lee, robert e.

A general of the nineteenth century; the commander of Confederate troops during the Civil War. Before the war, he led the marines who put down the insurrection by John Brown at Harpers Ferry and took Brown captive. In the war, he led the Army of Northern Virginia and won the Battle of Chancellorsville but lost the Battle of Gettysburg. He surrendered to the Union army, under the command of Ulysses S. Grant, at Appomattox Court House in 1865.