Clellan was ultimately forced to withdraw to the James
River, and Lee’s offensive of a smaller force against a
larger force broken into two worked. He then dispatched
Jackson to attack Union forces under the command of
General John Pope. Combined with Jackson, Lee and
the Confederates attacked, forcing the battle known as
Second Bull Run (29–30 August 1862), and the arrival
of General James Longstreet gave the South another
clear victory. McClellan then attacked Southern forces at
Antietam, Maryland (17 September 1862), where Lee,
backed by Jackson, repelled the Union attack, but they
were forced to withdraw back into Virginia, ending a
Southern chance to threaten the capital of Washington,
D.C.
Although Lee defeated the Union forces decisively
at the battles of Fredericksburg (13 December 1862)
and Chancellorsville (1 May 1863), he had insufficient
men or matériel to finish the war. At Chancellorsville,
confederate armies defeated Union forces under General
Joseph hooker. However, during the clash, Thomas
“Stonewall” Jackson was wounded in a friendly-fire inci-
dent by his own troops, and he died two days later from
his wounds, inflicting a grave blow to the Confederates
and Lee in particular.
Although his army never recovered from Jackson’s
loss, Lee planned another attack into the North to
destabilize—perhaps even overthrow—the Union and
relieve the growing pressure from Ulysses S. grant
and William Tecumseh sherman in the west. To this
end, he marched his army into Pennsylvania, where he
attacked Union forces at Gettysburg (1–3 July 1863).
Historians claim that Lee’s temporary indecisiveness
led him to make several mistakes in this three-day cam-
paign, including finally sending a force led by General
George E. Pickett in his famed charge uphill against
the enormously strong Union center, an action that
ended disastrously. After three days of bloodshed, Lee
withdrew to the South. Never again would he fight on
Northern soil.
Bloody battles through the remainder of 1863 and
into 1864 slowly sapped the strength of the Confeder-
ate army. At the Wilderness (5–7 May 1864), Spotsyl-
vania Courthouse (7–20 May 1864), and Cold Harbor
(also known as Chickahominy, 3 June 1864), Lee caused
more than 60,000 casualties for the Union armies, but
he lost some 25,000 men, and he could not replace them
as the Union did. As 1864 ended, the writing was on
the wall for an inevitable Confederate defeat. Lee biog-
rapher Russell Weigley notes that “Lee persisted in the
struggle because he believed himself bound by duty.” As
Grant’s army slowly moved south, and Sherman’s army
advanced from the west, capturing more and more ter-
ritory, the South’s hopes faded away. On 2 April 1865,
after a massive Union victory in Virginia, Lee ordered
the evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg. Moving his
remaining forces toward Appomattox Courthouse on 9
April, he found all avenues of escape blocked. Facing the
inevitable, he sent a messenger to his opponent, Union
general Ulysses S. Grant, to say that he wished to surren-
der. The two men met at the Wilmer McLean home at
Appomattox Courthouse, and Lee surrendered his army,
with his men allowed to take their horses and sidearms
and return home without being punished. Although Lee
himself was later indicted for treason—and he was not
allowed to vote during his lifetime—he was never pun-
ished for his role in the war except in one way: His fam-
ily home in Arlington had been deliberately confiscated
and converted into a cemetery for the war dead, now the
Arlington National Cemetery.
Lee spent the remainder of his life attempting to
reconcile the war-torn nation. In August 1865, he was
appointed president of Washington College in Lexing-
ton, Virginia, an office he held until his death. Lee suf-
fered a cerebral hemorrhage on 28 September 1870, and
died on 12 October at the age of 63. He was buried in
the Lee Chapel, now a museum, in Lexington, and in his
honor, the name of the institution was changed to Wash-
ington and Lee College. Historian Michael Lee Lan-
ning writes of his legacy: “Lee remains a military hero
respected and studied for his strategic skills in fighting a
larger, better-supplied enemy and his leadership abilities
in gaining the respect and adoration of his subordinates.
He is the icon of American military dignity. Yet despite
the South’s romanticized immortalization of their leader,
Lee ranks far below the victor Grant in actual long-term
influence. Lee left a legacy that makes him a symbol of
Southern pride, but the cause he represented so well was
truly a lost one.”References: Fowler, Robert H., “Lee, Robert Edward,” in
Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War,
edited by Patricia L. Faust (New York: Harper & Row,
Publishers, 1986), 429–431; Weigley, Russell F., “Lee,
Robert E.,” in American National Biography, 24 vols., ed-
ited by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999), 12:392–397; Porter,lee, RobeRt eDwARD