General Robert E. Lee Archives

Today In Western History: General Lee Says Goodbye

Posted on April 10, 2016March 4, 2016 by larry

Today, April 10, 1865, one day after surrendering his army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, Confederate General Robert E. Lee addresses his army for the last time, and issues this farewell to his men.

“After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to the result from no distrust of them…I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen…I bid you an affectionate farewell.”

This closed the book on one of the most remarkable armies in history. The Army of Northern Virginia had fought against long odds for four years and won most of the battles in which it engaged the Union’s Army of the Potomac. Along the way, Lee was idolized by his troops as few military leaders ever have been. The final surrender was a bitter pill for Lee to swallow, but the grace of his final communiqué to his troops exhibited the virtues that made him the single most enduring symbol of the Confederacy.

The signing of the surrender is a historic event that overwhelms everyone. Many of the witnesses want some souvenir from this eventful day. General “Little Phil” Philip Sheridan buys the table the surrender was signed

on from the owner of the house, Wilmer McCLean, and he gives to the man he considers his most valuable commander, General George Armstrong Custer. Custer rides home with the table strapped across his

Gen. George Armstrong Custer, hero of the Civil War and victim of the Indian Wars

horse, and gives it to his wife, Libby Custer. Sheridan will be Custer’s best protector from this moment on right up to the last, which will come on June 25, 1876.

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Today In Western History: Richmond Falls

Posted on April 2, 2016March 1, 2016 by larry

Today, in 1865, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant finally capture the trenches around Petersburg,

Virginia, after a dreary ten-month siege and Confederate General Robert E. Lee leads his troops on a desperate retreat westward.

Robert E. Lee, General CSA, Hero of the Confederacy

The ragged Confederate troops could no longer maintain the 40-mile network of defenses that ran from southwest of Petersburg to north of Richmond, the Rebel capital 25 miles north of Petersburg. Through the long winter, desertion and attrition melted Lee’s army down to less than 60,000, while Grant’s army swelled to over 120,000. Grant attacked Five Forks southwest of Petersburg on April 1, scoring a huge victory that cut Lee’s supply line and inflicted 5,000 casualties on the already thin lines. The next day, Lee wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, “I think it absolutely necessary that we should

Jefferson Davis, President of the CSA — Jefferson Davis, First and Only President of the CSA

abandon our position tonight…” Davis began to pack the Government files.

Grant’s men attacked all along the Petersburg front. In the predawn hours, hundreds of Federal can-non roared to life as the Yankees bombarded the Rebel fortifications. Said one soldier, “the shells screamed through the air in a semi-circle of flame.” At 5:00 in the morning, Union troops silently crawled toward the Confederates, shrouded in darkness. Confederate pickets alerted the troops, and the Yankees were raked by heavy fire, but the determined troops poured forth and began over-running the trenches. Four thousand Union troops were killed or wounded, but a northern officer wrote, “It was a great relief, a positive lifting of a load of misery to be at last let at them.”

Confederate General Ambrose Powell Hill, a corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia and one of Lee’s most trusted lieutenants, rode to the front to rally his men. As he approached some trees with his aide, two Union soldiers emerged and fired, killing Hill instantly. Hill had survived four years of war and dozens of battles only to die during the final days of the Confederacy. When Lee received the news, he quietly said, “He is at rest now, and we who are left are the ones to suffer.”

By nightfall, President Davis and the Confederate government were in flight and Richmond was on fire. Retreating Rebel troops set ablaze several huge warehouses to prevent them from being captured by the Federals and the fires soon spread. With the army and government officials gone, bands of thugs roamed the streets looting what was left.

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Today In Western History: General Lee’s Supply Line Is Closed

Posted on April 1, 2016March 1, 2016 by larry

April 01 —

Confederate General Robert E. Lee‘s supply line into Petersburg, Virginia, is closed when Union forces

under General Ulysses S. Grant collapse the end of Lee’s lines around Petersburg. The Confederates

suffer heavy casualties, and the battle triggered Lee’s retreat from Petersburg as the two armies began a race that would end a week later at Appomattox Court House.

For nearly a year, Grant had laid siege to Lee’s army in an elaborate network of trenches that ran from Petersburg to the Confederate capital at Richmond, 25 miles north. Lee’s hungry army slowly dwindled through the winter of 1864-65 as Grant’s army swelled with well-fed reinforcements. On March 25, Lee attacked part of the Union trenches at Fort Stedman in a desperate attempt to break the siege and split Grant’s force. When that attack failed, Grant immediately began mobilizing his forces along the entire 40-mile front. Southwest of Petersburg, Grant sent General Philip Sheridan against Lee’s right flank.

Sheridan moved forward on March 31, but the tough Confederates halted his advance. Sheridan moved troops to cut the railroad that ran from the southwest into Petersburg, but the focus of the battle became Five Forks, a road intersection that provided the key to Lee’s supply line. General Lee told his commander there, General George Pickett, to “Hold Five Forks at all hazards.” On April 1, Sheridan’s

CSA General George Pickett, sartorial dandy and lowest in his class at West Point,

men slammed into Pickett’s troops. Pickett had his force poorly positioned, and he was taking a long lunch with his staff when the attack occurred. General Gouverneur K. Warren’s V Corps supported

Sheridan, and the 27,000 Yankee troops soon crushed Pickett’s command of 10,000. The Union suffered 1,000 casualties, but nearly 5,000 of Pickett’s men were killed, wounded, or captured. During the battle, Sheridan, with the approval of Grant, removed Warren from command despite Warren’s effective deployment of his troops. It appears that a long-simmering feud between the two was the cause, but Warren was not officially cleared of any wrongdoing by a court of inquiry until 1882.

The vital intersection was in Union hands, and Lee’s supply line was cut. Grant now attacked all along the Petersburg-Richmond front and Lee evacuated the cities. The two armies began a race west, but Lee could not outrun Grant. The Confederate leader surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9.

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Today In Western History: The Confederacy Approves The Use of Black Troops

Posted on March 13, 2016March 7, 2016 by larry

March 13

On this day in 1865, with the main Rebel armies facing long odds against much larger Union armies, in an act of desperation, the Confederacy reluctantly approves the use of black troops. The situation was quite bleak for the Confederates in the spring of 1865. Although they had no way of knowing it, their beloved Confederacy had just less than a month to live. The hated Yankees had captured large swaths of Southern territory and General William T. Sherman’s Union army was tearing unimpeded throughthe Carolinas. At the same time,

Confederate General Robert E. Lee was struggling futilely to defend and protect the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and he was

trying to do this with a steadily shrinking army, the victim of both severe malnutrition and desertions. His Union opponent, General Ulysses S. Grant, was applying a relentless pressure with an army that was better fed, better supplied, and with unlimited resources. Lee and

Confederate President Jefferson Davis had only two options left to them. One option was for Lee to unite with General Joseph Johnston’s

army in the Carolinas and use the combined force to take on Sherman and Grant one at a time, but this would leave Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, both unprotected and vulnerable to capture. The other option was to arm the slaves, the last source of fresh manpower in the Confederacy. This choice rendered the whole reason for the war as pointless. It was a no-win situation for the leaders of the Confederacy.

The idea of enlisting blacks had been debated for some time. Arming slaves was essentially a way of setting them free, since they could not realistically be sent back to plantations after they had fought. General Patrick Cleburne had suggested enlisting slaves a year before, but very few in the Confederate

leadership considered the proposal, since slavery was the foundation of Southern society. One politic-ian asked, “What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?” Another suggested, “If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong.” Lee weighed in on this thorny issue and he asked the Confederate government for help. “We must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves be used against us, or use them ourselves.” Lee asked that the slaves be freed as a condition of fighting, but the bill that passed the Confederate Congress on March 13, 1865, did not stipulate freedom for those who served.

The measure did nothing to stop the destruction of the Confederacy. Several thousand blacks were enlisted in the Rebel cause, but they could not begin to balance out the nearly 200,000 blacks who fought for the Union. It was a case of “too little, too late”.

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Tag: General Robert E. Lee

Today In Western History: General Lee Says Goodbye

Today In Western History: Richmond Falls

Today In Western History: General Lee’s Supply Line Is Closed

Today In Western History: The Confederacy Approves The Use of Black Troops