Claim: Ulysses S. Grant fought the Civil War.

Robert Edward Lee -LRB- January 19 , 1807 -- October 12 , 1870 -RRB- was an American general known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865 . The son of Revolutionary War officer Henry `` Light Horse Harry '' Lee III , Lee was a top graduate of the United States Military Academy and an exceptional officer and military engineer in the United States Army for 32 years . During this time , he served throughout the United States , distinguished himself during the Mexican -- American War , and served as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy .   When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in April 1861 , Lee chose to follow his home state , despite his personal desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command . During the first year of the Civil War , Lee served as a senior military adviser to President Jefferson Davis . Once he took command of the main field army in 1862 he soon emerged as a shrewd tactician and battlefield commander , winning most of his battles , all against far superior Union armies . Lee 's strategic foresight was more questionable , and both of his major offensives into Union territory ended in defeat . Lee 's aggressive tactics , which resulted in high casualties at a time when the Confederacy had a shortage of manpower , have come under criticism in recent years . Lee surrendered his entire army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9 , 1865 . By this time , Lee had assumed supreme command of the remaining Southern armies ; other Confederate forces swiftly capitulated after his surrender . Lee rejected the proposal of a sustained insurgency against the Union and called for reconciliation between the two sides .   After the war , as President of what is now Washington and Lee University , Lee supported President Andrew Johnson 's program of Reconstruction and intersectional friendship , while opposing the Radical Republican proposals to give freed slaves the vote and take the vote away from ex-Confederates . He urged them to rethink their position between the North and the South , and the reintegration of former Confederates into the nation 's political life . Lee became the great Southern hero of the War , a postwar icon of the `` Lost Cause of the Confederacy '' to some . But his popularity grew even in the North , especially after his death in 1870 . Barracks at West Point built in 1962 are named after him .