Lee-Arnold

3 General Robert Edward Lee

Historical Question: media type="file" key="SS FINAL 2.m4a"
 * How was Lee able to fight against the Union for such a long time until he surrendered, even though the Union had much more resources and much more people?**

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources.** 

Lee's views on slavery
Since the end of the Civil War, it has often been suggested that Lee was in some sense opposed to slavery. In the period following the Civil War and [|Reconstruction], and after his death, Lee became a central figure in the [|Lost Cause] interpretation of the war, and as succeeding generations came to look on slavery as a terrible immorality, the idea that Lee had always somehow opposed it helped maintain his stature as a symbol of [|Southern] honor and national reconciliation. Some of the evidence cited in favor of the claim that Lee opposed slavery, are the [|manumission] of Custis's slaves, as discussed above, and his support, towards the end of the war, for enrolling slaves in the Confederate States Army, with manumission offered as an eventual reward for good service. Lee gave his public support to this idea two weeks before Appomattox, too late for it to do any good for the Confederacy. In December 1864, Lee was shown a letter by Louisiana Senator [|Edward Sparrow], written by General [|St. John R. Liddell], which noted that Lee would be hard-pressed in the interior of Virginia by spring, and the need to consider [|Patrick Cleburne]'s plan to emancipate the slaves and put all men in the army that were willing to join. Lee was said to have agreed on all points and desired to get black soldiers, saying that "he could make soldiers out of any human being that had arms and legs."[|[16]] Another source is Lee's 1856 letter to his wife,[|[17]] which can be interpreted in multiple ways: Freeman's analysis[|[17]] puts Lee's attitude toward slavery and abolition in historical context:
 * < **“** || ... In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence. ||> **”** ||
 * < **“** || This [letter] was the prevailing view among most religious people of Lee's class in the border states. They believed that slavery existed because God willed it and they thought it would end when God so ruled. The time and the means were not theirs to decide, conscious though they were of the ill-effects of Negro slavery on both races. Lee shared these convictions of his neighbors without having come in contact with the worst evils of African bondage. He spent no considerable time in any state south of Virginia from the day he left Fort Pulaski in 1831 until he went to Texas in 1856. All his reflective years had been passed in the North or in the border states. He had never been among the blacks on a cotton or rice plantation. At Arlington the servants had been notoriously indolent, their master's master. Lee, in short, was only acquainted with slavery at its best and he judged it accordingly. At the same time, he was under no illusion regarding the aims of the Abolitionist or the effect of their agitation. ||

Civil War
Main article: [|American Civil War][|Mathew Brady] portrait of Lee on April 16,1865, Richmond, Virginia. (detail) Lee privately ridiculed the Confederacy in letters in early 1861, denouncing secession as "revolution" and a betrayal of the efforts of the Founders. The commanding general of the Union army, [|Winfield Scott], told Lincoln he wanted Lee for a top command. Lee accepted a promotion to colonel on March 28.[|[19]] Lee had earlier been asked by one of his lieutenants if he intended to fight for the Confederacy or the Union, to which he replied, "I shall never bear arms against the Union, but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in the defense of my native state, Virginia, in which case I shall not prove recreant to my duty."[|[20]] Meanwhile, Lee ignored an offer of command from the CSA. After Lincoln's call for troops to put down the rebellion, it was obvious that Virginia would quickly secede and so Lee turned down an April 18 offer to become a major general in the U.S. Army, resigned on April 20, and took up command of the Virginia state forces on April 23. 

Early role
At the outbreak of war, Lee was appointed to command all of Virginia's forces, but upon the formation of the Confederate States Army, he was named one of its first five [|full generals]. Lee did not wear the insignia of a Confederate general, but only the three stars of a Confederate colonel, equivalent to his last U.S. Army rank; he did not intend to wear a general's insignia until the Civil War had been won and he could be promoted, in peacetime, to general in the Confederate Army. Lee's first field assignment was commanding Confederate forces in western Virginia, where he was defeated at the [|Battle of Cheat Mountain] and was widely blamed for Confederate setbacks.[|[21]] He was then sent to organize the coastal defenses along the Carolina and Georgia seaboard, where he was hampered by the lack of an effective Confederate navy. Once again blamed by the press, he became military adviser to [|Confederate President] [|Jefferson Davis], former [|U.S. Secretary of War]. While in [|Richmond], Lee was ridiculed as the 'King of Spades' for his excessive digging of trenches around the capitol. These trenches would later play an important role in battles near the end of the war. [|[22]] 

Commander, Army of Northern Virginia
In the spring of 1862, during the [|Peninsula Campaign], the Union [|Army of the Potomac] under General [|George B. McClellan] advanced upon Richmond from [|Fort Monroe], eventually reaching the eastern edges of the Confederate capital along the [|Chickahominy River]. Following the wounding of Gen. [|Joseph E. Johnston] at the [|Battle of Seven Pines], on June 1, 1862, Lee assumed command of the [|Army of Northern Virginia], his first opportunity to lead an army in the field. Newspaper editorials of the day objected to his appointment due to concerns that Lee would not be aggressive and would wait for the Union army to come to him. Early in the war his men called him "Granny Lee" because of his allegedly timid style of command.[|[23]] After the [|Seven Days Battles] until the end of the war his men called him simply "Marse Robert." He oversaw substantial strengthening of Richmond's defenses during the first three weeks of June and then launched a series of attacks, the [|Seven Days Battles], against McClellan's forces. Lee's attacks resulted in heavy Confederate casualties and they were marred by clumsy tactical performances by his subordinates, but his aggressive actions unnerved McClellan, who retreated to a point on the [|James River] where Union naval forces were in control. These successes led to a rapid turn-around of public opinion and the newspaper editorials quickly changed their tune on Lee's aggressiveness. After McClellan's retreat, Lee defeated another Union army at the [|Second Battle of Bull Run]. Within 90 days of taking command, Lee had run McClellan off the Peninsula, defeated Pope at Second Manassas, and the battle lines had moved from 6 miles outside Richmond, to 20 miles outside Washington. Instead of a quick end to the war that the Peninsula Campaign had promised in its early stages, the war would go one for almost another 3 years and claim a half million more lives. He then invaded Maryland, hoping to replenish his supplies and possibly influence the Northern elections to fall in favor of ending the war. McClellan's men recovered a lost order that revealed Lee's plans. McClellan always exaggerated Lee's forces, but now he knew the Confederate army was divided and could be destroyed by an all-out attack at [|Antietam]. Yet McClellan was too slow in moving, not realizing Lee had been informed by a spy that McClellan had the plans. Lee urgently recalled [|Stonewall Jackson] and in the bloodiest day of the war, Lee withstood the Union assaults. He withdrew his battered army back to Virginia while President [|Abraham Lincoln] used the reverse as sufficient pretext to announce the [|Emancipation Proclamation] to put the Confederacy on the diplomatic and moral defensive. September 1866 Lee mounted on [|Traveller] Disappointed by McClellan's failure to destroy Lee's army, Lincoln named [|Ambrose Burnside] as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Burnside ordered an attack across the [|Rappahannock River] at [|Fredericksburg]. Delays in getting bridges built across the river allowed Lee's army ample time to organize strong defenses, and the attack on December 12, 1862, was a disaster for the Union. Lincoln then named [|Joseph Hooker] commander of the Army of the Potomac. Hooker's advance to attack Lee in May, 1863, near [|Chancellorsville], Virginia, was defeated by Lee and [|Stonewall Jackson]'s daring plan to divide the army and attack Hooker's flank. It was a victory over a larger force, but it also came with a great cost; Jackson, one of Lee's best subordinates, was accidentally wounded by his own troops, and soon after died of pneumonia. 

Battle of Gettysburg
In the summer of 1863, Lee invaded the North again, hoping for a Southern victory that would shatter Northern morale. A young Pennsylvanian woman who watched from her porch as General Lee passed by remarked, "I wish he were ours."[//[|citation needed]//] He encountered Union forces under [|George G. Meade] at the three-day [|Battle of Gettysburg] in Pennsylvania in July; the battle would produce the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War. Some of his subordinates were new and inexperienced in their commands, [|J.E.B. Stuart]'s cavalry was out of the area, slightly ill, and thus Lee was less than comfortable with how events were unfolding. While the first day of battle was controlled by the Confederates, key terrain which should have been taken by General Ewell was not. The Second day ended with the Confederates unable to break the Union position, and the Union more solidified. Lee's decision on the third day, against the sound judgement of his best corps commander General Longstreet, to launch a massive frontal assault on the center of the Union line was disastrous. The assault known as [|Pickett's Charge]— was repulsed and resulted in heavy Confederate losses. The General rode out to meet his retreating army and proclaimed, "This is all my fault."[//[|citation needed]//] Lee was compelled to retreat. Despite flooded rivers that blocked his retreat, he escaped Meade's ineffective pursuit. Following his defeat at Gettysburg, Lee sent a letter of resignation to President Davis on August 8, 1863, but Davis refused Lee's request. That fall, Lee and Meade met again in two minor campaigns that did little to change the strategic standoff. The Confederate army never fully recovered from the substantial losses incurred during the three-day battle in southern Pennsylvania. The historian [|Shelby Foote] stated, "Gettysburg was the price the South paid for having Robert E. Lee as commander." 

Ulysses S. Grant and the Union offensive
In 1864, the new Union general-in-chief, Lt. Gen. [|Ulysses S. Grant], sought to use his large advantages in manpower and material resources to destroy Lee's army by [|attrition], pinning Lee against his capital of Richmond. Lee successfully stopped each attack, but Grant with his superior numbers kept pushing each time a bit farther to the southeast. These battles in the [|Overland Campaign] included the [|Wilderness], [|Spotsylvania Court House], and [|Cold Harbor]. Grant eventually was able to stealthily move his army across the [|James River]. After stopping a Union attempt to capture [|Petersburg, Virginia], a vital railroad link supplying Richmond, Lee's men built elaborate trenches and were besieged in Petersburg. (This development presaged the trench warfare of World War I, exactly 50 years later.) He attempted to break the stalemate by sending [|Jubal A. Early] on a raid through the [|Shenandoah Valley] to [|Washington, D.C.], but was defeated early on by the superior forces of [|Philip Sheridan]. The [|Siege of Petersburg] lasted from June 1864 until March 1865, with Lee's outnumbered and poorly supplied army shrinking daily because of desertions by disheartened Confederates. 

General-in-chief
Lee with son Custis (left) and aide [|Walter H. Taylor] (right). Photographed at Lee's Richmond, Virginia residence by [|Brady] on April 16, 1865. On January 31, 1865, Lee was promoted to general-in-chief of Confederate forces. As the South ran out of manpower the issue of arming the slaves became paramount. By late 1864 the army so dominated the Confederacy that civilian leaders were unable to block the military's proposal, strongly endorsed by Lee, to arm and train slaves in Confederate uniform for combat. In return for this service, slave soldiers and their families would be emancipated. Lee explained, "We should employ them without delay ... [along with] gradual and general emancipation." The first units were in training as the war ended.[|[24]] As the Confederate army was decimated by casualties, disease and desertion, the Union attack on [|Petersburg] succeeded on April 2, 1865. Lee abandoned Richmond and retreated west. His forces were surrounded and he surrendered them to Grant on April 9, 1865, at [|Appomattox Court House], Virginia. Other Confederate armies followed suit and the war ended. The day after his surrender, Lee issued his [|Farewell Address] to his army. Lee resisted calls by some officers to reject surrender and allow small units to melt away into the mountains, setting up a lengthy guerrilla war. He insisted the war was over and energetically campaigned for inter-sectional reconciliation. "So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South."[|[25]] 

After the war
One of the last known images of Lee, post-Civil War Before the Civil War, Lee and his wife had lived at his wife's family home, the [|Custis-Lee Mansion] on Arlington Plantation. The plantation had been seized by Union forces during the war, and became part of [|Arlington National Cemetery]; immediately following the war, Lee spent two months in a rented house in [|Richmond], and then escaped the unwelcome city life by moving into the overseer's house of a friend's plantation near Cartersville, Virginia.[|[26]] (In December 1882, the [|U.S. Supreme Court], in a 5-4 decision, returned the property to Custis Lee, stating that it had been confiscated without due process of law.[|[27]][|[28]] On March 3, 1883, the Congress purchased the property from Lee for $150,000.[|[29]]) While living in the country, Lee wrote his son that he hoped to retire to a farm of his own, but a few weeks later he received an offer to serve as the president of Washington College (now [|Washington and Lee University]) in [|Lexington, Virginia]. Lee accepted, and remained president of the College from October 2, 1865 until his death. Over five years, he transformed Washington College from a small, undistinguished school into one of the first American colleges to offer courses in [|business], [|journalism], and [|Spanish]. He also imposed a simple concept of honor—"We have but one rule here, and it is that every student be a [|gentleman]" — that endures today at Washington and Lee and at a few other schools that continue to maintain "[|honor systems]." Importantly, Lee focused the college on attracting male students from the North as well as the South. 

Postwar politics
Lee, who had opposed secession and remained mostly indifferent to politics before the Civil War, supported President [|Andrew Johnson]'s plan of Presidential [|Reconstruction] that took effect in 1865-66. However, he opposed the Congressional Republican program that took effect in 1867. In February 1866, he was called to testify before the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction in Washington, where he expressed support for President [|Andrew Johnson]'s plans for quick restoration of the former Confederate states, and argued that restoration should return, as far as possible, the status quo ante in the Southern states' governments (with the exception of slavery).[|[30]] Lee said, "every one with whom I associate expresses kind feelings towards the freedmen. They wish to see them get on in the world, and particularly to take up some occupation for a living, and to turn their hands to some work." Lee also expressed his "willingness that blacks should be educated, and ... that it would be better for the blacks and for the whites." Lee forthrightly opposed allowing blacks to vote: "My own opinion is that, at this time, they [black Southerners] cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the [vote] would lead to a great deal of demagogism, and lead to embarrassments in various ways."[|[31]] In an interview in May, 1866, Lee said, "The Radical party are likely to do a great deal of harm, for we wish now for good feeling to grow up between North and South, and the President, Mr. Johnson, has been doing much to strengthen the feeling in favor of the Union among us. The relations between the Negroes and the whites were friendly formerly, and would remain so if legislation be not passed in favor of the blacks, in a way that will only do them harm."[|[32]] [|Jefferson Davis], Lee and [|Stonewall Jackson] at [|Stone Mountain] In 1868, Lee's ally [|Alexander H. H. Stuart] drafted a public letter of endorsement for the [|Democratic Party's] [|presidential campaign], in which [|Horatio Seymour] ran against Lee's old foe Republican [|Ulysses S. Grant]. Lee signed it along with thirty-one other ex-Confederates. The Democratic campaign, eager to publicize the endorsement, published the statement widely in newspapers.[|[33]] Their letter claimed paternalistic concern for the welfare of freed Southern blacks, stating that "The idea that the Southern people are hostile to the negroes and would oppress them, if it were in their power to do so, is entirely unfounded. They have grown up in our midst, and we have been accustomed from childhood to look upon them with kindness."[|[34]] However, it also called for the restoration of white political rule, arguing that "It is true that the people of the South, in common with a large majority of the people of the North and West, are, for obvious reasons, inflexibly opposed to any system of laws that would place the political power of the country in the hands of the negro race. But this opposition springs from no feeling of enmity, but from a deep-seated conviction that, at present, the negroes have neither the intelligence nor the other qualifications which are necessary to make them safe depositories of political power."[|[35]] In his public statements and private correspondence, however, Lee argued that a tone of reconciliation and patience would further the interests of white Southerners better than hotheaded antagonism to federal authority or the use of violence. He repeatedly expelled white students from Washington College for violent attacks on local black men, and publicly urged obedience to the authorities and respect for law and order.[|[36]] In 1869-70 he was a leader in successful efforts to establish state-funded schools for blacks.[|[37]] He privately chastised fellow ex-Confederates such as [|Jefferson Davis] and [|Jubal Early] for their frequent, angry responses to perceived Northern insults, writing in private to them as he had written to a magazine editor in 1865, that "It should be the object of all to avoid controversy, to allay passion, give full scope to reason and to every kindly feeling. By doing this and encouraging our citizens to engage in the duties of life with all their heart and mind, with a determination not to be turned aside by thoughts of the past and fears of the future, our country will not only be restored in material prosperity, but will be advanced in science, in virtue and in religion."[|[38]] Lee attended a meeting of ex-Confederates in 1870, during which he expressed regrets about his surrender at [|Appomattox Court House], given the effects of Republican Reconstruction policy on the South. Speaking to former Confederate Governor of Texas [|Fletcher Stockdale], he said:

Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people [Yankees] designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in my right hand.[|[39]]



Citizenship
Oath of amnesty submitted by Robert E. Lee in 1865. Lee sent his request for a complete individual pardon, along with an [|oath of allegiance], to President [|Andrew Johnson] in 1865,[|[40]] and his application for amnesty encouraged many other former members of the Confederacy's armed forces to accept restored U.S. citizenship.[//[|citation needed]//] However, the application was delivered to the desk of Secretary of State [|William H. Seward], who, assuming that the matter had been dealt with by someone else and that this was just a personal copy, filed it away.[//[|citation needed]//] Lee took the lack of response to mean that the government wished to retain the right to prosecute him in the future.[//[|citation needed]//] (Lee's right to vote was restored in 1888.)[|[40]] [|Elmer Oris Parker],[//[|citation needed]//] an employee of the [|National Archives], found the oath of allegiance in 1970[|[41]] among old State Department records.[|[40]] In 1975 after a five-year campaign by Senator [|Harry F. Byrd, Jr.], a resolution to posthumously restore Lee's full rights of citizenship passed by a unanimous April [|U.S. Senate] vote and a 407-10, [|U.S. House of Representatives] vote,[|[40]] with the resolution effective June 13, 1975.[//[|citation needed]//] President [|Gerald R. Ford] signed the resolution on August 5, 1975 on the portico of the [|Lee mansion], with a dozen of Lee's descendants attending (including **Robert E. Lee V**, great-great-grandson).[|[40]] 

Illness and death
So-called "Recumbent Statue" of Robert E. Lee in Lee Chapel in Lexington, Virginia, of Lee asleep on the battlefield, sculpted by [|Edward Valentine]. It is often mistakenly thought to be a tomb or [|sarcophagus], but Lee is actually buried elsewhere in the chapel. On September 28, 1870, Lee suffered a [|stroke] that left him without the ability to speak. Lee died from the effects of [|pneumonia] shortly after 9 a.m. on October 12, 1870, in [|Lexington], Virginia. He was buried underneath [|Lee Chapel] at [|Washington and Lee University], where his body remains today. According to J. William Jones' //Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee//, his last words, on the day of his death, were "Tell [|Hill] he must come up. Strike the tent," but this is debatable because of conflicting accounts. Since Lee's stroke resulted in [|aphasia], last words may have been impossible. Lee was treated [|homeopathically] for this illness.[|[42]] 

Legacy
Among Southerners, Lee came to be even more revered after his surrender than he had been during the war (when [|Stonewall Jackson] had been the great Confederate hero, particularly after Jackson's death at Chancellorsville). Admirers pointed to his character and devotion to duty, not to mention his brilliant tactical successes in battle after battle against a stronger foe. Military historians continue to pay attention to his battlefield tactics and maneuvering, though many think he should have designed better strategic plans for the Confederacy. However, it should be noted that he was not given full direction of the Southern war effort until very late in the conflict. His reputation continued to build and by 1900 his cult had spread into the North, signaling a national [|apotheosis].[|[43]] Today among the devotees of "The Lost Cause," General Lee is referred to as "The Marble Man." 
 * < **“** || He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbour without reproach; a [|Christian] without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a [|Caesar], without his ambition; [|Frederick], without his tyranny; [|Napoleon], without his selfishness, and [|Washington], without his reward. ||> **”** ||
 * —Benjamin Harvey Hill of Georgia referring to Robert Edward Lee during an address before the Southern Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia on February 18, 1874[|[44]][|[45]] ||

Civil War-era letters
On September 29, 2007, General Lee's 3 Civil War-era letters were sold for $61,000 at auction by Thomas Willcox, much less than the record of $630,000 for a Lee item in 2002. The auction included more than 400 documents of Lee's from the estate of the parents of Willcox that had been in the family for generations. [|South Carolina] sued to stop the sale on the grounds that the letters were official documents and therefore property of the state, but the court ruled in favor of Wilcox.[|[46]]

=Military of the Confederate States of America=

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: [|navigation], [|search] Seal of the Confederate States of America Second CSA Naval Jack First CSA Naval Jack The **Military of the Confederate States of America** comprised three branches: Members of all the Confederate States military forces, to include the Army, the Navy and the Marine Corps were often referred to as "[|Confederates]", and members of the CS Army were referred to as "Confederate soldiers". hide] * [|1] [|Command and Control] 
 * [|Confederate States Army] - The **Confederate States Army** (**CS Army**) the land-based [|military] operations. The CS Army was established in two phases with provisional and permanent organizations, which existed concurrently.
 * The **Provisional Army of the Confederate States** (**PACS**) was authorized by Act of Congress on February 23, 1862, and began organizing on April 27.
 * The **Army of the Confederate States of America** (**ACSA**) was the regular army, organized by Act of Congress on March 6, 1861.[|[1]] It was authorized to include 15,015 men, including 744 officers, but this level was never achieved. The men serving in the highest rank as Confederate States Generals, such as [|Samuel Cooper] and [|Robert E. Lee], were enrolled in the ACSA to ensure that they outranked all militia officers.
 * Confederate States **State Militias** were organized and commanded by the state governments, similar to those authorized by the United States [|Militia Act of 1792].
 * [|Confederate States Navy] - responsible for Confederate naval operations during the [|American Civil War]. The two major tasks of the Confederate Navy during the whole of its existence were the protection of [|Southern] harbors and coastlines from outside invasion, and making the war costly for the [|North] by attacking merchant ships and breaking the [|Union Blockade].
 * [|Confederate States Marine Corps] - a branch of the [|Confederate States Navy], was established by an act of the [|Congress of the Confederate States] on March 16, 1861. The CSMC's manpower was initially authorized at 45 officers and 944 enlisted men, and was increased on September 24, 1862 to 1026 enlisted men. The organization of the [|Marines] began at [|Montgomery, Alabama] and was completed at [|Richmond, Virginia] when the capital of the [|Confederate States of America] was moved to that location. The CMSC headquarters and main training facilities remained in Richmond, Virginia throughout the war, located at Camp Beall on Drewry's Bull and at the Gosport Shipyard in [|Norfolk, Virginia].[|[2]]
 * ==Contents==
 * [|1.1] [|Military leaders]
 * [|2] [|African Americans in the Confederate Military]
 * [|3] [|Supply]
 * [|4] [|See also]
 * [|5] [|References]
 * [|6] [|External links] ||

[[|edit]] Command and Control
Control and operation of the Confederate States Army was administered by the [|Confederate States War Department], which was established by the [|Confederate Provisional Congress] in an act on February 21, 1861. The Confederate Congress gave control over military operations, and authority for mustering state forces and volunteers to the [|President of the Confederate States of America] on February 28, 1861 and March 6, 1861. By May 8, a provision authorizing enlistments for war was enacted, and by August 8, 1861 the Confederate States, after being invaded [|[3]] [|[4]] [|[5]] [|[6]] [|[7]] [|[8]] [|[9]] [|[10]] [|[11]] and attacked by the United States of America, called for 400,000 volunteers to serve for one or three years. By April 1862, the Confederate States of America found it necessary to pass a conscription act, which drafted men into PACS. The Confederate military leadership included many veterans from the [|United States Army] and [|United States Navy] who had resigned their Federal commissions and had won appointment to senior positions in the Confederate armed forces. Many had served in the [|Mexican-American War] (including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis), but others had little or no military experience (such as [|Leonidas Polk], who had attended [|West Point] but did not graduate.) The Confederate officer corps was composed in part of young men from slave-owning families, but many came from non-owners. The Confederacy appointed junior and field grade officers by election from the enlisted ranks. Although no Army service academy was established for the Confederacy, many colleges of the South (such as the [|The Citadel] and [|Virginia Military Institute]) maintained cadet corps that were seen as a training ground for Confederate military leadership. A naval academy was established at [|Drewry’s Bluff], Virginia[|[12]] in 1863, but no midshipmen had graduated by the time the Confederacy collapsed. The soldiers of the Confederate armed forces consisted mainly of white males with an average age between sixteen and twenty-eight.[//[|citation needed]//] The Confederacy adopted [|conscription] in 1862. Many thousands of slaves served as laborers, cooks, and pioneers. Some freed blacks and men of color served in local state militia units of the Confederacy, primarily in Louisiana and South Carolina, but their officers deployed them for "local defense, not combat."[|[13]] Depleted by casualties and desertions, the military suffered chronic manpower shortages. In the spring of 1865 the Confederate Congress, influenced by the public support by General Lee, approved the recruitment of black infantry units. Contrary to Lee’s and Davis’ recommendations, the Congress refused “to guarantee the freedom of black volunteers.” No more than two hundred troops were ever raised.[|[14]] 

[[|edit]] Military leaders
Military leaders of the Confederacy (with their state or country of birth and highest rank[|[15]]) included: General Robert E. Lee, for many, the face of the Confederate army For more details on this topic, see [|History of Confederate States Army Generals].
 * [|Robert E. Lee] ([|Virginia]) - [|General] and [|General-in-Chief] (1865)
 * [|Albert Sidney Johnston] (Kentucky) - General
 * [|Joseph E. Johnston] (Virginia) - General
 * [|Braxton Bragg] (North Carolina) - General
 * [|P.G.T. Beauregard] (Louisiana) - General
 * [|Richard S. Ewell] (Virginia) - [|Lieutenant General]
 * [|Samuel Cooper] ([|New York]) - General (Adjutant General and highest ranking general in the Army); not in combat
 * [|James Longstreet] (South Carolina) - Lieutenant General
 * [|Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson] (Virginia now [|West Virginia])- Lieutenant General
 * [|John Hunt Morgan] (Kentucky) - [|Brigadier General]
 * [|A.P. Hill] (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
 * [|John Bell Hood] (Kentucky) - Lieutenant General
 * [|Wade Hampton III] (South Carolina) - Lieutenant General
 * [|Nathan Bedford Forrest] (Tennessee) - Lieutenant General
 * [|John Singleton Mosby], the "Grey Ghost of the Confederacy" (Virginia) - Colonel
 * [|J.E.B. Stuart] (Virginia) - [|Major General]
 * [|Edward Porter Alexander] (Georgia) - Brigadier General
 * [|Franklin Buchanan] (Maryland) - [|Admiral]
 * [|Raphael Semmes] (Maryland) - [|Rear Admiral] ([|Brigadier General])
 * [|Josiah Tattnall] (Georgia) - [|Commodore]
 * [|Stand Watie] ([|Georgia]) - Brigadier General (last to surrender)
 * [|Leonidas Polk] (North Carolina) - Lieutenant General
 * [|Sterling Price] (Virginia) - Major General
 * [|Jubal Anderson Early] (Virginia) - Lieutenant General
 * [|Richard Taylor] (Kentucky) - Lieutenant General (Son of U.S. President [|Zachary Taylor])
 * [|Lloyd J. Beall] (South Carolina) - [|Colonel] - Commandant of the Confederate States Marine Corps
 * [|William Lamb] (Virginia) - Colonel - Commandant of [|Fort Fisher]
 * [|Stephen Dodson Ramseur] (North Carolina) Major General
 * [|Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac] (France) Major General
 * [|John Austin Wharton] (Tennessee) Major General
 * [|Thomas L. Rosser] (Virginia) Major General
 * [|Patrick Cleburne] ([|Ireland]) Brigadier General

[[|edit]] African Americans in the Confederate Military
See main article: //[|Military history of African Americans in the U.S. Civil War]// "Nearly 40% of the Confederacy's population were unfree ... the work required to sustain the same society during war naturally fell disproportionately on black shoulders as well. By drawing so many white men into the army, indeed, the war multiplied the importance of the black work force."[|[16]] Even Georgia's Governor [|Joseph E. Brown] noted that "the country and the army are mainly dependent upon slave labor for support." [|[17]] Slave labor was used in a wide variety of support roles, from infrastructure and mining, to teamster and medical roles such as hospital attendants and nurses.[|[18]] The idea of arming slaves for use as soldiers was speculated on from the onset of the war, but not seriously considered by Davis or others in his administration.[|[19]] Though an acrimonious and controversial debate was raised by a letter from [|Patrick Cleburne][|[20]] urging the Confederacy to raise black soldiers by offering emancipation, it wouldn't be until [|Robert E. Lee] wrote the Confederate Congress urging them that the idea would take serious traction. On March 13, 1865, the [|Confederate Congress] passed General Order 14, and President Davis signed the order into law. The order was issued March 23, but only a few African American companies were raised. Two companies were armed and drilled in the streets of [|Richmond, Virginia], shortly before the besieged southern capital fell. 

[[|edit]] Supply
Much like the [|Continental Army] in the [|American Revolution], state governments were supposed to supply their soldiers. The supply situation for most Confederate Armies was dismal even when victorious. The lack of central authority and effective [|railroads], combined the frequent unwillingness or inability of Southern state governments to provide adequate funding, were key factors in the Army's demise. Individual commanders had to "[|beg, borrow or steal]" food and ammunition from whatever sources were available, including captured [|Union] depots and encampments, and private citizens regardless of their loyalties. Lee's campaign against [|Gettysburg] and southern [|Pennsylvania] (a rich agricultural region) was driven in part by his desperate need of supplies, namely food. Not surprisingly, in addition to slowing the Confederate advance such [|foraging] aroused anger in the North and led many Northerners to support [|General Sherman's] [|total warfare] tactics as retaliation. [|Scorched earth] policies especially in [|Georgia], [|South Carolina] and the [|Virginian] [|Shenandoah Valley] proved far more devastating than anything [|Pennsylvania] had suffered and further reduced the capacity of the increasingly-effectively [|blockaded] Confederacy to feed even its civilian population, let alone its Army. At many points during the war, and especially near the end, Confederate Armies were described as starving and, indeed, many died from lack of food and related illnesses. Towards more desperate stages of the war, the lack of food became a principal driving force for [|desertion]. //See article :[|Uniforms of the Confederate Military]// The Uniforms of the Confederate States military forces were the uniforms used by the Confederate Army and Navy during the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865. The uniform varied greatly due to a variety of reasons, such as location, limitations on the supply of cloth and other materials, and the cost of materials during the war. Confederate forces were often poorly supplied with uniforms, especially late in the conflict. Servicemen sometimes wore combinations of uniform pieces combined with captured Union uniforms and items of personal clothing. They sometimes went without shoes altogether, and broad felt or straw hats were worn as often as kepis or naval caps.