Born Jan. 19, 1807, at “Stratford,” in Virginia; died Oct. 12, 1870, in Lexington, Va. Theater commander and then commander in chief of the armies of the slaveholding Confederacy during the American Civil War of 1861–65.

Lee fought in the annexationist war of the United States against Mexico (1846–48) and in wars of extermination against the Indians of Texas in the 1850’s. Lee directed the suppression of the abolitionist revolt led by John Brown (1859). In 1862 he became head of the army of the rebel slaveholding states on the Virginia front, where he inflicted a number of defeats on the armies of the North. In early July 1863, Lee’s forces were smashed by the North at Gettysburg. On Apr. 9, 1865, Lee’s army capitulated at Appomattox.