LEE, SIDNEY (1859 )

This article appears in Volume V16, Page 364 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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LEE, SIDNEY (1859 ) , English man of letters, was born in London on the 5th of December 1859. He was educated at the City of London school, and at Balliol. College, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history in 1882. In the next year he became assistant-editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. In 1890 he was made joint-editor, and on the retirement of Sir Leslie Stephen in 1891 succeeded him as editor. He was himself a voluminous contributor to the work, writing some Soo articles, mainly on Elizabethan authors or statesmen. While he was still at Balliol he wrote two articles on Shakespearian questions, which were printed in the

Gentleman

GENTLEMAN (from Lat. gentilis, " belonging to a race or gens," and " man "; Fr. gentilhomme, Span. gentil hombre, Ital. gentil huomo, in its
original
- ORIGINAL
and strict signification, a term denoting a man of good family, the Lat. generosus (its invariable transl

's Magazine, and in 1884 he published a book on Stratford-on-Avon. His article on Shakespeare in the fifty-first volume (1897) of the Dictionary of National Biography formed the basis of his Life of William Shakespeare (1898), which reached its fifth edition in 1905. Mr Lee edited in 1902 the Oxford facsimile edition of the first folio of Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, followed in 1902 and 1904 by supplementary volumes giving details of extant copies, and in 1906 by a complete edition of
Lee and J. E. B. Stuart, all of whom became general officers in the Civil War. In 1855 he was appointed as lieut.-colonel to the 2nd Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Sidney Johnston, with whom he served against the Indians of the

Texas

TEXAS

border. In 18J9, while at Arlington on leave, he was summoned to command the United States troops sent to deal with the John Brown raid on Harper's Ferry. In March 1861 he was made colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry; but his career in the old army ended with the secession of Virginia in the following month. Lee was strongly averse to secession, but felt obliged to conform to the action of his own state. The Federal authorities offered Lee the command of the field army about to invade the South, which he refused. Resigning his commission, he made his way to Richmond and was at once made a major-general in the Virginian forces. A few weeks later he became a brigadier-general (then the highest rank) in the Confederate service.
The military operations with which the great Civil War opened in 1861 were directed by President Davis and General Lee. Lee was personally in charge of the unsuccessful West Virginian operations in the autumn, and, having been made a full general on the 31st of August, during the winter he devoted his experience as an engineer to the fortification and general defence of the Atlantic coast. Thence, when the well-drilled Army of the Potomac was about to descend upon Richmond, he was hurriedly recalled to Richmond. General Johnston was wounded at the battle of Fair Oaks (Seven Pines) on the 31st of May 1862, and General Robert E. Lee was assigned to the command of the famous Army of Northern Virginia which for the next three years " carried the rebellion on its bayonets." Little can be said of Lee's career as a

commander

COMMANDER

-in-

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

that is not an integral part of the history of the Civil War. His first success was the " Seven Days' Battle " (q.v.) in which he stopped McClellan's advance; this was quickly followed up by the crushing defeat of the Federal army under Pope, the invasion of Maryland and the sanguinary and indecisive battle of the Antietam (q.v.). The year ended with another great victory at Fredericksburg (q v.) Chancellorsville (see WILDERNESS), won against odds of two to one, and the great three days' battle of Gettysburg (q.v.), where for the first time fortune turned decisively against the Confederates, were the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

events of 1863. In the autumn Lee fought a war of manoeuvre against General Meade. The tremendous struggle of 1864 between Lee and Grant included the battles of the Wilderness (q.v.),

Spottsylvania

SPOTTSYLVANIA

, North Anna, Cold Harbor and the long siege of

Petersburg

PETERSBURG

(q.v.), in which, almost invariably, Lee was locally successful. But the steady pressure of his unrelenting opponent slowly wore down his strength. At last with not more than one man to oppose to Grant's three he was compelled to break out of his

Petersburg

PETERSBURG

lines (April 1865). A

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of heavy combats revealed his purpose, and Grant pursued the dwindling remnants of. Lee's army to the westward. Headed off by the Federal cavalry, and pressed closely in rear by Grant's main

body

BODY

, General Lee had no alternative but to surrender. At Appomattox Court

House

, on the 9th of April, the career of the Army of Northern Virginia came to an end. Lee's farewell order was issued on the following day, and within a few weeks the Confederacy was at an end. For a few months Lee lived quietly in Powhatan county, making his formal submission to the Federal authorities and urging on his own people acceptance of the new conditions. In August he was offered, and accepted, the presidency of Washing-ton College, Lexington (now Washington and Lee University), a post which he occupied until his death on the 12th of October 187o He was buried in the college grounds.
Fur the events of Lee's military career briefly indicated in this notice the reader is referred to the articles AMERICAN C1v11, WAR, &c. By his achievements he won a high place amongst the great generals of history. Though hampered by lack of materials and by political necessities, his strategy was daring always, and he never hesitated to take the gravest risks. On the field of battle he was as energetic in attack as he was constant in defence, and his personal influence over the men
Shakespeare's Works. Besides editions of English classics his works include a Life of Queen Victoria (1902), Great Englishmen of the Sixteenth Century (1904), based on his Lowell Institute lectures at Boston, Mass., in 1903, and Shakespeare and the Modern Stage (1996).

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