Fitzhugh Lee

Fitzhugh Lee (1895)

Fitzhugh Lee (born November 19, 1835 in Clermont , Fairfax County , Virginia , † April 18, 1905 in Washington, DC ) was an officer in the US Army before the American Civil War and a general in the Confederate Army during the war . After the war, the nephew Robert E. Lees was governor of Virginia, US diplomat and served as general of the US Army in the war against Spain .

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Lee was the son of Naval Officer Sidney Smith Lee and a grandson of Henry Lee . His mother was a granddaughter of the Virginia politician George Mason ; his uncles included the later Confederate Generals Robert Edward Lee and Samuel Cooper .

Lee attended the US Military Academy at West Point , New York (whose director at the time was his uncle Robert) and graduated in 1856 as the 45th of his class. As a lieutenant in the cavalry he then served in the 2nd US Cavalry Regiment, whose deputy commander was again his uncle Robert. Lee excelled in the fight against the Comanche in Texas . In 1860 he was called to West Point as a cavalry instructor, but left the army in 1861 after the secession of Virginia and joined the armed forces of the Confederation.

Lee was first assigned to General Ewell's staff . In August 1861 he was appointed deputy commander of the 1st Virginia Cavalry Regiment and from March 1862 took over the leadership of the regiment with the rank of colonel . Lee served under General Jeb Stuart during the campaigns of 1862 and 1863, and rose to Brigadier General and Major General under him . He particularly distinguished himself in May 1863 when he shielded General Jackson's flank march with his cavalry brigade during the Battle of Chancellorsville .

Following the reorganization of the Northern Virginia Army's Cavalry Corps in September 1863, Lee became the commander of a cavalry division with which he participated in the Battle of the Wilderness . After Stuart was fatally wounded in the Battle of the Yellow Tavern , he served, among other places, off Petersburg and in the Shenandoah Valley, where he was wounded in the third battle of Winchester. When Wade Hampton was dispatched to South Carolina against General Sherman in the spring of 1865 , Lee became commanding general of the Cavalry Corps of the Northern Virginia Army. He commanded it at Dinwiddie Court House , Five Forks and during the Appomattox campaign .

After the war, Lee devoted himself to his farm in Stafford County, Virginia and got involved in politics. In 1886 he was elected governor of his home state. He held this office until 1890. Six years later he became the American Consul General in Havana, and when the Spanish-American War began in 1898, he was promoted to Major General of the US Army Volunteers and appointed Commanding General of the VII US Corps . The corps was never deployed. Following the war, he was in command of the Missouri Military Area. Lee retired as brigadier general in the regular army in 1901 . He died in Washington four years later.

Lee had written numerous writings. The best known of these is probably "General Lee: A Biography of Robert Edward Lee", a biography of his famous uncle (and superior) Robert Edward Lee.

See also

• List of Confederate Generals in the Civil War

literature

• Fitzhugh Lee: General Lee. A Biography of Robert E. Lee. Reprint. DaCapo Press 1994, ISBN 0306805898 .
• James L. Nichols: General Fitzhugh Lee: A Biography. Lynchburg, VA 1989.
• Edward G. Longacre: Fitz Lee: A Military Biography of Major General Fitzhugh Lee, CSA Cambridge, MA 2004.

Web links

Commons : Fitzhugh Lee  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Fitzhugh Lee at the National Governors Association (English)
• Fitzhugh Lee , short biography on spanamwar.com (English)
• Fitzhugh Lee in the database of Find a Grave (English)