Can you imagine leading lines of men out to the battlefield, being the person giving all the commands? Or being the person most disappointed when you lose a battle.

Robert E. Lee had to decide if he was going to do this job. Lee came from the south. Unlike other people from the south, he didn’t like slavery. He thought slavery was evil and that it had an evil effect on people who owned slaves. Lee also hated the very idea of the nation being split in half. He had to decide if he was going to leave his family, his house, and his state to go fight in the northern army or if he was going to stay and defend his state. Finally Lee decided he was going to stay and defend his state because he was so loyal to his state.

In 1863, Union General Joseph Hooker attacked Lee during the spring. The Confederates won a great victory, but in return they had to pay a big price. "Stonewall" Jackson, one of Lees best men was shot by one of his own men. He was shot because it was dark and the other men that were lookouts thought he was a spy. Soon after that Lee was made general of all the Confederate armies.

Lee retired from the army after the Civil War was over. He became a private Citizen for the first time in 40 years.

]Lee could have had money beyond his dreams. Instead he spent his last years as president of Washington College. In Lexington, Virginia. He soon raised that small college to a high level of scholarship. After Lee died, the college was renamed Washington and Lee University.