Background
LEE, Stephen Dill was born on September 22, 1833 in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Thomas and Caroline (Allison) Lee.
college president General military politician
LEE, Stephen Dill was born on September 22, 1833 in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Thomas and Caroline (Allison) Lee.
Graduate West Point, 1854. Doctor of Laws, Tulane University, Louisiana. First lieutenant 4th artillery, United States of America, 1854-1861, and 3 years regimental q. m. in same.
Became captain in C.S.A. Afterward served in C.S.A. as captain, major, lieutenant colonel, colonel, brigadier general, major general and Lieutenant general Took part in battles around Richmond, 1862.
In 2d Bulletin Run, Sharpsburg, Vicksburg campaign.
Commanded Confederates at Chickasaw Bayou, Mississippi, when Sherman was defeated, and in battles of Tupelo, Mississippi. Atlanta, Georgia.; Jonesborough, Georgia. Franklin, Nashville, et cetera
Was planter in Mississippi after war.
He graduated seventeenth in a class of forty-six from theU.S. Military Academy in 1854. He had one child by his marriage to Regina Harrison on February 9, 1865. Lee served as adjutant of Florida and quartermaster of his regiment during the Seminole War of 1857.
He also saw frontier service in Kansas and the Dakotas from 1858 to 1861. He resigned his commission in the U.S. Army in February 1861 and volunteered for duty in the Confederate Army. As aide-de-camp to General P.G.T. Beauregard, Lee was sent to demand the surrender of Fort Sumter in the early days of the war.
After fighting at Seven Pines, the Seven Days, and Second Manassas and serving with distinction as artillery commander at Sharpsburg, he was promoted to brigadier general on November 6, 1862. He repulsed Sherman at Chickasaw Bayou, and in May 1863, he was the hero of the battle of Champion Hills. Captured during the siege of Vicksburg, he was soon exchanged.
On August 3, 1863, he was promoted to major general, and on June 23, 1864, he was promoted to lieutenant general in command of the Department of Mississippi and Alabama. He succeeded Hood as commander of the Army of Tennessee and covered the Confederate retreat from Nashville, where he was severely wounded in late 1864. However, he continued to command the Army of Tennessee in the North Carolina campaigns until the war ended.
He surrendered in North Carolina on April 16, 1865, and was paroled that May. After the war, he moved to Columbus, Mississippi, and became a planter. A Democrat, he served in the state Senate in 1878 and was a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1890.
From 1880 to 1899, he was president of Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College, and in 1899, he headed the Vicksburg National Park Association. Author of The South Since the War (1899), he was also head of the United Confederate Veterans.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
Member Constitutional Convention, Mississippi, 1890. Chairman history committee Association of United Confederate Veterans: Lieutenant general commanding Army of Tennessee Department United Confederate Veterans.
Married Regina Lillie Harrison, February 9, 1865.