace will become so strong as that the next administration will go in on that basis. We have only therefore to resist manfully.[11][12]Lee was overconfident of the morale and equipment of his "invincible" veterans; he fantasized about a definitive war-winning triumph:
[The Yankees will be] broken down with hunger and hard marching, strung out on a long line and much demoralized when they come into Pennsylvania. I shall throw an overwhelming force on their advance, crush it, follow up the success, drive one corps back on another, and by successive repulses and surprises, before they can concentrate, create a panic and virtually destroy the army. [Then] the war will be over and we shall achieve the recognition of our independence.[13]The Confederate government had a different strategy. It wanted Lee to reduce Union pressure threatening their garrison at Vicksburg, Mississippi, but he rejected its suggestions to send troops to provide direct aid, arguing for the value of a concentrated blow in the Northeast.[14]
In essence, Lee's strategy was identical to the one he employed in the Maryland Campaign of 1862. Furthermore, after Chancellorsville he had supreme confidence in the men of his army, assuming they could handle any challenge he gave them.[15]
Opposing forcesFurther information: Battle of Gettysburg § Opposing forcesConfederate forcesLee's movement started on the first of June and within a short time was well on its way through Maryland, with Union forces moving north along parallel lines. Lee's cavalry, under General Jeb Stuart had the primary mission of gathering intelligence on where the enemy position was, but Stuart failed and instead raided some supply trains. He did not rejoin Lee until the battle was underway. Stuart had taken all Lee's best cavalry, leaving the main army with two third-rate, ill-equipped, poorly led brigades that could not handle the reconnaissance challenge in hostile country.[16]
Lee's armies threatened Harrisburg, Washington, Baltimore and even Philadelphia. Local militia units hurriedly formed to oppose Lee, but they were inconsequential in the face of a large, battle-hardened attack force. Gettysburg was a crossroads junction in heavily wooded areas. Over three days, July 1–3, Confederate forces arrived piecemeal from the northwest, while Union forces arrived piecemeal from the east. By July 1 Meade was to the south of Lee—Lee's retreat was cut off and he had to fight, and had to win.[17]
Union forcesJoseph Hooker, commanding the Army of the Potomac, was, as Lee had calculated, indeed tardy and afraid to fight Lee. He wanted to attack Richmond, but Lincoln vetoed that idea as impossible of success and replaced Hooker with George Meade. The new commander brooked no delay in chasing the rebels north.[18]
Lee underestimated his new foe, expecting him to be easy to anticipate and slow to respond, much like Hooker. Lee was blinded for a week by the failure of Jeb Stuart's cavalry to provide timely reconnaissance. Stuart was, in fact, miles away sacking a mule-drawn supply train. Stuart had trouble finding Lee; he solved his intelligence problem by reading a Philadelphia newspaper that accurately reported Lee's location. The news was a day old, however, and Stuart, slowed down by booty, did not arrive at Gettysburg until July 2. The Confederates were often aided by uncensored newspaper reports of the movements of Union forces. Hooker tried to censor the newspapers, but reporters and editors evaded his restrictions and the South often had accurate reports of Union strength.[19]
Meanwhile, Meade was close behind Lee, and had cut off the line of retreat back to Virginia. Lee had to fight, but first he had to rush to reassemble his scattered forces at the crossroads town of Gettysburg before Meade defeated them piecemeal. Lee had 60, 000 infantry and 10, 200 cavalry (Meade's staff estimated Lee had 140, 000). This time it was Lee's turn to be fooled; he gullibly swallowed misinformation that suggested Meade had twice as many soldiers, when in fact he had 86, 000.[20]
Even though the main Confederate army was marching through Pennsylvania, Lincoln was unable to give Meade more firepower. The vast majority of the 700, 000 Federal soldiers (except for Grant's 70, 000 near Vicksburg) were noncombatants, held static defensive posts that Lincoln feared to uncover, or like Rosecrans at Nashville, they were afraid to move. Urgently the President called for 100, 000 civilian militiamen to turn out for the emergency; being unorganized, untrained, unequipped and poorly led, they were more trouble than they were worth. When the battle began they broke and ran away.[21]
Campaign timelineThe battles of the Gettysburg Campaign were fought in the following sequence; they are described in the context of logical, sometimes overlapping divisions of the campaign.
Action Dates Section of campaignBattle of Brandy Station June 9, 1863 Brandy StationSecond Battle of Winchester June 13–15 WinchesterBattle of Aldie June 17 Hooker's pursuitBattle of Middleburg June 17–19 Hooker's pursuitBattle of Upperville June 21 Hooker's pursuitBattle of Fairfax Court House June 27 Stuart's rideSkirmish of Sporting Hill June 30 Invasion of PennsylvaniaBattle of Hanover June 30 Stuart's rideBattle of Gettysburg July 1–3 GettysburgBattle of Carlisle July 1 Stuart's rideBattle of Hunterstown July 2 Stuart's rideBattle of Fairfield July 3 RetreatBattle of Monterey Pass July 4–5 RetreatBattle of Williamsport July 6–16 RetreatBattle of Boonsboro July 8 RetreatBattle of Funkstown July 10 RetreatBattle of Manassas Gap July 23 RetreatLee's advance to Gettysburg
Gettysburg Campaign (through July 3) Confederate UnionCavalry movements are shown with dashed lines.On June 3, 1863, Lee's army began to slip away northwesterly from Fredericksburg, Virginia, leaving A.P. Hill's Corps in fortifications above Fredericksburg to cover the departure of the army, protect Richmond from any Union incursion across the Rappahannock, and pursue the enemy if Hill thought it advantageous.[note 1] By the following morning, Hooker's chief of staff, General Daniel Butterfield, had received various reports that at least a portion of the Confederate Army was moving.[note 2] The next day, June 5, Hooker canceled all leave and army furloughs and instructed that all troops be prepared to march if necessary.[note 3] In the meantime, Longstreet's and Ewell's corps were camped in and around Culpeper.[25] With more Union reports intimating that Lee had moved a large portion of his army, Hooker ordered Sedgwick to conduct a reconnaissance in force across the Rappahannock River.
A small skirmish began shortly after 5:00 p.m. as Vermont and New Jersey troops, supported by a heavy Federal artillery bombardment, paddled across the river and overran Confederate positions on the southern bank.[26] As a precaution, Lee temporarily halted Ewell's Corps, but when he saw that Hooker would not press the Fredericksburg line to bring on a battle, he ordered Ewell to continue. The same day as Federal troops crossed the river, General Buford wrote that he had received credible information that "all of the available cavalry of the Confederacy" was in Culpeper County.[27] On June 7, George H. Sharpe, head of the Bureau of Military Information, erroneously reported to Hooker that, while J. E. B. Stuart was preparing a large cavalry raid, Lee's infantry would be withdrawing to Richmond.[28] Hooker decided to preemptively attack the Confederate cavalry force in Culpeper and ordered Cavalry Corps commander Alfred Pleasonton to command the assault.[note 4]
Lee rejoined the leading elements of his army in Culpeper on June 7 and ordered Albert G. Jenkins' cavalry to advance northward through the Shenandoah Valley.[note 5][31] He also wrote to John D. Imboden and ordered him to attract Union forces in Hampshire County and to disrupt their communications and logistics as well as acquire cattle for use by the Confederate Army.[note 6] To support these movements, Lee wrote to General Samuel Jones and asked him to spare any troops that he could.[note 7] The following day, he wrote to James Seddon, Confederate Secretary of War, and attempted to persuade him to send troops currently in North Carolina to reinforce either his army or Confederate forces in the west.[note 8] On June 9, Lee ordered Stuart to cross the Rappahannock and raid Union forward positions, screening the Confederate Army from observation or interference as it moved north. Anticipating this imminent offensive action, Stuart ordered his troopers into bivouac around Brandy Station.[35]
Brandy Station Further information: Battle of Brandy Station
Overview of the Battle of Brandy StationAlfred Pleasonton's combined arms force consisted of 8, 000 cavalrymen and 3, 000 infantry, [36] while Stuart commanded about 9, 500 Confederates.[37] Pleasonton's attack plan called for a double envelopment of the enemy. The wing under Brigadier General John Buford would cross the river at Beverly's Ford, two miles (3 km) northeast of Brandy Station. At the same time, David McMurtrie Gregg's wing would cross at Kelly's Ford, six miles (10 km) downstream to the southeast. However, Pleasonton was unaware of the precise disposition of the enemy and he incorrectly assumed that his force was substantially larger than the Confederates he faced.[38]
About 4:30 a.m. on June 9, Buford's column crossed the Rappahannock River and almost immediately encountered Confederate forces.[39] After overcoming their shock at Buford's surprise attack, Confederate forces rallied and managed to check the Union force near St. James Church.[40][39] Gregg's force, delayed in getting the leading force into position, finally attacked across Kelly's Ford at 9:00 a.m. Gregg's force divided once across the Rappahannock with one section attacking west toward Stevensburg and the second force pushing north to Brandy Station.[39] Between Gregg and the St. James action was a prominent ridge called Fleetwood Hill, which had been Stuart's headquarters the previous night. Stuart, surprised a second time by Gregg's forces threatening his rear, sent regiments from St. James to check the Union advance in the south. When Gregg's men charged up the western slope and neared the crest, the lead elements of Grumble Jones' brigade rode over the crown.[41]
For several hours there was desperate fighting on the slopes of the hill as many confusing charges and counter-charges swept back and forth.[39] The section of Union troops sent to Stevensburg were bluffed into withdrawing and turned eastward to reinforce Gregg on Fleetwood Hill. Generals Lee and Ewell rode out to Brandy Station to observe the battle and Lee ordered infantry reinforcements under Robert E. Rodes moved within a mile of the battle, still concealed, in case the Union broke through Stuart's lines.[42] Meanwhile, as Buford's forces at St. James began to make headway, Pleasonton ordered a withdrawal of all Union forces across the Rappahannock. As the threat to Confederate positions at Brandy Station lifted, Rodes withdrew his infantry back to their camp at Pony Mountain. By 9:00 p.m., all Union troops were across the river.[39]
Brandy Station was the largest predominantly cavalry fight of the war, and the largest to take place on American soil.[43] It was a tactical draw, although Pleasonton withdrew before finding the location of Lee's infantry nearby and Stuart claimed a victory, attempting to disguise the embarrassment of a cavalry force being surprised as it was by Pleasonton. The battle established the emerging reputation of the Union cavalry as a peer of the Confederate mounted arm.[44]
Winchester Further information: Second Battle of WinchesterAfter Brandy Station, a variety of Union sources reported the presence of Confederate infantry at Culpeper and Brandy Station.[note 9] Hooker did not immediately act on this information. The day after the battle, Ewell's Corps began marching toward the Shenandoah Valley.[46] Lee intended Ewell to clear the valley of Federal forces while Longstreet's Corps marched east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A.P. Hill would then march his corps through the valley as well. On June 12, the leading elements of Lee's army were passing through the Chester Gap.[46]
At the same time, Hooker still believed that Lee's army was positioned on the west bank of the Rappahannock, between Fredricksburg and Culpeper and that it outnumbered his own.[note 10] Hooker had proposed to march on Richmond after the battle at Brandy Station, but Lincoln had replied that "Lee's army, not Richmond, is your true objective."[48] Meanwhile, Ewell's Corps was passing Front Royal and approaching Winchester.
The Union garrison was commanded by Major General Robert H. Milroy and consisted of 6, 900 troops posted in Winchester itself and a detachment of 1, 800 men ten miles (16 km) east in Berryville, Virginia.[49] The Union defenses consisted of three forts on high ground just outside the town. Milroy's tenure at Winchester had been marked by incivility toward the civilian population, who resented his oppressive rule, and the Confederate troops were eager to destroy his force. General-in-chief Henry Halleck did not want any Union force stationed in Winchester beyond what was necessary as an outpost to monitor Confederate movement and repeatedly ordered Milroy's superior, Maj. Gen. Robert C. Schenck of the Middle Department, to withdraw the surplus force to Harpers Ferry.[note 11] Schenck, however, did not comply and, unaware that Lee's infantry were approaching, did not issue any orders for Milroy to withdraw immediately from Winchester before June 13.[note 12] By then, Milroy's position was in extreme danger from a superior Confederate force.
Ewell planned to defeat the Union garrison by sending Allegheny Johnson and Jubal Early's divisions directly to Winchester while Rodes' division maneuvered east to defeat the Union detachment at Berryville and wheel north toward Martinsburg.[49][51] These movements effectively surrounded the Federal garrison by 23, 000 Confederate troops.[52] On the 13th, Milroy's telegraph connection with Harpers Ferry and Washington was cut by Ewell's troops. The Berryville detachment escaped Rodes' division and fell back on Winchester while Rodes' men continued north to Martinsburg. Though Ewell was initially hesitant about assaulting the defenses at Winchester, Early discovered that there was an unguarded hill west of the fortifications that dominated the battlefield.[51]
By 11 a.m. on June 14, Early began moving his forces covertly to take that position. To distract the Union, Ewell ordered demonstrations by John B. Gordon's brigade and the Maryland Line.[53] At 6 p.m., Confederate artillery opened fire on the Union's West Fort and the brigade of Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hays led the charge that captured the fort and a Union battery. As darkness fell, Milroy belatedly decided to retreat from his two remaining forts.[54]
Anticipating the movement, Ewell ordered Johnson to march northwest and block the Union escape route. At 3:30 a.m. on June 15, Johnson's column intercepted Milroy's on the Charles Town Road. Although Milroy ordered his men to fight their way out of the situation, when the Stonewall Brigade arrived just after dawn to cut the turnpike to the north, Milroy's men began to surrender in large numbers. Milroy escaped personally but the Second Battle of Winchester cost the Union about 4, 450 casualties (4, 000 captured) out of 7, 000 engaged, while the Confederates lost only 250 of 12, 500 engaged.[55]
Hooker's pursuit Further information: Battle of Aldie, Battle of Middleburg, and Battle of Upperville"Fighting Joe" Hooker did not know Lee's intentions, and Stuart's cavalry masked the Confederate army's movements behind the Blue Ridge effectively. He initially conceived the idea of reacting to Lee's absence by seizing unprotected Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. But President Abraham Lincoln sternly reminded him that Lee's army was the true objective. His orders were to pursue and defeat Lee but to stay between Lee and Washington and Baltimore. On June 14, the Army of the Potomac departed Fredericksburg and reached Manassas Junction on June 16. Hooker dispatched Pleasonton's cavalry again to punch through the Confederate cavalry screen to find the main Confederate army, which led to three minor cavalry battles from June 17 through June 21 in the Loudoun Valley.[56]
Pleasonton ordered David McM. Gregg's division from Manassas Junction westward down the Little River Turnpike to Aldie. Aldie was tactically important in that near the village the Little River Turnpike intersected both of the turnpikes leading through Ashby's Gap and Snickers Gap into the Valley. The Confederate cavalry brigade of Col. Thomas T. Munford was entering Aldie from the west, preparing to bivouac, when three brigades of Gregg's division entered from the east at about 4 p.m. on June 17, surprising both sides. The resulting Battle of Aldie was a fierce mounted fight of four hours with about 250 total casualties. Munford withdrew toward Middleburg.[57]
While the fighting occurred at Aldie, the Union cavalry brigade of Col. Alfred N. Duffié arrived south of Middleburg in the late afternoon and drove in the Confederate pickets. Stuart was in the town at the time and managed to escape before his brigades under Munford and Beverly Robertson routed Duffié in an early morning assault on June 18. The primary action of the Battle of Middleburg occurred on the morning of June 19 when Col. J. Irvin Gregg's brigade advanced west from Aldie and attacked Stuart's line on a ridge west of Middleburg. Stuart repulsed Gregg's charge, counterattacked, then fell back to defensive positions one-half mile (800 m) to the west.[58]
On June 21, Pleasonton again attempted to break Stuart's screen by advancing on Upperville, nine miles (14 km) to the west of Middleburg. The cavalry brigades of Irvin Gregg and Judson Kilpatrick were accompanied by infantry from Col. Strong Vincent's brigade on the Ashby's Gap Turnpike. Buford's cavalry division moved northwest against Stuart's left flank, but made little progress against Grumble Jones's and John R. Chambliss's brigades. The Battle of Upperville ended as Stuart conducted a fierce fighting withdrawal and took up a strong defensive position in Ashby's Gap.[59]
After successfully defending his screen for almost a week, Stuart found himself motivated to begin the most controversial adventure of his career, Stuart's raid around the eastern flank of the Union Army.[60]
Hooker's significant pursuit with the bulk of his army began on June 25, after he learned that the Army of Northern Virginia had crossed the Potomac River. He ordered the Army of the Potomac to cross into Maryland and concentrate at Middletown (Slocum's XII Corps) and Frederick (the rest of the army, led by Reynolds's advance wing—the I, III, and XI Corps).[61]
The invasion of Pennsylvania Further information: Skirmish of Sporting HillPresident Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 100, 000 volunteers from four states to serve a term of six months "to repel the threatened and imminent invasion of Pennsylvania."[62] Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin called for 50, 000 volunteers to take arms as volunteer militia; only 7, 000 initially responded, and Curtin asked for help from the New York State Militia. Gov. Joel Parker of New Jersey also responded by sending troops to Pennsylvania. The War Department created the Department of the Susquehanna, commanded by Maj. Gen. Darius N. Couch, to coordinate defensive efforts in Pennsylvania.[63]
Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia were considered potential targets and defensive preparations were made. In Harrisburg, the state government removed its archives from the town for safekeeping. In much of southern Pennsylvania, the Gettysburg campaign became widely known as the "Emergency of 1863." The military campaign resulted in the displacement of thousands of refugees from Maryland and Pennsylvania who fled northward and eastward to avoid the oncoming Confederates, and resulted in a shift in demographics in several southern Pennsylvania boroughs and counties.[64]
Although a primary purpose of the campaign was for the Army of Northern Virginia to accumulate food and supplies outside of Virginia, Lee gave strict orders (General Order 72) to his army to minimize any negative impacts on the civilian population.[65] Food, horses, and other supplies were generally not seized outright, although quartermasters reimbursing Northern farmers and merchants using Confederate money were not well received. Various towns, most notably York, Pennsylvania, were required to pay indemnities in lieu of supplies, under threat of destruction. During the invasion, the Confederates seized some 40 northern African Americans, a few of whom were escaped fugitive slaves but most were freemen. They were sent south under guard into slavery.[66][67]
Ewell's corps continued to push deeper into Pennsylvania, with two divisions heading through the Cumberland Valley to threaten Harrisburg, while Jubal Early's division of Ewell's Corps marched eastward over the South Mountain range, occupying Gettysburg on June 26 after a brief series of skirmishes with state emergency militia and two companies of cavalry. Early laid the borough under tribute but did not collect any significant quantities of supplies. Soldiers burned several railroad cars and a covered bridge, and they destroyed nearby rails and telegraph lines. The following morning, Early departed for adjacent York County.[68]
The brigade of Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon of Early's division reached the Susquehanna on June 28, where militia guarded the 5, 629-foot-long (1, 716 m) covered bridge at Wrightsville. Gordon's artillery fire caused the well fortified militiamen to retreat and burn the bridge. Confederate cavalry under the command of Brig. Gen. Albert G. Jenkins raided nearby Mechanicsburg on June 28 and skirmished with militia at Sporting Hill on the west side of Camp Hill on June 29. The Confederates then pressed on to the outer defenses of Fort Couch, where they skirmished with the outer picket line for over an hour, the northernmost engagement of the Gettysburg Campaign. They later withdrew in the direction of Carlisle.[69]
Stuart's raid Further information: Battle of Hanover, Battle of Carlisle, and Battle of HunterstownJeb Stuart enjoyed the glory of circumnavigating an enemy army, which he had done on two previous occasions in 1862, during the Peninsula Campaign and at the end of the Maryland Campaign. It is possible that he had the same intention when he spoke to Robert E. Lee following the Battle of Upperville. He certainly needed to erase the stain on his reputation represented by his surprise and near defeat at the Battle of Brandy Station. The exact nature of Lee's order to Stuart on June 22 has been argued by the participants and historians ever since, but the essence was that he was instructed to guard the mountain passes with part of his force while the Army of Northern Virginia was still south of the Potomac and that he was to cross the river with the remainder of the army and screen the right flank of Ewell's Second Corps. Instead of taking a direct route north near the Blue Ridge Mountains, Stuart chose to reach Ewell's flank by taking his three best brigades (those of Wade Hampton, Fitzhugh Lee, and John R. Chambliss, the latter replacing the wounded W.H.F. "Rooney" Lee) between the Union army and Washington, moving north through Rockville to Westminster and on into Pennsylvania, hoping to capture supplies along the way and cause havoc near the enemy capital. Stuart and his three brigades departed Salem Depot at 1 a.m. on June 25.[70]
Unfortunately for Stuart's plan, the Union army's movement was underway and his proposed route was blocked by columns of Federal infantry from Hancock's II Corps, forcing him to veer farther to the east than either he or General Lee had anticipated. This prevented Stuart from linking up with Ewell as ordered and deprived Lee of the use of his prime cavalry force, the "eyes and ears" of the army, while advancing into unfamiliar enemy territory.[71]
Stuart's command reached Fairfax Court House, where they were delayed for half a day by the small but spirited Battle of Fairfax Court House (June 1863) on June 27, and crossed the Potomac River at Rowser's Ford at 3 a.m. on June 28. Upon entering Maryland, the cavalrymen attacked the C & O Canal, one of the major supply lines for the Army of the Potomac, capturing canal boats and cargo. They entered Rockville on June 28, also a key wagon supply road between the Union Army and Washington, tearing down miles of telegraph wire and capturing a wagon train of 140 brand new, fully loaded wagons and mule teams. This wagon train would prove to be a logistical hindrance to Stuart's advance, but he interpreted Lee's orders as placing importance on gathering supplies. The proximity of the Confederate raiders provoked some consternation in the national capital and Meade dispatched two cavalry brigades and an artillery battery to pursue the Confederates. Stuart supposedly told one of his prisoners from the wagon train that were it not for his fatigued horses "he would have marched down the 7th Street Road [and] took Abe & Cabinet prisoners."[72]
Stuart had planned to reach Hanover, Pennsylvania, by the morning of June 28, but rode into Westminster, Maryland, instead late on the afternoon of June 29. Here his men clashed briefly with and overwhelmed two companies of the 1st Delaware Cavalry under Maj. Napoleon B. Knight, chasing them a long distance on the Baltimore road, which Stuart claimed caused a "great panic" in the city of Baltimore.[73]
Meanwhile, Union cavalry commander Alfred Pleasonton ordered his divisions to spread out in their movement north with the army, looking for Confederates. Judson Kilpatrick's division was on the right flank of the advance and passed through Hanover on the morning of June 30. The head of Stuart's column encountered Kilpatrick's rear as it passed through town and scattered it. The Battle of Hanover ended after Kilpatrick's men regrouped and drove the Confederates out of town. Stuart's brigades had been better positioned to guard their captured wagon train than to take advantage of the encounter with Kilpatrick. To protect his wagons and prisoners, he delayed until nightfall and then detoured around Hanover by way of Jefferson to the east, increasing his march by five miles (8 km). After a 20-mile (32 km) trek in the dark, his exhausted men reached Dover on the morning of July 1, the same time that his Confederate infantry colleagues began to fight Union cavalrymen under John Buford at Gettysburg.[74]
Leaving Hampton's Brigade and the wagon train at Dillsburg, Stuart headed for Carlisle, hoping to find Ewell. Instead, he found nearly 3, 000 Pennsylvania and New York militia occupying the borough. After lobbing a few shells into town during the early evening of July 1 and burning the Carlisle Barracks, Stuart concluded the so-called Battle of Carlisle and withdrew after midnight to the south towards Gettysburg. The fighting at Hanover, the long march through York County with the captured wagons, and the brief encounter at Carlisle slowed Stuart considerably in his attempt to rejoin the main army.[75]
Stuart and the bulk of his command reached Lee at Gettysburg the afternoon of July 2. He ordered Wade Hampton to take a position to cover the left rear of the Confederate battle lines. Hampton moved into position astride the Hunterstown Road four miles (6 km) northeast of town, blocking access for any Union forces that might try to swing around behind Lee's lines. Two brigades of Union cavalry from Judson Kilpatrick's division under Brig. Gens. George Armstrong Custer and Elon J. Farnsworth were probing for the end of the Confederate left flank. Custer attacked Hampton in the Battle of Hunterstown on the road between Hunterstown and Gettysburg, and Hampton counterattacked. When Farnsworth arrived with his brigade, Hampton did not press his attack, and an artillery duel ensued until dark. Hampton then withdrew towards Gettysburg to rejoin Stuart.[76]
Dix's advance against RichmondAs Lee's offensive strategy became clear, Union general-in-chief Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck planned a countermove that could take advantage of the now lightly defended Confederate capital of Richmond. He ordered the Union Department of Virginia, two corps under Maj. Gen. John A. Dix, to move on Richmond from its locations on the Virginia Peninsula (around Yorktown and Williamsburg) and near Suffolk. However, Halleck made the mistake of not explicitly ordering Dix to attack Richmond. The orders were to "threaten Richmond, by seizing and destroying their railroad bridges over the South and North Anna Rivers, and do them all the damage possible." Dix, a well-respected politician, was not an aggressive general, but he eventually contemplated attacking Richmond despite the vagueness of Halleck's instructions.[77]
On June 27, his men conducted a successful cavalry raid on Hanover Junction, led by Col. Samuel P. Spear, which defeated the Confederate regiment guarding the railroad junction, destroyed the bridge over the South Anna River and the quartermaster's depot, capturing supplies, wagons, and 100 prisoners including General Lee's son, Brig. Gen. W. H. F. "Rooney" Lee. On June 29, at a council of war, Dix and his lieutenants expressed concerns about their limited strength (about 32, 000 men) and decided to limit themselves to threatening gestures. Confederate Maj. Gen. D. H. Hill wrote that the Union advance on Richmond was "not a feint but a faint." The net effect of the operation was primarily psychological, causing the Confederates to hold back some troops from Lee's offensive to guard the capital.[78]
Meade assumes commandOn the evening of June 27, Lincoln sent orders relieving Hooker. Hooker had argued with Halleck about defending the garrison at Harpers Ferry and petulantly offered to resign, which Halleck and Lincoln promptly accepted. George Meade, a Pennsylvanian who was commanding the V Corps, was ordered to assume command of the Army of the Potomac early on the morning of June 28 in Frederick, Maryland. Meade was surprised by the change of command order, having previously expressed his lack of interest in the army command. In fact, when an officer from Washington woke him with the order, he assumed he was being arrested for some transgression. Despite having little knowledge of what Hooker's plans had been or the exact locations of the three columns moving quickly to the northwest, Meade kept up the pace. He telegraphed to Halleck, in accepting his new command, that he would "Move toward the Susquehanna, keeping Washington and Baltimore well covered, and if the enemy is checked in his attempt to cross the Susquehanna or if he turns toward Baltimore, to give him battle."[79]
Map showing the position of Big Pipe Creek in relation to GettysburgOn June 30, Meade's headquarters advanced to Taneytown, Maryland, and he issued two important orders. The first directed that a general advance in the direction of Gettysburg begin on July 1, a destination that was from 5 to 25 miles (8 to 40 km) away from each of his seven infantry corps. The second order, known as the Pipe Creek Circular, established a prospective line on Big Pipe Creek, which had been surveyed by his engineers as a strong defensive position. Meade had the option of occupying this position and hoping that Lee would attack him there; alternatively, it would represent a fall back position if the army got into trouble at Gettysburg.[80]
Lee concentrates his armyThe lack of Stuart's cavalry intelligence kept Lee unaware that his army's normally sluggish foe had moved as far north as it had. It was only after a spy hired by Longstreet, Henry Thomas Harrison, reported it that Lee found out his opponent had crossed the Potomac and was following him nearby. By June 29, Lee's army was strung out in an arc from Chambersburg (28 miles (45 km) northwest of Gettysburg) to Carlisle (30 miles (48 km) north of Gettysburg) to near Harrisburg and Wrightsville on the Susquehanna River. Ewell's Corps had almost reached the Susquehanna River and was prepared to menace Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania state capital. Early's Division occupied York, which was the largest Northern town to fall to the Confederates during the war. Longstreet and Hill were near Chambersburg.[81]
Lee ordered a concentration of his forces around Cashtown, located at the eastern base of South Mountain and 8 miles (13 km) west of Gettysburg.[82] On June 30, while part of Hill's Corps was in Cashtown, one of Hill's brigades, North Carolinians under Brig. Gen. J. Johnston Pettigrew, ventured toward Gettysburg. The memoirs of Maj. Gen. Henry Heth, Pettigrew's division commander, claimed that he sent Pettigrew to search for supplies in town—especially shoes.[83]
When Pettigrew's troops approached Gettysburg on June 30, they noticed Union cavalry under Brig. Gen. John Buford arriving south of town, and Pettigrew returned to Cashtown without engaging them. When Pettigrew told Hill and Heth about what he had seen, neither general believed that there was a substantial Federal force in or near the town, suspecting that it had been only Pennsylvania militia. Despite Lee's order to avoid a general engagement until his entire army was concentrated, Hill decided to mount a significant reconnaissance in force the following morning to determine the size and strength of the enemy force in his front. Around 5 a.m. on Wednesday, July 1, two brigades of Heth's division advanced to Gettysburg.[84]
Battle of Gettysburg Further information: Battle of Gettysburg, First Day, Second Day, Little Round Top, Cemetery Hill, Culp's Hill, Pickett's Charge, Third Day cavalry battles
Battlefield of Gettysburg (1863)
Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 1863
Battle of Gettysburg, July 2
Battle of Gettysburg, July 3The two armies began to collide at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. The first day proceeded in three phases as combatants continued to arrive at the battlefield. In the morning, two brigades of Confederate Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's division (of Hill's Third Corps) were delayed by dismounted Union cavalrymen under Brig. Gen. John Buford. As infantry reinforcements arrived under Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds from the I Corps, the Confederate assaults down the Chambersburg Pike were repulsed, although Gen. Reynolds was killed.[85]
By early afternoon, the Union XI Corps had arrived, and the Union position was in a semicircle from west to north of the town. Ewell's Second Corps began a massive assault from the north, with Maj. Gen. Robert E. Rodes's division attacking from Oak Hill and Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early's division attacking across the open fields north of town. The Union lines generally held under extremely heavy pressure, although the salient at Barlow's Knoll was overrun. The third phase of the battle came as Rodes renewed his assault from the north and Heth returned with his entire division from the west, accompanied by the division of Maj. Gen. W. Dorsey Pender.[86]
Heavy fighting in Herbst's Woods (near the Lutheran Theological Seminary) and on Oak Ridge finally caused the Union line to collapse. Some of the Federals conducted a fighting withdrawal through the town, suffering heavy casualties and losing many prisoners; others simply retreated. They took up good defensive positions on Cemetery Hill and waited for additional attacks. Despite discretionary orders from Robert E. Lee to take the heights "if practicable, " Richard Ewell chose not to attack. Historians have debated ever since how the battle might have ended differently if he had found it practicable to do so.[87]
On the second day, Lee attempted to capitalize on his first day's success by launching multiple attacks against the Union flanks. After a lengthy delay to assemble his forces and avoid detection in his approach march, Longstreet attacked with his First Corps against the Union left flank. His division under Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood attacked Little Round Top and Devil's Den. To Hood's left, Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws attacked the Wheatfield and the Peach Orchard. Although neither prevailed, the Union III Corps was effectively destroyed as a combat organization as it attempted to defend a salient over too wide a front. Gen. Meade rushed as many as 20, 000 reinforcements from elsewhere in his line to resist these fierce assaults. The attacks in this sector concluded with an unsuccessful assault by the Third Corps division of Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson against the Union center on Cemetery Ridge. That evening, Ewell's Second Corps turned demonstrations against the Union right flank into full-scale assaults on Culp's Hill and East Cemetery Hill, but both were repulsed. The Union army had occupied strong defensive positions, and Meade handled his forces well, resulting in heavy losses for both sides but leaving the disposition of forces on both sides essentially unchanged.[88]
After attacks on both Union flanks had failed the day and night before, Lee was determined to strike the Union center on the third day. He decided to support this attack with a renewed thrust on the Union right that was supposed to start in concert with his assault on the center. However, the fighting on Culp's Hill resumed early in the morning with a Union counterattack, hours before Longstreet could begin his attack on the center. The Union troops on fortified Culp's Hill had been reinforced and the Confederates made no progress after multiple, futile assaults that lasted until noon. The infantry assault on Cemetery Ridge known as Pickett's Charge was preceded by a massive artillery bombardment at 1 p.m. that was meant to soften up the Union defense and silence its artillery, but it was largely ineffective. Approximately 12, 500 men in nine infantry brigades advanced over open fields for three-quarters of a mile (1, 200 m) under heavy Union artillery and rifle fire. Although some Confederates were able to breach the low stone wall that shielded many of the Union defenders, they could not maintain their hold and were repulsed with over 50% casualties.[89]
During and after Pickett's Charge on the third day, two significant cavalry battles also occurred: one approximately three miles (5 km) to the east, in the area known today as East Cavalry Field, the other southwest of the [Big] Round Top mountain (sometimes called South Cavalry Field). The East Cavalry Field fighting was an attempt by Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate cavalry to get into the Federal rear and exploit any success that Pickett's Charge may have generated. Union cavalry under Brig. Gens. David McM. Gregg and George Armstrong Custer repulsed the Confederate advances. In South Cavalry Field, after Pickett's Charge had been defeated, reckless cavalry charges against the right flank of the Confederate Army, ordered by Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick, were easily repulsed.[90]
The three-day battle in and around Gettysburg resulted in the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War—between 46, 000 and 51, 000.[91] In conjunction with the Union victory at Vicksburg on July 4, Gettysburg is frequently cited as the war's turning point.[92]
Lee's retreat to Virginia Further information: Retreat from GettysburgLee managed to escape back to Virginia after a harrowing forced march in the face of flooded rivers. Meade took the blame for the failure to capture Lee's highly vulnerable and outnumbered army.[93]
Following Pickett's Charge, the Confederates returned to their positions on Seminary Ridge and prepared fortifications to receive a counterattack. When the Union attack had not occurred by the evening of July 4, Lee realized that he could accomplish nothing more in his campaign and that he had to return his battered army to Virginia. Lee started his Army of Northern Virginia in motion late the evening of July 4 towards Fairfield and Chambersburg. Cavalry under Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden was entrusted to escort the miles-long wagon train of supplies and wounded men that Lee wanted to take back to Virginia with him, using the route through Cashtown and Hagerstown to Williamsport, Maryland. Thousands of more seriously wounded soldiers were left behind in the Gettysburg area, along with medical personnel. However, despite casualties of over 20, 000 men, including a number of senior officers, the morale of Lee's army remained high and their respect for the commanding general was not diminished by their reverses.[94]
Unfortunately for the Confederate Army, however, once they reached the Potomac they would find it difficult to cross. Torrential rains that started on July 4 flooded the river at Williamsport, making fording impossible. Four miles (6 km) downstream at Falling Waters, Union cavalry destroyed Lee's lightly guarded pontoon bridge on July 4. The only way to cross the river was a small ferry at Williamsport. The Confederates could potentially be trapped, forced to defend themselves against Meade with their backs to the river.[95]
Gettysburg Campaign (July 5–14)The route of the bulk of Lee's army was through Fairfield and over Monterey Pass to Hagerstown. A small but important action that occurred while Pickett's Charge was still underway, the Battle of Fairfield, prevented the Union from blocking this route. Brig. Gen. Wesley Merritt's brigade departed from Emmitsburg with orders to strike the Confederate left and rear along Seminary Ridge. Merritt dispatched about 400 men from the 6th U.S. Cavalry to seize foraging wagons that had been reported in the area. Before they were able to reach the wagons, the 7th Virginia Cavalry, leading a column under Confederate Brig. Gen. William E. "Grumble" Jones, intercepted the regulars, but the U.S. cavalrymen repulsed the Virginians. Jones sent in the 6th Virginia Cavalry, which successfully charged and swarmed over the Union troopers. There were 242 Union casualties, primarily prisoners, and 44 casualties among the Confederates.[96]
Imboden's journey was one of extreme misery, conducted during the torrential rains that began on July 4, in which the 8, 000 wounded men were forced to endure the weather and the rough roads in wagons without suspensions. The train was harassed throughout its march. At dawn on July 5, civilians in Greencastle ambushed the train with axes, attacking the wheels of the wagons, until they were driven off. That afternoon at Cunningham's Cross Roads, Union cavalry attacked the column, capturing 134 wagons, 600 horses and mules, and 645 prisoners, about half of whom were wounded. These losses so angered Stuart that he demanded a court of inquiry to investigate.[97]
Early on July 4 Meade sent his cavalry to strike the enemy's rear and lines of communication so as to "harass and annoy him as much as possible in his retreat." Eight of nine cavalry brigades (except Col. John B. McIntosh's of Brig. Gen. David McM. Gregg's division) took to the field. Col. J. Irvin Gregg's brigade (of his cousin David Gregg's division) moved toward Cashtown via Hunterstown and the Mummasburg Road, but all of the others moved south of Gettysburg. Brig. Gen. John Buford's division went directly from Westminster to Frederick, where they were joined by Merritt's division on the night of July 5.[98]
Late on July 4, Meade held a council of war in which his corps commanders agreed that the army should remain at Gettysburg until Lee acted, and that the cavalry should pursue Lee in any retreat. Meade decided to have Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren take a division from Sedgwick's VI Corps to probe the Confederate line and determine Lee's intentions. By the morning of July 5, Meade learned of Lee's departure, but he hesitated to order a general pursuit until he had received the results of Warren's reconnaissance.[99]
The Battle of Monterey Pass began as Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick's cavalry division easily brushed aside Brig. Gen. Beverly Robertson's pickets and encountered a detachment of 20 men from the Confederate 1st Maryland Cavalry Battalion, under Capt. G. M. Emack, that was guarding the road to Monterey Pass. Aided by a detachment of the 4th North Carolina Cavalry and a single cannon, the Marylanders delayed the advance of 4, 500 Union cavalrymen until well after midnight. Kilpatrick ordered Brig. Gen. George A. Custer to charge the Confederates with the 6th Michigan Cavalry, which broke the deadlock and allowed Kilpatrick's men to reach and attack the wagon train. They captured or destroyed numerous wagons and captured 1, 360 prisoners—primarily wounded men in ambulances—and a large number of horses and mules.[100]
As Meade's infantry began to march in earnest in pursuit of Lee on the morning of July 7, Buford's division departed from Frederick to destroy Imboden's train before it could cross the Potomac. At 5 p.m. on July 7 his men reached within one-half mile (800 m) of the parked trains, but Imboden's command repulsed their advance. Buford heard Kilpatrick's artillery in the vicinity and requested support on his right. Kilpatrick's men had moved toward Hagerstown and pushed out the two small brigades of Chambliss and Robertson. However, infantry commanded by Brig. Gen. Alfred Iverson drove Kilpatrick's men through the streets of town. Stuart's remaining brigades came up and were reinforced by two brigades of Hood's Division and Hagerstown was recaptured by the Confederates. Kilpatrick chose to respond to Buford's request for assistance and join the attack on Imboden at Williamsport. Stuart's men pressured Kilpatrick's rear and right flank from their position at Hagerstown and Kilpatrick's men gave way and exposed Buford's rear to the attack. Buford gave up his effort when darkness fell.[101]
Lee's rear guard cavalry clashed with Federal cavalry in the South Mountain passes in the Battle of Boonsboro on July 8, delaying Union pursuit. In the Battle of Funkstown on July 10, Stuart's cavalry continued its efforts to delay Federal pursuit in an encounter near Funkstown, Maryland, which resulted in nearly 500 casualties on both sides. The fight also marked the first time since the Battle of Gettysburg that Union infantry engaged Confederate infantry in the same engagement. Stuart was successful in delaying Pleasonton's cavalry for another day.[102]
By July 9 most of the Army of the Potomac was concentrated in a five-mile (8 km) line from Rohrersville to Boonsboro. Other Union forces were in position to protect the outer flanks at Maryland Heights and at Waynesboro.[103] By July 11 the Confederates occupied a six-mile (10 km), highly fortified line on high ground with their right resting on the Potomac River near Downsville and the left about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southwest of Hagerstown, covering the only road from there to Williamsport.[104]
Meade telegraphed to general-in-chief Henry W. Halleck on July 12 that he intended to attack the next day, "unless something intervenes to prevent it." He once again called a council of war with his subordinates on the night of July 12, which resulted in a postponement of an attack until reconnaissance of the Confederate position could be performed, which Meade conducted the next morning. By that time, Lee became frustrated waiting for Meade to attack him and was dismayed to see that the Federal troops were digging entrenchments of their own in front of his works. Confederate engineers had completed a new pontoon bridge over the Potomac, which had also subsided enough to be forded. Lee ordered a retreat to start after dark, with Longstreet's and Hill's corps and the artillery to use the pontoon bridge at Falling Waters and Ewell's corps to ford the river at Williamsport.[105]
On the morning of July 14, advancing Union skirmishers found that the entrenchments were empty. Cavalry under Buford and Kilpatrick attacked the rearguard of Lee's army, Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's division, which was still on a ridge about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Falling Waters. The initial attack caught the Confederates by surprise after a long night with little sleep, and hand-to-hand fighting ensued. Kilpatrick attacked again and Buford struck them in their right and rear. Heth's and Pender's divisions lost numerous prisoners. Brig. Gen. J. Johnston Pettigrew, who had survived Pickett's Charge with a minor hand wound, was mortally wounded at Falling Waters. This minor success against Heth did not make up for the extreme frustration in the Lincoln administration about allowing Lee to escape. The president was quoted as saying, "We had them within our grasp. We had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours. And nothing I could say or do could make the Army move."[106]
The two armies did not take up positions across from each other on the Rappahannock River for almost two weeks. On July 16 the cavalry brigades of Fitzhugh Lee and Chambliss held the fords on the Potomac at Shepherdstown to prevent crossing by the Federal infantry. The cavalry division under David Gregg approached the fords and the Confederates attacked them, but the Union cavalrymen held their position until dark before withdrawing.[107]
The Army of the Potomac crossed the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry and Berlin (now named Brunswick) on July 17–18. They advanced along the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, trying to interpose themselves between Lee's army and Richmond. On July 23, in the Battle of Manassas Gap, Meade ordered French's III Corps to cut off the retreating Confederate columns at Front Royal, by forcing passage through Manassas Gap. At first light, French began slowly pushing the Stonewall Brigade back into the gap. About 4:30 p.m., a strong Union attack drove the Confederates until they were reinforced by Maj. Gen. Robert E. Rodes's division and artillery. By dusk, the poorly coordinated Union attacks were abandoned. During the night, Confederate forces withdrew into the Luray Valley. On July 24, the Union army occupied Front Royal, but Lee's army was safely beyond pursuit.[108]
AftermathThe Gettysburg Campaign represented the final major offensive by Robert E. Lee in the Civil War. Afterward, all combat operations of the Army of Northern Virginia were in reaction to Union initiatives. Lee suffered over 27, 000 casualties during the campaign, [9] a price very difficult for the Confederacy to pay. The campaign met only some of its major objectives: it had disrupted Union plans for a summer campaign in Virginia, temporarily protecting the citizens and economy of that state, and it had allowed Lee's men to live off the bountiful Maryland and Pennsylvania countryside and plunder vast amounts of food and supplies that they carried back with them and that would allow them to continue the war. However, the myth of Lee's invincibility had been shattered and not a single Union soldier was removed from the Vicksburg Campaign to react to Lee's invasion of the North.[109] (Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, the day Lee ordered his retreat.) Union campaign casualties were approximately 30, 100.[110]
Meade was severely criticized for allowing Lee to escape, just as Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan had been after the Battle of Antietam. Under pressure from Lincoln, he launched two campaigns in the fall of 1863—Bristoe and Mine Run—that attempted to defeat Lee. Both were failures. He also suffered humiliation at the hands of his political enemies in front of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, questioning his actions at Gettysburg and his failure to defeat Lee during the retreat to the Potomac.[111]
On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln spoke at the dedication ceremonies for the national cemetery created at the Gettysburg battlefield. His Gettysburg Address redefined the war, calling for a "new birth of freedom" in the nation, which established the destruction of slavery as an implied goal.[112]
See also Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gettysburg campaign.Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1863List of costliest American Civil War land battlesList of Medal of Honor recipients for the Gettysburg CampaignGettysburg Cyclorama, a painting by the French artist Paul Philippoteaux depicting Pickett's ChargeGettysburg Address
Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was an American and Confederate soldier, best known as a commander of the Confederate States Army. He commanded the Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865. 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 Mexican–American War, and served as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy.
When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in April 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command.[1] During the first year of the Civil War, Lee served as a senior military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Once he took command of the main field army in 1862 he soon emerged as a shrewd tactician and battlefield commander, winning most of his battles, all against far superior Union armies.[2][3] Lee's strategic foresight was more questionable, and both of his major offensives into Union territory ended in defeat.[4][5][6] Lee's aggressive tactics, which resulted in high casualties at a time when the Confederacy had a shortage of manpower, have come under criticism in recent years.[7] Lee surrendered his entire army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. By this time, Lee had assumed supreme command of the remaining Southern armies; other Confederate forces swiftly capitulated after his surrender. Lee rejected the proposal of a sustained insurgency against the Union and called for reconciliation between the two sides.
In 1865, after the war, Lee was paroled and signed an oath of allegiance, asking to have his citizenship of the United States restored. Lee's application was misplaced; as a result, he did not receive a pardon and his citizenship was not restored.[8] 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.[9] Lee accepted "the extinction of slavery" provided for by the Thirteenth Amendment, but publicly opposed racial equality and granting African Americans the right to vote and other political rights.[10][11][12] Lee died in 1870. In 1975, the U.S. Congress posthumously restored Lee's citizenship effective June 13, 1865.[8]
Lee opposed the construction of public memorials to Confederate rebellion on the grounds that they would prevent the healing of wounds inflicted during the war.[9] Nevertheless, after his death, Lee became an icon used by promoters of "Lost Cause" mythology, who sought to romanticize the Confederate cause and strengthen white supremacy in the South.[9] Later in the 20th century, particularly following the civil rights movement, historians reassessed Lee; his reputation fell based on his failure to support rights for freedmen after the war, and even his strategic choices as a military leader fell under scrutiny.[11][13]
Early life and career
Stratford Hall, Westmoreland Countythe family seat, Lee's birthplace
Oronoco Street, Alexandria, Virginia"Lee Corner" propertiesLee, a white Southerner, was born at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, to Major General Henry Lee III (Light Horse Harry) (1756–1818), Governor of Virginia, and his second wife, Anne Hill Carter (1773–1829). His birth date has traditionally been recorded as January 19, 1807, but according to the historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor, "Lee's writings indicate he may have been born the previous year."[14]
One of Lee's great grandparents, Henry Lee I, was a prominent Virginian colonist of English descent.[15] Lee's family is one of Virginia's first families, descended from Richard Lee I, Esq., "the Immigrant" (1618–1664), from the county of Shropshire in England.[16]
Lee's mother grew up at Shirley Plantation, one of the most elegant homes in Virginia.[17] Lee's father, a tobacco planter, suffered severe financial reverses from failed investments.[18]
Little is known of Lee as a child; he rarely spoke of his boyhood as an adult.[19] Nothing is known of his relationship with his father who, after leaving his family, mentioned Robert only once in a letter. When given the opportunity to visit his father's Georgia grave, he remained there only briefly; yet, during his time as president of Washington College, he defended his father in a biographical sketch while editing Light Horse Harry's memoirs.[20]
Coat of Arms of Robert E. LeeIn 1809, Harry Lee was put in debtors prison; soon after his release the following year, Harry and Anne Lee and their five children moved to a small house on Cameron Street in Alexandria, Virginia, both because there were then high quality local schools there, and because several members of her extended family lived nearby.[21] In 1811, the family, including the newly born sixth child, Mildred, moved to a house on Oronoco Street, still close to the center of town and with the houses of a number of Lee relatives close by.[22]
In 1812, Harry Lee was badly injured in a political riot in Baltimore and traveled to the West Indies. He would never return, dying when his son Robert was eleven years old.[23] Left to raise six children alone in straitened circumstances, Anne Lee and her family often paid extended visits to relatives and family friends.[24] Robert Lee attended school at Eastern View, a school for young gentlemen, in Fauquier County, and then at the Alexandria Academy, free for local boys, where he showed an aptitude for mathematics. Although brought up to be a practicing Christian, he was not confirmed in the Episcopal Church until age 46.[25]
Anne Lee's family was often supported by a relative, William Henry Fitzhugh, who owned the Oronoco Street house and allowed the Lees to stay at his home in Fairfax County, Ravensworth. When Robert was 17 in 1824, Fitzhugh wrote to the Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, urging that Robert be given an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Fitzhugh wrote little of Robert's academic prowess, dwelling much on the prominence of his family, and erroneously stated the boy was 18. Instead of mailing the letter, Fitzhugh had young Robert deliver it.[26] In March 1824, Robert Lee received his appointment to West Point, but due to the large number of cadets admitted, Lee would have to wait a year to begin his studies there.[27][citation not found]
Lee entered West Point in the summer of 1825. At the time, the focus of the curriculum was engineering; the head of the Army Corps of Engineers supervised the school and the superintendent was an engineering officer. Cadets were not permitted leave until they had finished two years of study, and were rarely allowed off the Academy grounds. Lee graduated second in his class, behind only Charles Mason[28] (who resigned from the Army a year after graduation). Lee did not incur any demerits during his four-year course of study, a distinction shared by five of his 45 classmates. In June 1829, Lee was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers.[29] After graduation, while awaiting assignment, he returned to Virginia to find his mother on her deathbed; she died at Ravensworth on July 26, 1829.[30]
Ancestors of Robert E. LeeMilitary engineer career
Lee at age 31 in 1838, as a Lieutenant of Engineers in the U.S. ArmyOn August 11, 1829, Brigadier General Charles Gratiot ordered Lee to Cockspur Island, Georgia. The plan was to build a fort on the marshy island which would command the outlet of the Savannah River. Lee was involved in the early stages of construction as the island was being drained and built up.[31] In 1831, it became apparent that the existing plan to build what became known as Fort Pulaski would have to be revamped, and Lee was transferred to Fort Monroe at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula (today in Hampton, Virginia).[32][citation not found]
While home in the summer of 1829, Lee had apparently courted Mary Custis whom he had known as a child. Lee obtained permission to write to her before leaving for Georgia, though Mary Custis warned Lee to be "discreet" in his writing, as her mother read her letters, especially from men.[33] Custis refused Lee the first time he asked to marry her; her father did not believe the son of the disgraced Light Horse Harry Lee was a suitable man for his daughter.[34] She accepted him with her father's consent in September 1830, while he was on summer leave, [35] and the two were wed on June 30, 1831.[36]
Lee's duties at Fort Monroe were varied, typical for a junior officer, and ranged from budgeting to designing buildings.[37][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.[38] Beginning in 1832, Robert Lee had a close but platonic relationship with Harriett Talcott, wife of his fellow officer Andrew Talcott.[39]
Fort Monroe, HamptonLee's early duty station
Fort Des Moines, MontroseLee's hand-drawn sketchLife at Fort Monroe was marked by conflicts between artillery and engineering officers. Eventually the War Department transferred all engineering officers away from Fort Monroe, except Lee, who was ordered to take up residence on the artificial island of Rip Raps across the river from Fort Monroe, where Fort Wool would eventually rise, and continue work to improve the island. Lee duly moved there, then discharged all workers and informed the War Department he could not maintain laborers without the facilities of the fort.[40]
In 1834, Lee was transferred to Washington as General Gratiot's assistant.[41] 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.[42][citation not found] In mid-1835, Lee was assigned to assist Andrew Talcott in surveying the southern border of Michigan.[43] 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[?] ... I rather require to be strengthened & encouraged to the full performance of what I am called on to execute."[32] Lee completed the assignment and returned to his post in Washington, finding his wife ill at Ravensworth. 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.[44]
Lee served as an assistant in the chief engineer's office in Washington, D.C. from 1834 to 1837, but spent the summer of 1835 helping to lay out the state line between Ohio and Michigan. As a first lieutenant of engineers in 1837, he supervised the engineering work for St. Louis harbor and for the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Among his projects was the mapping of the Des Moines Rapids on the Mississippi above Keokuk, Iowa, where the Mississippi's mean depth of 2.4 feet (0.7 m) was the upper limit of steamboat traffic on the river. His work there earned him a promotion to captain. Around 1842, Captain Robert E. Lee arrived as Fort Hamilton's post engineer.[45]
Marriage and family
Robert E. Lee, around age 38, and his son William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, around age 8, c.1845While Lee was stationed at Fort Monroe, he married Mary Anna Randolph Custis (1808–1873), 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[46] and Ann Bolling Randolph. Robert and Mary married on June 30, 1831, at Arlington House, her parents' house just across from Washington, D.C. The 3rd U.S. 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"); 1832–1913; served as major general in the Confederate Army and aide-de-camp to President Jefferson Davis, captured during the Battle of Sailor's Creek; unmarriedMary Custis Lee (Mary, "Daughter"); 1835–1918; unmarriedWilliam Henry Fitzhugh Lee ("Rooney"); 1837–1891; served as major general in the Confederate Army (cavalry); married twice; surviving children by second marriageAnne Carter Lee (Annie); June 18, 1839 – October 20, 1862; died of typhoid fever, unmarriedEleanor Agnes Lee (Agnes); 1841 – October 15, 1873; died of tuberculosis, unmarriedRobert Edward Lee, Jr. (Rob); 1843–1914; served as captain in the Confederate Army (Rockbridge Artillery); married twice; surviving children by second marriageMildred Childe Lee (Milly, "Precious Life"); 1846–1905; unmarriedAll the children survived him except for Annie, who died in 1862. They are all buried with their parents in the crypt of the Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.[citation needed]
Lee was a great-great-great grandson of William Randolph and a great-great grandson of Richard Bland.[47] He was also related to Helen Keller through Helen's mother, Kate, and was a distant relative of Admiral Willis Augustus Lee.[citation needed]
On May 1, 1864, General Lee was at the baptism of General A.P. Hill's daughter, Lucy Lee Hill, to serve as her godfather. This is referenced in the painting Tender is the Heart by Mort Künstler.[48] He is the godfather of actress and writer Odette Tyler, the daughter of brigadier general William Whedbee Kirkland.[49]
Mexican–American War
Robert E. Lee around age 43, when he was a brevet lieutenant-colonel of engineers, c. 1850Lee distinguished himself in the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). 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.[50] He also fought at Contreras, Churubusco, and Chapultepec and was wounded at the last. By the end of the war, he had received additional brevet promotions to lieutenant colonel and colonel, but his permanent rank was still captain of engineers, and he would remain a captain until his transfer to the cavalry in 1855.
For the first time, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant met and worked with each other during the Mexican–American War. Close observations of their commanders constituted a learning process for both Lee and Grant.[51] The Mexican–American War concluded on February 2, 1848.
After the Mexican War, Lee spent three years at Fort Carroll in Baltimore harbor. During this time, his service was interrupted by other duties, among them surveying and updating maps in Florida. 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. Both decided it was inconsistent with their duties.[52][53]
Early 1850s: West Point and TexasThe 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.[54]
In 1852, Lee was appointed Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point.[55] 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. Lee's oldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, attended West Point during his tenure. Custis Lee graduated in 1854, first in his class.[56]
Lee was enormously relieved to receive a long-awaited promotion as second-in-command of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Texas in 1855. It meant leaving the Engineering Corps and its sequence of staff jobs for the combat command he truly wanted. 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
Arlington House, ArlingtonMary Custis's inheritance in 1857
Christ Church, Alexandria, where the Lees worshipedIn 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."[57] The estate was in disarray, and the plantations had been poorly managed and were losing money.[58] 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."[59] 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 cruelty on the 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.[60] 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 authority—refused to obey my orders, & said they were as free as I was, etc., etc.—I succeeded in capturing them & lodging them in jail. They resisted till overpowered & called upon the other people to rescue them."[59] 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.[59]
Lee ruptured the Washington and Custis tradition of respecting slave families and by 1860 he had broken up every family but one on the estate, some of whom had been together since Mount Vernon days.[61]
The Norris caseIn 1859, three of the Arlington slaves—Wesley Norris, his sister Mary, and a cousin of theirs—fled 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[62] and June 21, 1859[63]), 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. Lee privately wrote to his son Custis that "The N. Y. Tribune has attacked me for my treatment of your grandfather's slaves, but I shall not reply. He has left me an unpleasant legacy."[64]
Wesley Norris himself spoke out about the incident after the war, in an 1866 interview printed in an abolitionist newspaper, the National Anti-Slavery Standard. Norris stated that after they had been captured, and forced to return to Arlington, Lee told them that "he would teach us a lesson we would not soon forget." According to Norris, Lee then had the three of them firmly tied to posts by the overseer, and ordered them whipped with fifty lashes for the men and twenty for Mary Norris. 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."[60][65]
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."[66][67] 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.[68][69]
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. In 1934, Douglas S. 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."[70]
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."[71]
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."[72]
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."[73][74]
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."[75]
Lee's views on race and slaverySeveral 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.[76] While Lee held slavery to be an evil institution, he also saw some benefit to blacks held in slavery.[77] While Lee helped assist individual slaves to freedom in Liberia, and provided for their emancipation in his own will, [78] 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.[76] Slavery for Lee was a moral and religious issue, and not one that would yield to political solutions.[79] Emancipation would sooner come from Christian impulse among slave masters before "storms and tempests of fiery controversy" such as was occurring in "Bleeding Kansas".[76] Countering southerners who argued for slavery as a positive good, Lee in his well-known analysis of slavery from an 1856 letter 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.[80]
Like Washington, Lee's father-in-law G. W. Parke Custis freed his slaves in his will.[81] 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.[82] 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. McCaslin, Lee was a gradual emancipationist, denouncing extremist proposals for immediate abolition of slavery. Lee rejected what he called evilly motivated political passion, fearing a civil and servile war from precipitous emancipation.[83]
Historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor offered an alternative interpretation of Lee's voluntary manumission of slaves in his will, and assisting slaves to a life of freedom in Liberia, seeing Lee as conforming to a "primacy of slave law". 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."[84]On taking on the role of administrator for the Parke Custis will, Lee used a provision to retain them in slavery to produce income for the estate to retire debt.[81] Lee did not welcome the role of planter while administering the Custis properties at Romancoke, another nearby the Pamunkey River and Arlington; he rented the estate's mill. While all the estates prospered under his administration, Lee was unhappy at direct participation in slavery as a hated institution.[82]
Even before what Michael Fellman called a "sorry involvement in actual slave management", Lee judged the experience of white mastery to be a greater moral evil to the white man than blacks suffering under the "painful discipline" of slavery which introduced Christianity, literacy and a work ethic to the "heathen African".[85] Columbia University historian Eric Foner notes that:
Lee "was not a pro-slavery ideologue. But I think equally important is that, unlike some white southerners, he never spoke out against slavery"[86] (refraining as customary for Army officers).[87]By the time of Lee's career in the U.S. Army, the officers of West Point stood aloof from political-party and sectional strife on such issues as slavery, as a matter of principle, and Lee adhered to the principle.[87][88] He considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service, [89][90][91] and Lee did not speak out publicly on the subject of slavery prior to the Civil War.[92][93] 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.[94]
Lee himself owned a small number of slaves in his lifetime and considered himself a paternalistic master.[94] 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.[95] One historian noted that Lee separated slave families, something that prominent slave-holding families in Virginia such as Washington and Custis did not do.[96] In 1862, Lee freed the slaves that his wife inherited, but that was in accordance with his father-in-law's will.[97]
Lee claimed 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:[98]
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. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.[99]
Foner writes that "Lee's code of gentlemanly conduct did not seem to apply to blacks" during the War, as he did not stop his soldiers from kidnapping free black farmers and selling them into slavery.[86] Princeton University historian James M. McPherson noted that Lee initially rejected a prisoner exchange between the Confederacy and the Union when the Union demanded that black Union soldiers be included.[96] Lee did not accept the swap until a few months before the Confederacy's surrender.[96]
In December 1864 Lee was shown a letter by Louisiana Senator Edward Sparrow, written by General St. John R. Liddell, which noted Lee would be hard-pressed in the interior of Virginia by spring, and the need to consider Patrick Cleburne's plan to emancipate the slaves and put all men in the army who were willing to join. Lee was said to have agreed on all points and desired to get black soldiers, saying "he could make soldiers out of any human being that had arms and legs."[100]
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.[97] Lee also said to the committee that he hoped that Virginia could "get rid of them, " referring to blacks.[97] 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."[101] 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."[97] Lee was also urged to condemn the white-supremacy [102] organization Ku Klux Klan, but opted to remain silent.[94]
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.[94] Douglas Southall Freeman's Pulitzer prize-winning four-volume R. E. Lee: A Biography (1936), which was for a long period considered the definitive work on Lee, downplayed his involvement in slavery and emphasized Lee as a virtuous person. Eric Foner, who describes Freeman's volume as a "hagiography", notes that on the whole, Freeman "displayed little interest in Lee's relationship to slavery. The index to his four volumes contained 22 entries for 'devotion to duty', 19 for 'kindness', 53 for Lee's celebrated horse, Traveller. But 'slavery', 'slave emancipation' and 'slave insurrection' together received five. Freeman observed, without offering details, that slavery in Virginia represented the system 'at its best'. He ignored the postwar testimony of Lee's former slave Wesley Norris about the brutal treatment to which he had been subjected."[94]
Harpers Ferry and Texas, 1859–1861Both Harpers Ferry and the secession of Texas were monumental events leading up to the Civil War. Robert E. Lee was at both events. Lee initially remained loyal to the Union after Texas seceded.
Harpers FerryJohn 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.[103] 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.[104]
TexasIn 1860, Lt. Col. Robert E. 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."[105]
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.S. 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.[106]
Civil WarResignation from United States ArmyUnlike many Southerners who expected a glorious war, Lee correctly predicted it as protracted and devastating.[107] He privately opposed the new Confederate States of America in letters in early 1861, denouncing secession as "nothing but revolution" and an unconstitutional betrayal of the efforts of the Founding Fathers. 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. I feel the aggression, and am willing to take every proper step for redress. 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. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. 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.[108]
Lee in uniform, 1863Despite 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, such as dislike of Northern anti-slavery criticisms and prevention of expanding slavery to new territories, and fear of its larger population. Lee supported the Crittenden Compromise, which would have constitutionally protected slavery.[1]
Lee's objection to secession was ultimately outweighed by a sense of personal honor, reservations about the legitimacy of a strife-ridden "Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets", and duty to defend his native Virginia if attacked.[108] He was asked while leaving Texas by a lieutenant if he intended to fight for the Confederacy or the Union, to which Lee replied, "I shall never bear arms against the Union, but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in the defense of my native state, Virginia, in which case I shall not prove recreant to my duty".[109][1]
Although Virginia had the most slaves of any state, it was more similar to Maryland, which stayed in the Union, than the Deep South; a convention voted against secession in early 1861. Scott, commanding general of the Union Army and Lee's mentor, told Lincoln he wanted him for a top command, telling Secretary of War Simon Cameron that he had "entire confidence" in Lee. He accepted a promotion to colonel of the 1st Cavalry Regiment on March 28, again swearing an oath to the United States.[110][1] Meanwhile, Lee ignored an offer of command from the Confederacy. After Lincoln's call for troops to put down the rebellion, a second Virginia convention in Richmond voted to secede[111] on April 17, and a May 23 referendum would likely ratify the decision. That night Lee dined with brother Smith and cousin Phillips, naval officers. 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.[1]
In Washington that day, [107] Lee was offered by presidential advisor Francis P. Blair a role as major general to command the defense of the national capital. He replied:
Mr. 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?[111]
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 he had made "the greatest mistake of your life".[1]
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.[28][1][107]
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.[1][107]
Most family members like brother Smith reluctantly also chose the South, but Smith's wife and Anne, Lee's sister, still supported the Union; Anne's son joined the Union Army, and no one in his family ever spoke to Lee again. Many cousins fought for the Confederacy, but Phillips and John Fitzgerald told Lee in person that they would uphold their oaths; John H. Upshur stayed with the Union military despite much family pressure; Roger Jones stayed in the Union army after Lee refused to advise him on what to do; and two of Philip Fendall's sons fought for the Union. Forty percent of Virginian officers stayed with the North.[1][107]
Early roleAt 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.S. Army rank.[112] 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.[113] 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.[114] 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. The City of Savannah would not fall until Sherman's approach from the interior at the end of 1864.
At first, the press spoke to the disappointment of losing Fort Pulaski. 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.S. Secretary of War. 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.[115]
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. McClellan advanced on Richmond from Fort Monroe to the east. McClellan forced Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of Virginia to retreat to just north and east of the Confederate capital.
Then Johnston was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines, on June 1, 1862. 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.[116] 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)But then he launched a series of bold attacks against McClellan's forces, the Seven Days Battles. Despite superior Union numbers, and some clumsy tactical performances by his subordinates, Lee's attacks derailed McClellan's plans and drove back part of his forces. Confederate casualties were heavy, but McClellan was unnerved, retreated 25 miles (40 km) to the lower James River, and abandoned the Peninsula Campaign. 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.
The setback, and the resulting drop in Union morale, impelled Lincoln to adopt a new policy of relentless, committed warfare.[117][118] After the Seven Days, Lincoln decided he would move to emancipate most Confederate slaves by executive order, as a military act, using his authority as commander-in-chief.[119] But he needed a Union victory first.
Meanwhile, Lee defeated another Union army under Gen. John Pope at the Second Battle of Bull Run. In less than 90 days after taking command, Lee had run McClellan off the Peninsula, defeated Pope, and moved the battle lines from 6 miles (9.7 km) outside Richmond, to 20 miles (32 km) outside Washington.
Lee now invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania, hoping to collect supplies in Union territory, and possibly win a victory that would sway the upcoming Union elections in favor of ending the war. But McClellan's men found a lost Confederate dispatch, Special Order 191, that revealed Lee's plans and movements. McClellan always exaggerated Lee's numerical strength, but now he knew the Confederate army was divided and could be destroyed in detail. However, McClellan moved slowly, not realizing a spy had informed Lee that McClellan had the plans. Lee quickly concentrated his forces west of Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, where McClellan attacked on September 17. The Battle of Antietam was the single bloodiest day of the war, with both sides suffering enormous losses. 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, [120] which put the Confederacy on the diplomatic and moral defensive.[121]
Disappointed by McClellan's failure to destroy Lee's army, Lincoln named Ambrose Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Burnside ordered an attack across the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg, Virginia. Delays in bridging the river allowed Lee's army ample time to organize strong defenses, and the Union frontal assault on December 13, 1862 was a disaster. There were 12, 600 Union casualties to 5, 000 Confederate; one of the most one-sided battles in the Civil War.[122] After this victory, Lee reportedly said "It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it."[122] At Fredericksburg, according to historian Michael Fellman, Lee had completely entered into the "spirit of war, where destructiveness took on its own beauty."[122]
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.[123]
Battle of GettysburgThe critical decisions came in May–June 1863, after Lee's smashing victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville. The western front was crumbling, as multiple uncoordinated Confederate armies were unable to handle General Ulysses S. Grant's campaign against Vicksburg. The top military advisers wanted to save Vicksburg, but Lee persuaded Davis to overrule them and authorize yet another invasion of the North. The immediate goal was to acquire urgently needed supplies from the rich farming districts of Pennsylvania; a long-term goal was to stimulate peace activity in the North by demonstrating the power of the South to invade. Lee's decision proved a significant strategic blunder and cost the Confederacy control of its western regions, and nearly cost Lee his own army as Union forces cut him off from the South.[124]
Battle of Gettysburg, by Thure de ThulstrupIn 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.E.B. Stuart's cavalry being out of the area, and Lee being slightly ill, he was less than comfortable with how events were unfolding. While the first day of battle was controlled by the Confederates, key terrain that should have been taken by General Ewell was not. The second day ended with the Confederates unable to break the Union position, and the Union being more solidified. 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."[125] Lee was compelled to retreat. Despite flooded rivers that blocked his retreat, he escaped Meade's ineffective pursuit. Following his defeat at Gettysburg, Lee sent a letter of resignation to President Davis on August 8, 1863, but Davis refused Lee's request. That fall, Lee and Meade met again in two minor campaigns that did little to change the strategic standoff. The Confederate Army never fully recovered from the substantial losses incurred during the 3-day battle in southern Pennsylvania. The historian Shelby Foote stated, "Gettysburg was the price the South paid for having Robert E. Lee as commander."
Ulysses S. Grant and the Union offensiveIn 1864 the new Union general-in-chief, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. 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.
Grant eventually was able to stealthily move his army across the James River. After stopping a Union attempt to capture Petersburg, Virginia, a vital railroad link supplying Richmond, Lee's men built elaborate trenches and were besieged in Petersburg, a development which presaged the trench warfare of World War I. Lee attempted to break the stalemate by sending Jubal A. Early on a raid through the Shenandoah Valley to Washington, D.C., 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.
General in Chief
Lee with son Custis (left) and aide Walter H. Taylor (right) by Brady, April 16, 1865On 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." The first units were in training as the war ended.[126][127] As the Confederate army was devastated by casualties, disease and desertion, the Union attack on Petersburg succeeded on April 2, 1865. Lee abandoned Richmond and retreated west. Lee then made an attempt to escape to the southwest and join up with Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee in North Carolina. However, his forces were soon surrounded and he surrendered them to Grant on April 9, 1865, at the Battle of Appomattox Court House.[128] Other Confederate armies followed suit and the war ended. The day after his surrender, Lee issued his Farewell Address to his army.
Lee resisted calls by some officers to reject surrender and allow small units to melt away into the mountains, setting up a lengthy guerrilla war. He insisted the war was over and energetically campaigned for inter-sectional reconciliation. "So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South."[129]
Summaries of Lee's Civil War battlesThe following are summaries of Civil War campaigns and major battles where Robert E. Lee was the commanding officer:[130]
Battle Date Result Opponent Confederate troop strength Union troop strength Confederate casualties Union casualties NotesCheat Mountain September 11–13, 1861 Defeat Reynolds 5, 000 3, 000 ~90 88 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.[131]Seven Days June 25 – July 1, 1862 VictoryOak Grove: Draw (Union withdrawal)Beaver Dam Creek: Union victoryGaine's Mill: Confederate victorySavage's Station: DrawGlendale: Draw (Union withdrawal)Malvern Hill: Union victoryMcClellan 95, 000 91, 000 20, 614 15, 849 Lee acquitted himself well, and remained in field command for the duration of the war under the direction of Jefferson Davis. Union troops remained on the Lower Peninsula and at Fortress Monroe, which became a terminus on the Underground Railroad, and the site terming escaped slaves as "contribands", no longer returned to their rebel owners.Second Manassas August 28–30, 1862 Victory Pope 49, 000 76, 000 9, 197 16, 054 Union forces continued to occupy northern VirginiaSouth Mountain September 14, 1862 Defeat McClellan 18, 000 28, 000 2, 685 1, 813 Confederates lost control of westernmost Virginian congressional districts which would later be the core counties of West Virginia.Antietam September 16–18, 1862 Draw McClellan 52, 000 75, 000 13, 724 12, 410 Tactical draw but strategic Union victory. The Confederates lost an opportunity to gain foreign recognition, Lincoln moved forward on his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.Fredericksburg December 11, 1862 Victory Burnside 72, 000 114, 000 5, 309 12, 653 With Lee's troops and supplies depleted, Confederates remained in place south of the Rappahannock. Union forces did not withdraw from northern Virginia.Chancellorsville May 1, 1863 Victory Hooker 57, 000 105, 000 12, 764 16, 792 Union forces withdrew to ring of defenses around Washington, DC.Gettysburg July 1, 1863 Defeat Meade 75, 000 83, 000 23, 231–28, 063 23, 049 The Confederate army was physically and spiritually exhausted. Meade was criticized for not immediately pursuing Lee's army. This battle become known as the High Water Mark of the Confederacy.[132] Lee would never personally invade the North again after this battle. Rather he was determined to defend Richmond and eventually Petersburg at all costs.Wilderness May 5, 1864 Inconclusive Grant 61, 000 102, 000 11, 400 18, 400 Lee's tactical victory, yet Grant continued his offensive, circling east and south advancing on Richmond and PetersburgSpotsylvania May 12, 1864 Inconclusive[133] Grant 52, 000 100, 000 12, 000 18, 000 Although beaten and unable to take Lee's defenses, Grant continued the Union offensive, circling east and south advancing on Richmond and PetersburgNorth Anna May 23–26, 1864 Inconclusive Grant 50, 000–53, 000 67, 000–100, 000 1, 552 3, 986 Totopotomoy Creek May 28–30, 1864 Inconclusive Grant 1, 593 731 Cold Harbor June 1, 1864 Victory Grant 62, 000 108, 000 5, 287 12, 000 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.Fussell's Mill August 14, 1864 Victory Hancock 20, 000 28, 000 1, 700 2, 901 Union attempt to break Confederate siege lines at Richmond, the Confederate capitalAppomattox Campaign March 29, 1865 Defeat Grant 50, 000 113, 000 no record available 10, 780 General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant.[134] 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.Postbellum life
Lee in 1869 (photo by Levin C. Handy)External video Booknotes interview with Emory Thomas on Robert E. Lee: A Biography, September 10, 1995, C-SPANAfter the war, Lee was not arrested or punished (although he was indicted [135]), 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.[136]
Lee somewhat supported President Johnson's plan of Reconstruction.[citation needed] 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".[137] 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.[138][139] 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.[140] 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.[141]
General Lee and his Confederate officers in their first meeting since Appomattox, August 1869.Lee hoped to retire to a farm of his own, but he was too much a regional symbol to live in obscurity. From April to June 1865, he and his family resided in Richmond at the Stewart-Lee House.[142] 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.[143]
Several glowing appraisals of Lee's tenure as college president have survived, depicting the dignity and respect he commanded among all. Previously, most students had been obliged to occupy the campus dormitories, while only the most mature were allowed to live off-campus. Lee quickly reversed this rule, requiring most students to board off-campus, and allowing only the most mature to live in the dorms as a mark of privilege; the results of this policy were considered a success. A typical account by a professor there states that "the students fairly worshipped him, and deeply dreaded his displeasure; yet so kind, affable, and gentle was he toward them that all loved to approach him. ... No student would have dared to violate General Lee's expressed wish or appeal; if he had done so, the students themselves would have driven him from the college."[144]
While at Washington College, Lee told a colleague that the greatest mistake of his life was taking a military education.[145]
President Johnson's amnesty pardons
Oath of amnesty submitted by Robert E. Lee in 1865On 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. Academy at West Point in June 1829. Resigned from the U.S. Army April '61. Was a General in the Confederate Army, & included in the surrender of the Army of N. Virginia 9 April '65.[146]
On October 2, 1865, the same day that Lee was inaugurated as president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, he signed his Amnesty Oath, thereby complying fully with the provision of Johnson's proclamation. Lee was not pardoned, nor was his citizenship restored.[146]
Three years later, on December 25, 1868, Johnson proclaimed a second amnesty which removed previous exceptions, such as the one that affected Lee.[147]
Postwar politicsLee, who had opposed secession and remained mostly indifferent to politics before the Civil War, supported President Andrew Johnson's plan of Presidential Reconstruction that took effect in 1865–66. 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).[148]
Robert E. Lee, oil on canvas, Edward Calledon Bruce, 1865. Virginia Historical SocietyLee told the Committee, "...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."[149][150]
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."[151]
In 1868, Lee's ally Alexander H. 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. Grant. Lee signed it along with thirty-one other ex-Confederates. The Democratic campaign, eager to publicize the endorsement, published the statement widely in newspapers.[152] Their letter claimed paternalistic concern for the welfare of freed Southern blacks, stating that "The idea that the Southern people are hostile to the negroes and would oppress them, if it were in their power to do so, is entirely unfounded. They have grown up in our midst, and we have been accustomed from childhood to look upon them with kindness."[153] 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."[154]
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.[155] 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. By doing this and encouraging our citizens to engage in the duties of life with all their heart and mind, with a determination not to be turned aside by thoughts of the past and fears of the future, our country will not only be restored in material prosperity, but will be advanced in science, in virtue and in religion."[156]
Illness and death
Lee's death mask
"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.m. 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. Strike the tent", [157] but this is debatable because of conflicting accounts and because Lee's stroke had resulted in aphasia, possibly rendering him unable to speak.[158]
At first no suitable coffin for the body could be located. The muddy roads were too flooded for anyone to get in or out of the town of Lexington. An undertaker had ordered three from Richmond that had reached Lexington, but due to unprecedented flooding from long-continued heavy rains, the caskets were washed down the Maury River. Two neighborhood boys, C.G. Chittum and Robert E. Hillis, found one of the coffins that had been swept ashore. Undamaged, it was used for the General's body, though it was a bit short for him. As a result, Lee was buried without shoes.[159] He was buried underneath Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University, where his body remains.
LegacyAmong 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 a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.[160]
By the end of the 19th century, Lee's popularity had spread to the North.[161] Lee's admirers have pointed to his character and devotion to duty, and his brilliant tactical successes in battle after battle against a stronger foe.
According to my notion of military history there is as much instruction both in strategy and in tactics to be gleaned from General Lee's operations of 1862 as there is to be found in Napoleon's campaigns of 1796.
— Field Marshal Garnet Wolseley[162]Military historians continue to pay attention to his battlefield tactics and maneuvering, though many think he should have designed better strategic plans for the Confederacy. 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."[11]Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Stratford Hall, Army Issue of 1936Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Stratford Hall, Army Issue of 1936Robert E. Lee stamp, Liberty Issue of 1955Robert E. Lee, Liberty Issue of 1955Washington and Lee University Issue of 1948Washington and Lee University Issue of 1948R. E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson. Stone Mountain Issue of 1970Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson. Stone Mountain Issue of 1970Robert E. Lee has been commemorated on U.S. postage stamps at least five times, the first one being a commemorative stamp that also honored Stonewall Jackson, issued in 1936. 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. His horse Traveller is pictured in the background. An image of the stamp is available at Arago online at the link in the footnote.[163]
Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia was commemorated on its 200th anniversary on November 23, 1948, with a 3-cent postage stamp. The central design is a view of the university, flanked by portraits of generals George Washington and Robert E. Lee.[164] Lee was again commemorated on a commemorative stamp in 1970, along with Jefferson Davis and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, depicted on horseback on the 6-cent Stone Mountain Memorial commemorative issue, modeled after the actual Stone Mountain Memorial carving in Georgia. The stamp was issued on September 19, 1970, in conjunction with the dedication of the Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial in Georgia on May 9, 1970. The design of the stamp replicates the memorial, the largest high relief sculpture in the world. It is carved on the side of Stone Mountain 400 feet above the ground.[165]
Stone Mountain also led to Lee's appearance on a commemorative coin, the 1925 Stone Mountain Memorial half dollar. During the 1920s and '30s dozens of specially designed half dollars were struck to raise money for various events and causes. This issue had a particularly wide distribution, with 1, 314, 709 minted. Unlike some of the other issues it remains a very common coin.
On September 29, 2007, General Lee's three Civil War-era letters were sold for $61, 000 at auction by Thomas Willcox, much less than the record of $630, 000 for a Lee item in 2002. The auction included more than 400 documents of Lee's from the estate of the parents of Willcox that had been in the family for generations. South Carolina sued to stop the sale on the grounds that the letters were official documents and therefore property of the state, but the court ruled in favor of Willcox.[166]
On January 30, 1975, Senate Joint Resolution 23, A joint resolution to restore posthumously full rights of citizenship to General R. E. Lee was introduced into the Senate by Senator Harry F. Byrd Jr. (I-VA), the result of a five-year campaign to accomplish this. The resolution, which enacted Public Law 94-67, was passed, and the bill was signed by President Gerald Ford on September 5.[167][168][169]
Monuments, memorials and commemorationsSee also: List of memorials to Robert E. Lee
Arlington House
Jefferson Davis, Lee, and Stonewall Jacksonat Stone MountainFrom 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. Charles Avenue. 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.[170] The statue of General Lee was removed on May 19, 2017, the last of four Confederate monuments in New Orleans to be taken down.[171]
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 ... On its dizzy top stands the bronze figure of one of the world's greatest captains. He is alone. Not one of his mighty lieutenants stand behind, beside or below him. His arms are folded on that breast that never knew fear, and his calm, dauntless gaze meets the morning sun as it rises, like the new prosperity of the land he loved and served so masterly, above the far distant battle fields where so many thousands of his gray veterans lie in the sleep of fallen heroes. (Silent South, 1885, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine)
Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, also known as the Custis–Lee Mansion, [172][173] 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.C. 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.[174]
Unveiling of the Equestrian Statue of Robert E. Lee, May 29, 1890, Richmond, VirginiaIn Richmond, Virginia, a large equestrian statue of Lee by French sculptor Jean Antonin Mercié is the centerpiece of the city's famous Monument Avenue, which boasts four other statues to famous Confederates. This monument to Lee was unveiled on May 29, 1890; over 100, 000 people attended this dedication. That has been described as "the day white Virginia stopped admiring Gen. Robert E. Lee and started worshiping him".[175] Lee is also shown mounted on Traveller in Gettysburg National Military Park on top of the Virginia Monument; he is facing roughly in the direction of Pickett's Charge. Lee's portrayal on a mural on Richmond's Flood Wall on the James River, considered offensive by some, was removed in the late 1990s, but currently is back on the flood wall.
Also in Virginia, the Robert Edward Lee (sculpture) at Charlottesville was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.[176] Since there is no historical link between Lee and the city of Charlottesville, the City Council of Charlottesville voted in February 2017 to remove it, along with a statue of Stonewall Jackson, but this was temporarily stayed by court action. 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.[177]
In Baltimore's Wyman Park, a large double equestrian statue of Lee and Jackson is located directly across from the Baltimore Museum of Art. Designed by Laura Gardin Fraser and dedicated in 1948, Lee is depicted astride his horse Traveller next to Stonewall Jackson who is mounted on "Little Sorrel." Architect John Russell Pope created the base, which was dedicated on the anniversary of the eve of the Battle of Chancellorsville.[178] The Baltimore area of Maryland is also home to a large nature park called Robert E. Lee Memorial Park.
Stained glass of Lee's life in the National Cathedral, depicting his time at West Point, service in the Corps of Engineers, the Battle of Chancellorsville, and his deathIn 1953, two stained-glass windows – one honoring Lee, the other Stonewall Jackson – were installed in the Washington National Cathedral.[179] The stained glass of Lee shows him on horseback at Chancellorsville; it was sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.[180] 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.[179]
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.C. 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.[181]
The birthday of Robert E. Lee is celebrated or commemorated in several states. In Virginia, Lee–Jackson Day is celebrated on the Friday preceding Martin Luther King, Jr. Day which is the third Monday in January.[182] In Texas, he is celebrated as part of Confederate Heroes Day on January 19, Lee's birthday.[183] In Alabama and Mississippi, his birthday is celebrated on the same day as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, [184][185] while in Georgia, this occurred on the day after Thanksgiving before 2016, when the state stopped officially recognizing the holiday.[186][187]
Lee Chapel on the campus of Washington and Lee UniversityOne 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 Chapel at Washington and Lee University marks Lee's final resting place. Throughout the South, many primary and secondary schools were also named for him as well as private schools such as Robert E. 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.[188][189] However, his bust was removed in August 2017 by order of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.[190]
Robert E. Lee, National Statuary Hall, Washington, D.C. Edward Virginius Valentine, sculptor, 1909
Robert E Lee, Virginia Monument, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Frederick William Sievers, sculptor, 1917
Lee by Mercié, Monument Avenue, Richmond, Virginia, 1890
Statue of Lee at the Confederate War Memorial, Dallas, 1896
Statue of Lee in Murray, Kentucky
CSS Robert E. LeeIn 1862, the newly formed Confederate Navy purchased a 642-ton iron-hulled side-wheel gunboat, built in at Glasgow, Scotland, and gave her the name of CSS Robert E. 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.[191]
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. The Robert E. Lee won the race.[192] The steamboat inspired the 1912 song Waiting for the Robert E. Lee by Lewis F. Muir and L. Wolfe Gilbert.[193] In more modern times, the USS Robert E. Lee, a George Washington-class submarine built in 1958, was named for Lee, [194] as was the M3 Lee tank, produced in 1941 and 1942.
The Commonwealth of Virginia issues an optional license plate honoring Lee, making reference to him as 'The Virginia Gentleman'.[195] In February 2014, a road on Fort Bliss previously named for Lee was renamed to honor Buffalo Soldiers.[196][197]
A recent biographer, Jonathan Horn, outlines the unsuccessful efforts in Washington to memorialize Lee in the naming of the Arlington Memorial Bridge after both Grant and Lee.[198]
Dates of rankRank Date Unit ComponentUnion army 2nd lt rank insignia.jpg Second Lieutenant July 1, 1829[199] Corps of Engineers United States ArmyUnion army 1st lt rank insignia.jpg First Lieutenant September 21, 1836[200] Corps of Engineers United States ArmyUnion army cpt rank insignia.jpg Captain August 7, 1838[200] Corps of Engineers United States ArmyUnion army maj rank insignia.jpg Brevet Major § April 18, 1847[200] Corps of Engineers United States ArmyUnion Army LTC rank insignia.png Brevet Lieutenant Colonel † August 20, 1847[200] Corps of Engineers United States ArmyUnion Army colonel rank insignia.png Brevet Colonel ‡ September 13, 1847[201] Corps of Engineers United States ArmyUnion Army LTC rank insignia.png Lieutenant Colonel March 3, 1855[201] 2nd Cavalry Regiment United States ArmyUnion Army colonel rank insignia.png Colonel March 16, 1861[201] 1st Cavalry Regiment United States ArmyMajor General April 22, 1861[202] Virginia MilitiaConfederate States of America General-collar.svg Brigadier General May 14, 1861[203] Confederate States ArmyConfederate States of America General-collar.svg General June 14, 1861[204] Confederate States Army§ Breveted for conduct in the Battle of Cerro Gordo† Breveted for conduct in Battles of Contreras and Churubusco‡ Breveted for conduct in Battle of ChapultepecIn popular cultureLee is a main character in the Shaara Family novels The Killer Angels (1974, Gettysburg), Gods and Generals (1988), and The Last Full Measure (2000), as well as the film adaptations of Gettysburg (1993) and Gods and Generals (2003). 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. His part in the Civil War is told from the perspective of his horse in Richard Adams's book Traveller (1988).
Lee is an obvious subject for American Civil War alternate histories. Ward Moore's Bring the Jubilee (1953), Kantor's If the South Had Won the Civil War (1960), and Harry Turtledove's The Guns of the South (1992), all have Lee ending up as President of a victorious Confederacy and freeing the slaves (or laying the groundwork for the slaves to be freed in a later decade). Although Bring and If relegate him to a set of passing references, Lee is more of a main character in the Guns. He is also the prime character of Turtledove's "Lee at the Alamo, " which can be read on-line, [205] and sees the opening of the Civil War drastically altered so as to affect Lee's personal priorities considerably. Turtledove's "War Between the Provinces" series is an allegory of the Civil War told in the language of fairy tales, with Lee appearing as a knight named "Duke Edward of Arlington." Lee is also a knight in "The Charge of Lee's Brigade" in Alternate Generals volume 1, written by Turtledove's friend S.M. Stirling and featuring Lee, whose Virginia is still a loyal British colony, fighting for the Crown against the Russians in Crimea. In Lee Allred's "East of Appomattox" in Alternate Generals volume 3, Lee is the Confederate Minister to London circa 1868, desperately seeking help for a CSA which has turned out poorly suited to independence. Robert Skimin's Grey Victory features Lee as a supporting character preparing to run for the presidency in 1867.
The Dodge Charger featured in the CBS television series The Dukes of Hazzard (1979–1985) was named The General Lee.[206][207] In the 2005 film based on this series, the car is driven past a statue of the General, while the car's occupants salute him.
See also American Civil War portalemblem United States Army portal Biography portalList of memorials to Robert E. LeeList of American Civil War generals (Confederate)General-in-Chief of the Confederate States Army
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