Robert E. Lee - A Man of the Confederacy (Biography)

Robert E. Lee - A Man of the Confederacy is the biography of Robert E. Lee, a career United States Army officer, an engineer, and the most celebrated general of the Confederate forces during the American Civil War. Lee was the son of Major General Henry Lee III "Light Horse Harry," Governor of Virginia, and his second wife, Anne Hill Carter. He was a descendant of Sir Thomas More and of King Robert II of Scotland through the Earls of Crawford. A top graduate of West Point, Lee distinguished himself as an exceptional soldier in the U.S. Army for 32 years, during which time he fought in the Mexican-American War. In early 1861, Lee opposed the secession of his home state of Virginia, but rejected President Abraham Lincoln's offer to give him command of Union forces. When Virginia seceded from the Union in April 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state. Lee's role in the newly established Confederacy was to serve as a senior military adviser to President Jefferson Davis. Lee's first field command for the Confederate States came in June 1862 when he took command of the Confederate forces in the East (which Lee himself renamed the "Army of Northern Virginia"). Lee's victories against superior forces won him enduring fame as a crafty and daring battlefield tactician, but some of his strategic decisions, such as invading the North in 1862 and 1863, have been criticized by many military historians. Robert E. Lee - A Man of the Confederacy is highly recommended for those interested in the history and story of this key Civil War general.