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Robert E. Lee was born on January 19, 1807. Twenty-three years later he married the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, Mary Custis. Robert was a friend with George Washington and Abe Lincoln. He went to army academy and got one of the best ranks in the class. He went thirty-two years without a mistake in the U.S. Army. He then resigned. Robert joined the Confederate Army in the Civil War. The reason he joined was because Virginia, the state he was born in, joined the south. Lee didn't want slaves. The northern army had 23 million men and the confederate army only had nine million. Robert's sons also joined the Confederacy. Lee's wife had arthritis, and she still fought in the war. Lee wasn't happy because the army had given him desk jobs instead of fighting jobs. The Confederate Army won the first big battle, but Lee wasn't there. Lee wasn't getting any credit for the strategy that he created. Lee was sent to teach the people of western Virginia how to fight. Western Virginia broke off from Virginia and formed the new state West Virginia. The Yankees were going to start a sea invasion. Lee helped to keep Charleston and Savannah safe from the invasion. The south was losing the war badly. Lee lost 8,000 men at Saylor's Creek and at Farmville and now he has 15,000 men. Grant wanted Lee to surrender. Lee agreed to surrender as long as the men we free to go home after they were disarmed. The south was proud of what Robert E. Lee did in the week that he got to be general of the confederate army. He made the enemy think that he had more men than he really had. He took over Johnston's disorganized army and in battles that there was more men on the other side and still won them. |