A
great commander, general, strategist...
...who
won a lot of battles but is linked in our mind with the losing side
of a war.
Born
on this day in 1807, Lee was the son of an officer who fought in the
Revolutionary War. He became a top graduate of the U.S. Military
Academy and served the U.S. Army with distinction for 32 years. He
fought in the Mexican-American War and led the militia and U.S.
Marines who ended the Harper's Ferry rebellion.
Before
Virginia seceded from the Union, President Lincoln and the commanding
general of the Union Army, Winfield Scott, wanted Lee in a top
command post for the Union Army. In the meantime, the Confederate
States also offered him a command post for the South. Lee said that
such secession was “revolution” and a betrayal of the country's
founding fathers; he thought that “dissolution of the Union”
would be a “calamity” and that a Civil War would be long and
bloody. He even said that he would never fight against the Union.
But
when Virginia seceded, he thought long and hard and finally decided
that he owed more loyalty to his state than to his country. So he did
take over, after all, the command of the Confederate Army.
I
didn't realize that 40% of the officers from Virginia chose the Union
side, including some of Lee's cousins. Also surprising to me was that
Lee's wife favored the Union; his whole family, other than one
daughter, was against secession and was surprised by Lee's decision
to fight on behalf of the Confederacy.
 |
| Gettysburg was a huge defeat for Lee and the Confederacy. Many see it as the turning point of the American Civil War. |
Learn
more about the U.S. Civil War
Some
students created this website you can explore. Be sure to click “bar
graphs” to compare the resources of the North and South. Can you
see why Robert E. Lee's victories were called Phyrrhic
victories—victories that have such a huge cost to the winner that
they ultimately lead to defeat? When Lee lost so many soldiers to
“win” a battle, he couldn't as easily replace the soldiers, like
the Union army could.
Also
on this date:
No comments:
Post a Comment