General Robert E. Lee
My report is about General Robert E. Lee and what he did in the civil war. First I will talk about his early life, Then I will talk about his views on slavery and then Finally I will talk about his life after the war.
Robert E. Lee was born at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland county Virginia, the fifth child of Revolutionary war hero Henry Lee also known as Light Horse Harry and Anne Hill Lee. Lee's parents were members of the Virginia gentry class and true Tuckahoes. Tuckahoe was a term used during the 18th and 19th centuries to describe a cultural group. Lee's father died when he was eleven years old, leaving the family deeply in deep debt.
Next I’ll tell you about his views on slavery. Since the end of the Civil War, it has often been said 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 big figure in the lost cause view 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.
Now I will talk about Lee’s life after the war. Lee spent two months in a rented house in Richmond Virginia, and then escaped the unwelcome city life by moving into the overseer's house of a friend's plantation near Cartersville, Virginia. Lee, who had opposed secession and remained mostly indifferent to politics before the Civil War, supported President Andrew Jackson's plan of Presidential reconstruction that took effect in 1865-66. However, he opposed the Radical Republican program that took effect in 1867.
Now I’ve told you about his early life, his view on slavery, and his life after war. I hope you are more informed on Robert E. Lee now that you have read this essay.