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|serviceyears = |branch= |rank = |commands = |battles = |relatives=Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee III (father) |awards = |laterwork = President of Washington and Lee University |signature=Robert E Lee Signature.svg }} Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was an American soldier known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865. The son of Revolutionary War officer Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee III, Lee was a top graduate of the United States Military Academy and an exceptional officer and military engineer in the United States Army for 32 years. During this time, he served throughout the United States, distinguished himself during the Mexican–American War, served as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, and married Mary Custis. When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in April 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his personal desire for the country to remain intact and despite an offer of a senior Union command. During the first year of the Civil War, Lee served as a senior military adviser to President Jefferson Davis. Once he took command of the main field army in 1862 he soon emerged as a shrewd tactician and battlefield commander, winning most of his battles, all against far superior Union armies.〔Jay Luvaas, "Lee and the Operational Art: The Right Place, the Right Time," ''Parameters: US Army War College,'' Sept 1992, Vol. 22#3 pp. 2-18〕 Lee's strategic foresight was more questionable, and both of his major offensives into Union territory ended in defeat.〔Stephen W. Sears, "'We Should Assume the Aggressive': Origins of the Gettysburg Campaign," ''North and South: The Official Magazine of the Civil War Society,'' March 2002, Vol. 5#4 pp. 58–66〕 Lee's aggressive tactics, which resulted in high casualties at a time when the Confederacy had a shortage of manpower, have come under criticism in recent years. Union General Ulysses S. Grant's campaigns (particularly the Vicksburg Campaign) crippled the Confederacy in 1864 and 1865, and Lee was unable to turn the war's tide or stop Grant's advance during the Overland Campaign and Richmond–Petersburg Campaign. After being thoroughly outmaneuvered, Lee surrendered his entire army to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. By this time, Lee had assumed supreme command of the remaining Southern armies; other Confederate forces swiftly capitulated after his surrender. Lee rejected the proposal of a sustained insurgency against the Union and called for reconciliation between the two sides. After the war, as President of what is now Washington and Lee University, Lee supported President Andrew Johnson's program of Reconstruction and intersectional friendship, while opposing the Radical Republican proposals to give freed slaves the vote and take the vote away from ex-Confederates. He urged them to rethink their position between the North and the South, and the reintegration of former Confederates into the nation's political life. Lee became the great Southern hero of the War, a postwar icon of the "Lost Cause of the Confederacy" to some. But his popularity grew even in the North, especially after his death in 1870.〔(General Robert E. Lee Compiled Military Service Record ). thomaslegion.net. Retrieved August 4, 2015.〕 Barracks at West Point built in 1962 are named after him. ==Early life and career== Lee was born at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the son of Major General Henry Lee III (Light Horse Harry) (1756–1818), Governor of Virginia, and his second wife, Anne Hill Carter (1773–1829). His birth date has traditionally been recorded as January 19, 1807, but according to the historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor, "Lee's writings indicate he may have been born the previous year."〔Pryor, Elizabeth Brown (October 29, 2009). ("Robert E. Lee (ca. 1806–1870)" ). (Encyclopedia Virginia ). Retrieved February 18, 2011.〕 One of Lee's great grandparents, Henry Lee I, was a prominent Virginian colonist of English descent.〔William Thorndale, "The Parents of Colonel Richard Lee of Virginia," ''National Genealogical Society Quarterly'' 76 (December 1988): 253-68〕 Lee's family is one of Virginia's first families, originally arriving in Virginia from England in the early 1600s with the arrival of Richard Lee I, Esq., "the Immigrant" (1618–64), from the county of Shropshire. His mother grew up at Shirley Plantation, one of the most elegant homes in Virginia.〔His maternal great-great grandfather, Robert "King" Carter of Corotoman, was the wealthiest man in the colonies when he died in 1732.〕 Lee's father, a tobacco planter, suffered severe financial reverses from failed investments. Little is known of Lee as a child; he rarely spoke of his boyhood as an adult. Nothing is known of his relationship with his father who, after leaving his family, mentioned Robert only once in a letter. When given the opportunity to visit his father's Georgia grave, he remained there only briefly yet, while as president of Washington College, he defended his father in a biographical sketch while editing Light Horse Harry's memoirs. In 1809, Harry Lee was put in debtors prison; soon after his release the following year, Harry and Anne Lee and their five children moved to a small house on Cameron Street in Alexandria, Virginia, both because there were then high quality local schools there, and because several members of her extended family lived nearby. In 1811, the family, including the newly born sixth child, Mildred, moved to a house on Oronoco Street, still close to the center of town and with the houses of a number of Lee relatives close by. In 1812, Harry Lee was badly injured in a political riot in Baltimore and traveled to the West Indies. He would never return, dying when his son Robert was eleven years old. Left to raise six children alone in straitened circumstances, Anne Lee and her family often paid extended visits to relatives and family friends. Robert Lee attended school at Eastern View, a school for young gentlemen, in Fauquier County, and then at the Alexandria Academy, free for local boys, where he showed an aptitude for mathematics. Although brought up to be a practicing Christian, he was not confirmed in the Episcopal Church until age 46. Anne Lee's family was often supported by a relative, William Henry Fitzhugh, who owned the Oronoco Street house and allowed the Lees to stay at his home in Fairfax County, Ravensworth. When Robert was 17 in 1824, Fitzhugh wrote to the Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, urging that Robert be given an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Fitzhugh wrote little of Robert's academic prowess, dwelling much on the prominence of his family, and erroneously stated the boy was 18. Instead of mailing the letter, Fitzhugh had young Robert deliver it. In March 1824, Robert Lee received his appointment to West Point, but due to the large number of cadets admitted, Lee would have to wait a year to begin his studies there. Lee entered West Point in the summer of 1825. At the time, the focus of the curriculum was engineering; the head of the Army Corps of Engineers supervised the school and the superintendent was an engineering officer. Cadets were not permitted leave until they had finished two years of study, and were rarely allowed off the Academy grounds. Lee graduated second in his class behind Charles Mason,〔 who resigned from the Army a year after graduation, and Lee did not incur any demerits during his four-year course of study, a distinction shared by 5 of his 45 classmates. In June 1829, Lee was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. After graduation, while awaiting assignment, he returned to Virginia to find his mother on her deathbed; she died at Ravensworth on July 26, 1829. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Robert E. Lee」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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