Robert E Lee Civil War Hero

Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee are two of the most effective military leaders in American history. These men have become symbolic of the two nations at conflict during the Civil War. Both had very different backgrounds and personalities that caused them to differ in their military leadership and accomplishments. Even though General Lee would surrender his army to General Grant, Lee throughout the course of the war proved himself to be a better military leader.

Grant and Lee are different in many ways. General Lee was tidewater Virginia, and in his background were family, culture, and tradition. He had embodied a way of life that came down through the age of knighthood and the English country squire. General Grant was the son of a tanner on the western frontier. He had come up the hard way and embodied nothing in particular except the external toughness and sinewy fiber of the men that grew up behind the mountains. He was one of the body of men who owed reverence of obeisance to no one, who were self-reliant to a fault, who cared hardly of anything of the past but had a sharp eye for the future.

Lee dominated the strategy side of the war. He knew his opponents with great accuracy, and could navigate the battlefield like no other general. According to Dan Zeiser:

Introduction Ulysses s. Grant was the commander of the Union Army. Robert E. Lee was the Confederates commander. Even though Ulysses s. Grant and Robert E. had completely different backgrounds they were both different and great in their own ways. Many of their beliefs were completely different. But they had surprisingly a lot in common.

Lee had given the Confederacy its greatest victory, and was now an idol of the southern people. Lee was one of the most supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. One of the four “greatest Americans” was none other than Robert E. Lee. His picture hung in President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s office. A New York dentist told Eisenhower that Lee helped the United States Government. Lee was a heroic role model to the nation that he has shown when he went to the war. Lee is a bit complicated, but he was extraordinary in what he does. Lee was there to serve the south and protect them. He made sure that they were safe and that the Union would not get in the way of that. His maneuvers were even better.

He finished second in his class of 1829. He had experience early in his life, serving as a captain under General Winfield Scott in the Mexican-American War. He made himself most prominent in the wars of Veracruz, Churubusco, and Chapultepec. Lee’s general claimed that he was “the very best soldier I ever saw in the field (https://www.civilwar.org/learn/biographies/robert-e-lee). Due to his engineering background at West Point, Lee could use easily strategize against his opponents in war with mathematics and precision, making sure that his plans were very likely to succeed. These skills were later taken into the Civil War, which is a considerable reason of his

The focus of this investigation will be, “To what extent was Robert E. Lee an effective leader of the Confederate Army?” The investigation will analyze Lee’s strengths and weaknesses that contributed to his effectiveness and the overall loss of the Confederacy in the Civil War. The overall character of Lee throughout his lifetime is too broad, therefore, this investigation will focus solely on the testimony of his military background, and the personality traits that led to Lee’s decisions during the Civil War. As a result, Lee the American by Gamaliel Bradford Jr. and Robert E. Lee: The Soldier by Sir F. Maurice are important sources to this investigation, due to the background they give on Lee’s military training, personality, and victories in the battles leading up to Gettysburg.

In life we all want to see things as black and white, cut and dry, and easy to understand. This is not the case with Robert E. Lee. He was smart, loyal and above all, complicated. We like to make him out as some old general guy who fought for the South in the Civil War. Eventually lost at Gettysburg and because it was the turning point of the Civil War; he became famous for losing. He is a lot more than just that. He was an actual person who, from his birth up to his death, dealt with real life situations.

Robert E. Lee was a very brilliant and strong military leader. He fought in many wars which he defeated them and he got defeated also. He was smart on how he fought in the wars. He had to earn his way up from the bottom all the way up to general. He had fought in the Civil War and in the Mexican War. He wanted to quit so bad but he never gave up and kept on going.

The Commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was General Robert E. Lee. General Lee graduated second in his class from West Point in 1829 and served throughout the country, but is best known for his leadership during the Mexican-American War. General Lee believed in unity but when the state of Virginia decided to secede from the Union in April 1861, Lee decided to stay with Virginia. Confederate president Jefferson Davis asked Lee to serve as his senior military adviser and General Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia on June 1, 1862.

In war, the commander in chief makes or breaks the efficiency and effectiveness of the army. The Civil War involved 3 main commanders in chief of the Union and Confederate Army. Through letters written by these three leaders, Ulysses S. Grant, George McClellan and Robert E. Lee, it is evident that their opinions and strategies differed greatly. While Grant considered himself part of the army, Lee separated himself as a ruling commander. Grant’s humble nature and vast knowledge on war technique also made him a more efficient leader, compared to the egotistical George McClellan, another commander of the Union army. Ultimately, Grant and the union army won the war, because of Grant’s hands-on leaderships skills, while Lee lacked confidence in his troops, causing him to remove himself from his men.

Grant and General Robert E. Lee were great at being Generals for their armies but only one could come out on top and that was General Grant. President Lincoln made an amazing choice when he chose General Grant to come and combat General Lee and try to end the Civil War before the end of his term; President Lincoln was up for reelection at this time and know that if he lost the election who ever won would sue for piece and the past four years of fighting would have been for nothing and President Lincoln did not want the lives lost to have been for nothing in the end and the fight for slavery and to keep the country together to have been for nothing as well. General Grant won the war because he did not back down from General Lee and even though it cost him a great deal of men in the process he ended the war and kept the country as a whole instead of two different nations or the south having won and slavery lasting for longer than it actually did in the United States. General Lee on the other hand did put up a good fight and was able to hold off for a while but did in the end fall to General

Louis, New York, Mexico, Baltimore, and West Point.After duty as superintendent at the Military Academy in the early 1850s, Lee transferredfrom the corps of engineers to a newly formed cavalry unit assigned to Texas. Hisfrequent separations from his wife and children often caused Lee periods ofdiscontentment. The death of his father-in-law, G. W. P. Custis, forced him to take aleave from the military and return to Virginia in 1857. Lee took up farming at ArlingtonHouse and confronted the challenges of managing the Custis family slaves. Robert E.Lee (1807-70) served as a military officer in the U.S. Army, a West Point commandantand the legendary general of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War(1861-65). In June 1861, Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia,which he would lead for the rest of the war. Lee and his army achieved great successduring the Peninsula Campaign and at Second Bull Run (Mansassas) andFredericksburg, with his greatest victory com ing in the bloody Battle of Chancellorsville.In the spring of 1863, Lee invaded the North, only to be defeated at the Battle

in the war and he was a senior military advisor to President Jefferson Davis. Lee took command of the main field army in 1862. He was a brilliant military tactician. He won most of his battles with his far superior

In the confederacy there was many leaders. General Lee was one of them . his reputation and and being one of the finest officers