|
|
| |
| |
GENERAL ROBERT EDWARD LEE, CSA
VITAL STATISTICS
BORN: 1807 in Westmoreland City, VA.
DIED: 1870 in Lexington, VA.
CAMPAIGNS: Seven Days, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Court House, North Anna, Cold Harbor, Richmond, Petersburg and Appomattox.
HIGHEST RANK ACHIEVED: General
BIOGRAPHY
Lee, Robert Edward (1807-1870) Confederate General: Robert Edward Lee was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on January 19, 1807. He was the child of Revolutionary War cavalry hero Henry Lee. Young Lee's family was shaken when his father was put in debtor's prison; and the situation worsened when Lee's father died from wounds sustained in an attempt to suppress a riot in Baltimore. Lee and his siblings were raised by their widowed mother in Alexandria, Virginia. Young Robert Lee developed into a handsome, intelligent young man, full of character and skilled in leadership. He was appointed from the US Military Academy, and became corps adjutant, the major post of honor for a West Point cadet. Graduating second in the class of 1825, he was commissioned a 2d lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. He married Mary Custis, the great granddaughter of Martha Washington and an heiress of several estates, with whom he had seven children. In the Mexican War, Lee was assigned to the staff of Gen. Winfield Scott. Wounded and brevetted for heroism in the war, Lee became superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point. At West Point, he reorganized the curriculum and formed deep friendships with the students. Lee's wife's health and the management of her estates were of primary concern to Lee in the 1850s. While serving with the cavalry in Texas in 1856 - 57, he took a leave to go to his wife's family seat, "Arlington." While on leave, Lee was placed in command of a contingent of marines which was sent to Harpers Ferry to recapture it from John Brown and his followers. Lee was on cavalry duty in Texas early in 1861, then returned to "Arlington" when Texas seceded from the Union. After the fall of Fort Sumter, while Lee waited for further developments, President Lincoln offered Lee field command of the armies of the US. Indeed, Lee was a brilliant military man, and was personally opposed to slavery and secession. Nevertheless, Lee felt that his duty to Virginia would not allow him to accept Lincoln's offer. He resigned his commission in the US Army, accepted command of the defenses of Virginia on April 23, 1861 and was promoted to full general on August 31, 1861. Serving as special military advisor to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Lee could not prevent Union forces from taking sections of western Virginia, but he succeeded in helping set up coastal defenses in South Carolina and Georgia. At the end of May, 1862, Lee took command of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army, which Lee named the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee reorganized the new army, and brought Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson from the Shenandoah Valley and launched the Seven Days' Campaign. Despite high casualties, the Confederate troops were able to defeat the Union forces. Lee led the Confederacy to victory again in the Second Battle of Bull Run. When Union General McClellan obtained a copy of one of Lee's orders to Confederate officers, called "Lee's lost order," Lee was forced to change his plans and take up a defensive position along Antietam Creek. This area, slightly north of the Potomac River, was the site of the bloodiest day of the war, September 17, 1862. While Lee won a tactical victory there, he lost strategically by retiring to Virginia. In December, Lee and his troops defeated Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside and the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg. While Lee won an even clearer victory over the Union forces at Chancellorsville, he suffered an terrible loss when his chief lieutenant, "Stonewall" Jackson, was accidentally mortally wounded right after the battle. Within a few weeks, Lee was able to reorganize the army and create a new plan to invade the North. By the end of June, 1863, he had occupied the whole Cumberland Valley, as well as other parts of Pennsylvania. At Gettysburg in July, however, Lee suffered his first serious defeat. He led his army to Virginia in retreat. In the spring of 1864, Lee was able to slow Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's progress at the Battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna and Cold Harbor. Nevertheless, by the summer, Lee was backed into a defensive stance to protect Richmond and Petersburg. As Union General Sherman led troops through Georgia and South Carolina, Confederate morale waned. Confederate President Davis appointed Lee commander of all Confederate armies, too late to turn the war into a Confederate victory, and the Confederate Congress authorized the recruitment of black slaves. By this point, however, it was only a matter of time before the Confederacy's lack of troops and materials brought it to the point of surrender. In addition, Lee had become ill. By April of 1865, when Lee and his troops met Grant and the Union forces at Appomattox Court House, Lee felt that there was nothing to be gained by continuing. He surrendered his ill-fed, ill-clothed army of only 28,000 on April 9, 1865. Although he was the leader of the Confederate army, his personal strength of character and integrity was respected by Americans both north and south of the Mason-Dixon line. Nevertheless, many Americans found it hard to understand why Lee had chosen the path that he followed. After the Civil War, he received many prestigious job offers, but declined them all in favor of becoming president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, with a salary of $1,500 per year. His efforts resulted in a new curriculum and the nation's first departments of journalism and commerce. Although his American citizenship had been taken away, he urged former Confederates to move beyond bitterness and return to being loyal Americans. Lee died in Lexington, Virginia, on October 12, 1870.
ALPHABETICAL LISTING
John Adams
George Washington Gordon
William Flank Perry
Edward P. Alexander
Archibald Gracie, Jr.
James Johnston Pettigrew
Henry Watkins Allen
Hiram Bronson Granbury
Edmund Winston Pettus
James Patton Anderson
Henry Gray
George Edward Pickett
Joseph Reid Anderson
John Gregg
Albert Pike
Richard Heron Anderson
Wade Hampton
Gideon Johnson Pillow
Robert Houston Anderson
William Joseph Hardee
Leonidas Polk
James Archer
Ambrose Powell Hill
Sterling Price
Lewis Armistead
John Bell Hood
Prince DePolignac
Turner Ashby
Benjamin Huger
Roger Atkinson Pryor
Alpheus Baker
Benjamin Grubb Humphreys
Daniel Harris Reynolds
William Edwin Baldwin
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
Roswell Sabine Ripley
William Barksdale
John Daniel Imboden
William Paul Roberts
Seth Maxwell Barton
Albert Gallatin Jenkins
Beverly H. Robertson
Francis Stebbins Bartow
Bushrod Rust Johnson
Robert Emmett Rhodes
William Brimage Bate
Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Richard Lee Turberville Beal
Albert Sidney Johnston
Raphael Semmes
William Nelson Rector Beall
James Lawson Kemper
Francis Asbury Shoup
Pierre Gustave T. Beauregard
Joseph Brevard Kershaw
Henry Hopkins Sibley
Hamilton Prioleau Bee
Evander McIvor Law
James Phillip Simms
Tyree Harris Bell
Alexander Robert Lawton
William Yarnell Slack
William Robertson Boggs
Fitzhugh Lee
James Edwin Slaughter
Braxton Bragg
Robert Edward Lee
Edmund Kirby Smith
Lawrence O'Bryan Branch
Stephen Dill Lee
Martin Luthor Smith
William Lindsay Brandon
Lomax Lunsford Lindsay
Thomas Benton Smith
John Cabell Breckinridge
Thomas Muldrup Logan
William Smith
John Calvin Brown
James Longstreet
Peter Burwell Starke
Franklin Buchanan
Mansfield Lovell
William Steele
Simon Bolivar Buckner
Marc Perrin Lowrey
James Ewell Brown Stuart
Robert Bullock
Hylan Benton Lyon
William Booth Taliaferro
John Carpenter Carter
William Whann Mackall
Richard Taylor
Benjamin Franklin Cheatham
John Bankhead Magruder
Bryan Morel Thomas
Alfred Holt Colquitt
Henry Eustace McColloch
Robert Augustus Toombs
Raleigh Edward Colston
William McComb
Isaac Ridgeway Trimble
Philip Cook
James McQueen McIntosh
Earl Van Dorn
Thomas Fenwick Drayton
Evander McNair
Alfred J.Vaughan Jr.
Jubal Anderson Early
Dandridge McRae
John George Walker
John Echols
Hugh Weedon Mercer
Reuben Lindsay Walker
Arnold Elzey
Young Marshall Moody
Joseph Wheeler
Richard Stoddert Ewell
John Creed Moore
John Wilkins Whitfield
John Buchanan Floyd
John Hunt Morgan
Louis Trevezant Wigfall
Nathan Bedford Forrest
Thomas Munford
Cademus M.Wilcox
Daniel Marsh Frost
Francis R.T. Nicholls
Sterling Alex. M. Wood
Richard Brooke Garnett
Edward Asbury O'Neal
Ambrose Ransom Wright
Randall Lee Gibson
Mosby Monroe Parsons
Pierce Manning B. Young
Adley Hogan Gladden
John Clifford Pemberton
Felix Kirk Zollicoffer
William Dorsey Pender
CIVIL WAR GENERALS
NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST "QUOTE..."
ULYSSES S. GRANT "QUOTE..."
ROBERT E. LEE "QUOTE..."
PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN "QUOTE..."
JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON "QUOTE..."
BENJAMIN F. BUTLER "QUOTE..."
JOHN BELL HOOD "QUOTE..."
WILLIAM TECUMSEH "QUOTE..."
THOMAS J. (STONEWALL) JACKSON "QUOTE..."
GEORGE BRINTON MCCLELLAN "QUOTE..."
GEORGE EDWARD PICKETT "QUOTE..."
GEORGE GORDAN MEADE "QUOTE..."
GENERAL ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT, USA
VITAL STATISTICS
BORN: 1822 in Point Pleasant, OH.
DIED: 1885 in Mt. McGregor, NY.
CAMPAIGNS: Forts Henry and Donelson, Pittsburgh Landing, Shiloh Church, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and Wilderness to Appomattox.
HIGHEST RANK ACHIEVED: General-In-Chief (3-Star).
BIOGRAPHY
Ulysses S. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. While Grant was still an infant, his family moved Eastwood to Georgetown, Ohio. Grant was an avid horseman from a young age. He undertook all the tasks in the house that related to horses, while avoiding working in his father's tannery.
Grant received a basic education at the local schools. In 1838, unbeknownst to Ulysses, his father arranged his acceptance to West Point. At West Point, he was only an average student. He graduated 21st in a class of 39 students in 1843.
Grant participated in the Mexican War as a lieutenant, later writing that he had thought the war immoral. Grant's military career continued uneventfully and without distinction until he resigned from the army in 1854 with the rank of captain.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, he asked to be recommissioned in the regular army but received no reply. Eventually, he was appointed Colonel in the Twenty-First Illinois Infantry. In August he was promoted to Brigadier General. In February, 1862, he captured Fort Donelson, Tennessee, in the first major Union victory. At this battle, he uttered his famous words "No terms except an unconditional surrender can be accepted."
Grant was promoted to Major General. He successfully laid siege to Vicksburg, cutting the Confederacy in half. After further victories, he became commander of all Union troops, whom he led to ultimate victory over the Confederacy. After the war, Grant was promoted to the rank of General of the Army, the first commandeer since Washington to hold this rank.
Grant was elected to the Presidency in 1868. He entered office determined to bring peace to a country that had endured the Civil War and the subsequent turmoil of Reconstruction. His lack of knowledge of politics and administration hampered his efforts, and caused his administration to become mired in scandal. Among the scandals were the attempt by Jay Gould and James Fisk to corner the gold market; the Credit Mobilier scandal where officers skimmed huge profits off of the federally subsidized construction of the Union and Pacific railroad; a whiskey ring scandal in which millions of dollars of federal money were diverted into private pockets; and, finally, there was the Belknap bribery case, which revealed that the Secretary of War had been receiving kickbacks.
Grant continued the policy of reconstruction that included the Federal occupation of much of the South. During his second term, the US economy fell into a depression lasting five years. For his financial and political loss of control, Grant is considered by many historians to be among the least successful American Presidents.
Robert Allen
William Buel Franklin
David Dixon Porter
Adelbert Ames
John Charles Fremont
Robert Brown Potter
Robert Anderson
William Henry French
John Aaron Rawlins
Christopher Columbus Augur
James Abram Garfield
John Fulton Reynolds
William Woods Averell
Alvan Cullen Gillem
Israel Bush Richardson
Romeyn Beck Ayres
Quincy Adams Gillmore
John Rodgers
Theodorus Bailey
Gordon Granger
William S. Rosencrans
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Ulysses Simpson Grant
Thomas Howard Ruger
Francis Channing Barlow
Benjamin Henry Grierson
Rufus Saxon
Joseph K. Barnes
Charles Griffin
Robert C. Schenck
William Farquahar Barry
Henry Agner Halleck
John McAllister Schofield
Joseph Jackson Bartlett
Andrew Jackson Hamilton
Winfield Scott
George Dashiell Bayard
Winfield Scott Hancock
John Sedgewick
William Worth Belknap
Martin Davis Hardin
Truman Seymour
William Birney
Charles Garrison Harker
Robert Gould Shaw
Francis Preston Blair, Jr.
Thomas Maley Harris
Philip Henry Sheridan
James Gillpartrick Blunt
George Lucas Hartsuff
William Tecumseh Sherman
Egbert Benson Brown
Milo Smith Hascall
Thomas West Sherman
John Carlos Buell
Edward Hatch
James Shields
John Buford
John Parker Hawkins
Daniel Edgar Sickles
Ambrose Everett Burnside
William Hays
Franz Sigel
Benjamin Franklin Butler
Alexander Hays
Henry Warner Slocum
Daniel Butterfield
William Babcock Hazen
Andrew Jackson Smith
Edward R.S. Canby
Samuel Peter Heintzelman
William Farrar Smith
Eugene Asa Carr
Herman Haupt
Julius Stahel
Samuel Powhatan Carter
Joseph Hooker
David Sloane Stanley
Silas Casey
Alvin Peter Hovey
James Blair Steedman
Joshua L. Chamberlain
Oliver Otis Howard
Charles Pomeroy Stone
Philip St. George Cooke
Andrew W. Humphreys
George Stoneman
Joseph Alexander Cooper
David Hunter
George Crockett Strong
Michael Corcoran
Henry Moses Judah
Samuel Davis Sturgis
John Murray Corse
Philip Kearny
Edwin Vose Sumner
Jacob Dolson Cox
Erasmus Darwin Keyes
Thomas William Sweeney
George Crook
Hugh Judson Kilpatrick
Alfred Howe Terry
Samuel Ryan Curtis
Nathan Kimball
George Henry Thomas
George Armstrong Custer
Mortimer Dormer Leggett
Alfred T.A. Torbert
Jefferson Columbus Davis
John Alexander Logan
John Basil Turchin
John Adams Dix
Nathaniel Lyon
Emory Upton
Abner Doubleday
John McArthur
James Samuel Wadsworth
Thomas Wilberforce Egan
George Brinton McClellan
George Day Wagner
Amos Bebee Eaton
Alexander M. McCook
Charles Caroll Walcutt
Alfred Washington Ellet
Irvin McDowell
Lewis Wallace
Washington Lafayette Elliot
James "Birdseye" McPherson
William Thomas Ward
Hugh Boyle Ewing
George Gordon Meade
Governeur Kemble Warren
Elon John Farnsworth
Nelson Appleton Miles
Cadwallader C. Washburn
David Glasgow Farragut
Robert Huston Milroy
Alexander Stewart Webb
James Deering Fessenden
Edward Ord
Edward Augustus Wild
Andrew Hull Foote
John Grubb Parke
James Harrison Wilson
James William Forsyth
Robert Patterson
John Ellis Wool
John Gray Foster
Alfred Pleasonton
Horatio Governeur Wright
Robert Sanford Foster
John Pope
George Washington Gordon
William Flank Perry
Archibald Gracie, Jr.
James Johnston Pettigrew
Hiram Bronson Granbury
Edmund Winston Pettus
Henry Gray
George Edward Pickett
John Gregg
Albert Pike
Wade Hampton
Gideon Johnson Pillow
William Joseph Hardee
Leonidas Polk
Ambrose Powell Hill
Sterling Price
John Bell Hood
Prince DePolignac
Benjamin Huger
Roger Atkinson Pryor
Benjamin Grubb Humphreys
Daniel Harris Reynolds
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
Roswell Sabine Ripley
John Daniel Imboden
William Paul Roberts
Albert Gallatin Jenkins
Beverly H. Robertson
Bushrod Rust Johnson
Robert Emmett Rhodes
Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Albert Sidney Johnston
Raphael Semmes
James Lawson Kemper
Francis Asbury Shoup
Joseph Brevard Kershaw
Henry Hopkins Sibley
Evander McIvor Law
James Phillip Simms
Alexander Robert Lawton
William Yarnell Slack
Fitzhugh Lee
James Edwin Slaughter
Robert Edward Lee
Edmund Kirby Smith
Stephen Dill Lee
Martin Luthor Smith
Lomax Lunsford Lindsay
Thomas Benton Smith
Thomas Muldrup Logan
William Smith
James Longstreet
Peter Burwell Starke
Mansfield Lovell
William Steele
Marc Perrin Lowrey
James Ewell Brown Stuart
Hylan Benton Lyon
William Booth Taliaferro
William Whann Mackall
Richard Taylor
John Bankhead Magruder
Bryan Morel Thomas
Henry Eustace McColloch
Robert Augustus Toombs
William McComb
Isaac Ridgeway Trimble
James McQueen McIntosh
Earl Van Dorn
Evander McNair
Alfred J.Vaughan Jr.
Dandridge McRae
John George Walker
Hugh Weedon Mercer
Reuben Lindsay Walker
Young Marshall Moody
Joseph Wheeler
John Creed Moore
John Wilkins Whitfield
John Hunt Morgan
Louis Trevezant Wigfall
Thomas Munford
Cademus M.Wilcox
Francis R.T. Nicholls
Sterling Alex. M. Wood
Edward Asbury O'Neal
Ambrose Ransom Wright
Mosby Monroe Parsons
Pierce Manning B. Young
John Clifford Pemberton
Felix Kirk Zollicoffer
William Dorsey Pender
Visit our other sites
|
|
|
|
|
|
Articles & Briefings
