United States History Student Edition

BIOGRAPHY ROBERT E. LEE (1807–1870) Robert Edward Lee came from a leading Virginia family. His father was a general in the Revolutionary War. Lee attended West Point Academy and graduated second in his class in 1829.

To confuse McClellan, Lee split his army into four parts and ordered each part to move in a different direction. Lee’s plan never had a chance to work. A Confederate officer lost his copy of the orders describing it. Two Union soldiers found the orders and brought them to McClellan. But McClellan did not attack immediately, giving Lee time to gather his troops. On September 17, 1862, the two sides met at Antietam (an•TEE•tum) Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Antietam was a key victory for the Union. It was also the deadliest single day of fighting in the war. About 6,000 soldiers died. About 17,000 more suffered wounds. A number of factors combined to make Antietam so deadly. One was that the technology of the time had leapt ahead of military tactics. Infantry still lined up in rows and marched directly at the enemy. But now the troops were marching toward powerful rifles and artillery that could fire more quickly and with greater accuracy than ever before. The advancing soldiers were slaughtered. Because of the great losses, Lee retreated to Virginia after the battle. For the time being, his strategy of invading the North had failed. 7 CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING 1. Summarizing What was the outcome of the Battle of Antietam? 2. Explaining How did chance play a role in Lee’s battle plan at Antietam? The Emancipation Proclamation GUIDING QUESTION What was the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation? As the war went on, Lincoln’s ideas about the war’s purpose changed. Initially , he had viewed the Civil War as a battle for the Union, not a fight against slavery. Although Lincoln hated slavery, he was reluctant to make the Civil War a battle to end it. Early in the war, Lincoln hesitated to move against slavery for fear of losing the border technology equipment that makes use of advanced knowledge or skill artillery cannons and other large-caliber guns initially at first, to start

After graduating, he worked for the Army Corps of Engineers, served in the Mexican- American War, held a leadership position at West Point, and then joined the cavalry. When Virginia voted to secede from the Union, Lee resigned from the U.S. Army and became a commander of Virginia’s military forces. In 1862, he was given command of the Army of Northern Virginia, the main Confederate army in the East, and in February 1865, Jefferson Davis made him commander of all Confederate armies.

Understanding Supporting Details Why was Lee a good choice to command Virginia’s forces?

states. Even many white Northerners who disapproved of slavery were not eager to risk their lives to end it. Meanwhile, powerful newspaper editor Horace Greeley and abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, urged Lincoln to make the war a fight to end slavery. The abolitionists described slavery as a moral wrong that needed to be abolished. They also pointed out that slavery was the root of the divisions between the North and South. Finally, they argued that if Lincoln presented the war as a fight to abolish slavery, Britain and France would be less willing to support the South. Confederate hopes were increasingly linked to this overseas support. The Constitution did not give Lincoln the power to end slavery, but it did give him the power to take property from an enemy in wartime. The Dred Scott decision had declared that enslaved people were property.

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of William Wilson Corcoran) The Corcoran Gallery of Art, one of the country’s first private museums, was established in 1869 to promote art and American genius. In 2014 the Works from the Corcoran Collection were distributed to institutions in Washington, D.C.

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