“Duty then, is the most sublime word in the English language. You can never do more. You should never wish to do less.”

Robert E. Lee (1807 to 1870)

Robert E Lee was a General in the Confederate Army (1861-1865) during the American civil war.

Prior to the war he was an officer in the US Army and a Commandant at West Point.

In June 1861, he assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia, achieving great success during the Peninsula Campaign, and at Second Bull Run (Mansassas) and Fredericksburg, with his greatest victory coming in the bloody Battle of Chancellorsville.

In the spring of 1863, Lee invaded the North, only to be defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg. With Confederate defeat a near certainty, Lee continued on, battling Union General Ulysses S. Grant in a series of clashes in Virginia in 1864-1865 before finally surrendering what was left of his army in April 1865.

General Lee has been praised by many for his tactical brilliance, and remains a revered figure in the American South.