History UsefulNotes / RobertELee

The ([[InsistentTerminology white]]) South’s crusade to justify itself started with Appomattox, if not earlier. The experts had promised to [[WhosLaughingNow slap around Yankees]] for a bit and then HomeByChristmas, and delivered an absolute, soul-crushing, all-encompassing defeat: hundreds of thousands dead, infrastructure destroyed, property destroyed (or [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere emancipated]]), and an army of occupation. Beyond all of that, their way of life was destroyed: loss of identity is as painful for unsympathetic societies as it is for sympathetic ones. As the Lost Cause warrior Jubal Early put it, all was lost but honor, and that must be guarded religiously.

[[folder: Lee in the Civil War]

[[folder: EARLY LIFE (well, up to age 54)]]

[[folder: LEE IN THE CIVIL WAR]]

[[folder: AFTER THE WAR AND INTO THE LOST CAUSE]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2023_10_14_at_50340_pm.png]]

'''Robert Edward Lee''' (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a United States colonel and Confederate general. He commanded the most successful army of the [[UsefulNotes/RebelsWithRepeaters Confederacy]].

[[quoteright:463:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2023_10_14_at_50340_pm.png]]

This rapidly became a secular near-worship that removed all of Lee’s flaws as a general or human being. He stopped being a normal person, with the usual interplay of drives and limitations, and was replaced by a serene blob of duty and fatherliness. Improved!Lee is a Christian paragon who cheerfully chose duty over ambition in 1861 [[note]] This was not a happy choice for him, and that his highest duty was to Virginia was and is far from unambiguous. To stay or not was an irrevocable, life-defining decision, and the officers involved made it for reasons that feel like rationalizations to a twenty-first century reader. Common justifications for staying include their oath to uphold the Constitution (which is irrelevant if the South had a right to secede) or the precise wording of their commissions (which nearly all of them, save Twiggs, resigned before acting against the Union). Another was that the Federal government had paid for their education, which was thrown at Lee. Post-war, he said privately that the argument didn’t make sense because he’d been sent to West Point by ''Virginia'', which simply increased its claim on him. Either way, in the end many Virginian soldiers stayed with the Union, as did a third of the state. His own family was split, like many others, and he had relatives who never spoke to him again. [[/note]] despite hating slavery [[note]] He was a bog-standard slave owner, and if he hated slavery, it was with the white-hot passion of a soccer mom who’ll trade in the SUV for a Prius to save the planet… ''someday''. The Lee-as-Abolitionist case mostly if not entirely consists of a single private letter to his wife. A better single letter to sum up his feelings was one to Jefferson Davis saying that the Emancipation Proclamation was a brutal policy, and that losing the war now meant a FateWorseThanDeath. [[/note]], who lived above anger [[note]] He had a temper, and could lose it easily, especially during the war[[/note]], fought without hate [[note]] He was depicted as not using language stronger than “those people” to refer to Union forces, when he had no problem with “foe”, “enemy”, or “[[TakeThat the miscreant Pope]]”. He could seethe over what he felt were Northern injustices during and after the war. Years after a family member was hanged for dressing as a Union officer—lawfully hanged, the man himself admitted—he wrote that his blood still boiled over at “the atrocious outrage, against every manly and Christian sentiment.” [[/note]], who never smoked or drank [[note]] This is true. One winter night, he told his staff he was going to pour them some good stuff… [[{{Troll}} and passed around buttermilk]]. [[/note]] or had a vice of any kind [[note]] Being Straight Edge is one thing, abstaining from ''fiction'' is another. He wrote his wife, “Never touch a novel. They print beauty more charming than nature, and describe happiness that never exists.” TvTropes would have been wasted on him, that poor deprived bastard. [[/note]], while also a War God unbeatable at anything resembling even odds. Grant was cast as a crude [[GeneralRipper butcher]], with an IQ of “potato”, whose only qualification was the callousness necessary to throw bodies into the woodchipper until it clogged [[note]] Jubal Early, on Grant, “Shall I compare General Lee to his successful antagonist? As well compare the great pyramid which rears it majestic proportions in the Valley of the Nile, to a pygmy perched on Mount Atlas.” Though, in fairness, the Grant-as-Butcher image pre-dated the Lost Cause, going at least as far back as the Overland Campaign. The Northern public was disgusted with the massive number of corpses he was producing, to the point where Lincoln, Pre-Atlanta-and-Mobile-Bay, thought he was going to lose reelection. [[/note]]. Such victory requires no skill; delaying it for so long shows how amazing Lee is.

There ''is'' some merit to this [[note]] There’s an argument to be made that he was so at odds with Lee over strategy, that he irritably slow-rolled his attack on the second day. Longstreet asserted that Lee told him he’d march north then go on defense. Lee went to Gettysburg and attacked. Lee said to a former staffer, William Allan, that he’d heard of Longstreet’s claims, but didn’t believe that he really made them, that they were absurd. [[/note]], but it was mostly political. Longstreet, who improbably survived taking a sixty-caliber bullet to the throat, collaborated with the damyankees, especially the damnedest Yankee of them all, his old friend Ulysses S. Grant. He took federal jobs from Republicans. He commanded black militias. He criticized Lee in print. He stated that if the war wasn’t about slavery, he had no idea what it was about. Then, as if this wasn’t enough, Longstreet surpassed himself in evil… and became a Catholic [[note]] “Woo-wee! If ah weren’t married ah’d get me an ayeboleeshinist black woman and ''really'' piss ‘em off!” [[/note]]. This made him both a lightning rod of criticism, and useful. The anti-Longstreet camp leveraged their (often-extensive) military credentials to assure the public that Lee was about to win, about to simply destroy the Union army and march on Washington for final victory, but failed due to Longstreet’s sullen insubordination on the second day [[note]] The closest thing we have to Lee’s opinion on all this is a post-war conversation he had with William Allan. He said that all of his commanders did poorly that battle, but singled out ''Ewell'' instead of Longstreet for special blame, while noting that the battle wouldn’t have taken place there at all but for Stuart. And, although he didn’t mention it with that staffer at that time, Lee never denied his full responsibility for Pickett’s Charge. There was also never any intention of capturing Washington, by this point the most fortified city in North America, if not on Earth. [[/note]]. Lee’s only mistake is that he didn’t push Longstreet harder. It was an inverted StealthInsult: he was simply [[IncorruptiblePurePureness too pure a gentleman]] to crassly bully someone into doing the basic functions of their extremely coveted job. The man was a complete exemplar of the Good South, right down to his flaws [[note]] Again, in fairness: even during the war a foreign observer wrote that Lee’s only fault he could learn about was his “excessive amiability”. But Lee’s manner was perfectly suited for the Southern elites that he worked with. No one accuses his leadership of excessive amiability for all the battles that he ''won''. He certainly wasn’t so amiable that he couldn’t fire a swath of generals after the Seven Days, or to fire Ewell, a man he then and always liked. [[/note]].

There ''is'' some merit to this [[note]] There’s an argument to be made that he was so at odds with Lee over strategy, that he irritably slow-rolled his attack on the second day. Longstreet asserted that Lee told him he’d march north then go on defense. Lee went to Gettysburg and attacked. Lee said to a former staffer, William Allan, that he’d heard of Longstreet’s claims, but didn’t believe that he really made them, that they were absurd. [[/note]], but it was mostly political. Longstreet, who improbably survived taking a sixty-caliber bullet to the throat, collaborated with the damyankees, especially the damnedest Yankee of them all, his old friend Ulysses S. Grant. He took federal jobs from Republicans. He commanded black militias. He criticized Lee in print. He stated that if the war wasn’t about slavery, he had no idea what it was about. Then, as if this wasn’t enough, Longstreet surpassed himself in evil… and became a Catholic [[note]] “Woo-wee! If ah weren’t married ah’d get me an ayeboleeshinist black woman and ''really'' piss ‘em off!” [[/note]]. This made him both a lightning rod of criticism, and useful. The anti-Longstreet camp leveraged their (often-extensive) military credentials to assure the public that Lee was about to win, about to simply destroy the Union army and march on Washington for final victory, but failed due to Longstreet’s sullen insubordination on the second day [[note]] The closest thing we have to Lee’s opinion on all this is a post-war conversation he had with William Allan. He said that all of his commanders did poorly that battle, but singled out ''Ewell'' instead of Longstreet for special blame, while noting that the battle wouldn’t have taken place there at all but for Stuart. And, although he didn’t mention it with that staffer at that time, Lee never denied his full responsibility for Pickett’s Charge. There was also never any intention of capturing Washington, by this point the most fortified city in North America, if not on Earth. [[/note]]. Lee’s only mistake is that he didn’t push Longstreet harder. It was an inverted StealthInsult: he was simply [[IncorruptiblePurePureness too pure a gentleman]] to crassly bully someone into doing their job. The man was a complete exemplar of the Good South, right down to his flaws [[note]] Again, in fairness: even during the war a foreign observer wrote that Lee’s only fault he could learn about was his “excessive amiability”. But Lee’s manner was perfectly suited for the Southern elites that he worked with. No one accuses his leadership of excessive amiability for all the battles that he ''won''. He certainly wasn’t so amiable that he couldn’t fire a swath of generals after the Seven Days, or to fire Ewell, a man he then and always liked. [[/note]].

The Seven [[note]]Arguably Six. Lee’s offensive was fought over six days. The day before he started, [=McClellan=] started an indecisive battle, which didn’t affect Lee’s timetable[[/note]] Days Battles were the closest the Army of Northern Virginia would ever get to fighting with even numbers [[note]]Ninety thousand against one-hundred-fifteen thousand[[/note]]. The first battle, Mechanicsville, made [=McClellan=] retreat. [=McClellan=] won but retreated anyway [[note]]He believed a large Confederate force was about to land on his supply lines[[/note]]. His hope was to get to Harrison’s Landing, where he’d be protected by the Union Navy. Lee wanted to capture or destroy the entire army [[note]] A running theme with Lee was the need to ''destroy'' the enemy army, not just fight it off. Forcing the Union to retreat after inflicting equal damage is just a slow path to losing the war, given how much larger the Union was. Lee needed to put the entire 115k Union Army out of commission. He took great risks to accomplish this after his victories, but never could quite pull it off. After the war, a former staffer wrote that Lee said, “Everything was risky in our war. He knew oftentimes that he was playing a bery[sic] bold game, but it was the only ‘’possible’’ one.” [[/note]] before he could do that. The next day’s Battle of Gaines’ Mill— Lee’s only clear victory in the Seven Days—was less damaging than it could have been, and he couldn’t take advantage of it. The following Battles of Savage Station and Glendale were indecisive. In every battle, Lee either couldn’t get coordination from his units, or they didn’t move quickly enough. 20/20 hindsight reveals that Lee’s planning was too intricate, and he was commanding too many divisions with too little staff. The last chance to stop the Union’s escape was Malvern Hill. Lee, in desperation/frustration, ordered major frontal assaults on an entrenched Union position, with the predictable result of bloody failure [[note]]General D. H. Hill would later write that it "was not war; it was murder.” Lee ordered Pickett’s Charge one year and two days later, and if that wasn’t murder, it wasn’t much better. [[/note]]. The Confederate people were ecstatic; Lee was deeply dissatisfied the [=McClellan=] got away. He [[ReassignedToAntarctica transferred out]] commanders who had failed, then rearranged his command, putting his cavalry under J.E.B. Stuart, and splitting his infantry between James Longstreet and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson [[note]] Longstreet and Stuart did very well up to that point, Lee even going so far as to call Longstreet the staff in his right hand. In contrast, Jackson almost systematically botched his duties during the Seven Days, at one point falling asleep mid-battle. His generalship ''before'' the Seven Days was solid, however, and the public held him in high esteem for his conduct at the Battle of First Bull Run, and for his lone-wolf Valley Campaign, where his forces kept three times it’s number from reinforcing [=McClellan=]. This is probably why Lee kept him[[/note]]. Those three made up his DreamTeam.

* ''Series/TheWildWildWest'' episode The Night Of Fire and Brimstone has Gordon disguise himself as Lee to get an insane Civil War holdout to stand down

This rapidly became a secular near-worship that removed all of Lee’s flaws as a general or human being. He stopped being a normal person, with the usual interplay of drives and limitations, and was replaced by a serene blob of duty and fatherliness. Improved!Lee is a Christian paragon who cheerfully chose duty over ambition in 1861 [[note]] This was not a happy choice for him, and that his highest duty was to Virginia was and is far from unambiguous. Many Virginian soldiers stayed with the Union, as did a third of the state. His own family was split, like many others, and he had relatives who never spoke to him again. [[/note]] despite hating slavery [[note]] He was a bog-standard slave owner, and if he hated slavery, it was with the white-hot passion of a soccer mom who’ll trade in the SUV for a Prius to save the planet… ''someday''. The Lee-as-Abolitionist case mostly if not entirely consists of a single private letter to his wife. A better single letter to sum up his feelings was one to Jefferson Davis saying that the Emancipation Proclamation was a brutal policy, and that losing the war now meant a FateWorseThanDeath. [[/note]], who lived above anger [[note]] He had a temper, and could lose it easily, especially during the war[[/note]], fought without hate [[note]] He was depicted as not using language stronger than “those people” to refer to Union forces, when he had no problem with “foe”, “enemy”, or “[[TakeThat the miscreant Pope]]”. He could seethe over what he felt were Northern injustices during and after the war. Years after a family member was hanged for dressing as a Union officer—lawfully hanged, the man himself admitted—he wrote that his blood still boiled over at “the atrocious outrage, against every manly and Christian sentiment.” [[/note]], who never smoked or drank [[note]] This is true. One winter night, he told his staff he was going to pour them some good stuff… [[{{Troll}} and passed around buttermilk]]. [[/note]] or had a vice of any kind [[note]] Being Straight Edge is one thing, abstaining from ''fiction'' is another. He wrote his wife, “Never touch a novel. They print beauty more charming than nature, and describe happiness that never exists.” TvTropes would have been wasted on him, that poor deprived bastard. [[/note]], while also a War God unbeatable at anything resembling even odds. Grant was cast as a crude [[GeneralRipper butcher]], with an IQ of “potato”, whose only qualification was the callousness necessary to throw bodies into the woodchipper until it clogged [[note]] Jubal Early, on Grant, “Shall I compare General Lee to his successful antagonist? As well compare the great pyramid which rears it majestic proportions in the Valley of the Nile, to a pygmy perched on Mount Atlas.” Though, in fairness, the Grant-as-Butcher image pre-dated the Lost Cause, going at least as far back as the Overland Campaign. The Northern public was disgusted with the massive number of corpses he was producing, to the point where Lincoln, Pre-Atlanta-and-Mobile-Bay, thought he was going to lose reelection. [[/note]]. Such victory requires no skill; delaying it for so long shows how amazing Lee is.

There ''is'' some merit to this [[note]] There’s an argument to be made that he was so at odds with Lee over strategy, that he irritably slow-rolled his attack on the second day. Longstreet asserted that Lee told him he’d march north then go on defense. Lee went to Gettysburg and attacked. Lee said to a former staffer, William Allan, that he’d heard of Longstreet’s claims, but didn’t believe that he really made them, that they were absurd. [[/note]], but it was mostly political. Longstreet, who improbably survived taking a sixty-caliber bullet to the throat, collaborated with the damyankees, especially the damnedest Yankee of them all, his old friend Ulysses S. Grant. He took federal jobs from Republicans. He commanded black militias. He criticized Lee in print. He stated that if the war wasn’t about slavery, he had no idea what it was about. Then, as if this wasn’t enough, Longstreet surpassed himself in evil… and became a Catholic [[note]] “Woo-wee! If ah weren’t married ah’d marry me an ayeboleeshinist black woman and ''really'' piss ‘em off!” [[/note]]. This made him both a lightning rod of criticism, and useful. The anti-Longstreet camp leveraged their (often-extensive) military credentials to assure the public that Lee was about to win, about to simply destroy the Union army and march on Washington for final victory, but failed due to Longstreet’s sullen insubordination on the second day [[note]] The closest thing we have to Lee’s opinion on all this is a post-war conversation he had with William Allan. He said that all of his commanders did poorly that battle, but singled out ''Ewell'' instead of Longstreet for special blame, while noting that the battle wouldn’t have taken place there at all but for Stuart. And, although he didn’t mention it with that staffer at that time, Lee never denied his full responsibility for Pickett’s Charge. There was also never any intention of capturing Washington, by this point the most fortified city in North America, if not on Earth. [[/note]]. Lee’s only mistake is that he didn’t push Longstreet harder. It was an inverted StealthInsult: he was simply [[IncorruptiblePurePureness too pure a gentleman]] to crassly bully someone into doing their job. The man was a complete exemplar of the Good South, right down to his flaws [[note]] Again, in fairness: even during the war a foreign observer wrote that Lee’s only fault he could learn about was his “excessive amiability”. But Lee’s manner was perfectly suited for the Southern elites that he worked with. No one accuses his leadership of excessive amiability for all the battles that he ''won''. He certainly wasn’t so amiable that he couldn’t fire a swath of generals after the Seven Days, or to fire Ewell, a man he then and always liked. [[/note]].

The invasion didn’t start well. J.E.B. Stuart, tasked with screening-reconnaissance, also indulged in another circle around the Yankees. Unlike the other times, as soon as he got to the far side of the Union Army, it started moving north, cutting him off. Lee marched blindly until some of his troops stumbled into the enemy at Gettysburg. The first day was a grand success—his prior orders conveniently had the troops arrive in such aa way as to wreck the Union forces. The snag occurred late in the day when Lee ordered Jackson’s successor Ewell, in his usual suggestion-y way, to take a critical hill “if practicable.” Historians generally agree that Stonewall Jackson would have found it practicable. Richard Ewell didn’t, and by the next morning the Union had dug in under its [[RunningGag new commander]] George Meade.

This rapidly became a secular near-worship that removed all of Lee’s flaws as a general or human being. He stopped being a normal person, with the usual interplay of drives and limitations, and was replaced by a serene blob of duty and fatherliness. Improved!Lee is a Christian paragon who cheerfully chose duty over ambition in 1861 [[note]] This was not a happy choice for him, and that his highest duty was to Virginia was and is far from unambiguous. Many Virginian soldiers stayed with the Union, as did a third of the state. His own family was split, like many others, and he had relatives who never spoke to him again. [[/note]] despite hating slavery [[note]] He was a bog-standard slave owner, and if he hated slavery, it was with the white-hot passion of a soccer mom who’ll trade in the SUV for a Prius to save the planet… ''someday''. The Lee-as-Abolitionist case mostly if not entirely consists of a single private letter to his wife. A better single letter to sum up his feelings was one to Jefferson Davis saying that the Emancipation Proclamation was a brutal policy, and that losing the war now meant a FateWorseThanDeath. [[/note]], who lived above anger [[note]] He had a temper, and could lose it easily, especially during the war[[/note]], fought without hate [[note]] He was depicted as not using language stronger than “those people” to refer to Union forces, when he had no problem with “foe”, “enemy”, or “[[TakeThat the miscreant Pope]]”. He could seethe over what he felt were Northern injustices during and after the war. Years after a family member was hanged for dressing as a Union officer—lawfully hanged, the man himself admitted—he wrote that his blood still boiled over at “the atrocious outrage, against every manly and Christian sentiment.” [[/note]], who never smoked or drank [[note]] This is true. One winter night, he told his staff he was going to pour them some good stuff… [[{{Troll}} and passed around buttermilk]]. [[/note]] or had a vice of any kind [[note]] Being Straight Edge is one thing, abstaining from ''fiction'' is another. He wrote his wife, “Never touch a novel. They print beauty more charming than nature, and describe happiness that never exists.” TvTropes would have been wasted on him, that poor deprived bastard. [[/note]], while also a [[MaryTzu War God]] unbeatable at anything resembling even odds. Grant was cast as a crude [[GeneralRipper butcher]], with an IQ of “potato”, whose only qualification was the callousness necessary to throw bodies into the woodchipper until it clogged [[note]] Jubal Early, on Grant, “Shall I compare General Lee to his successful antagonist? As well compare the great pyramid which rears it majestic proportions in the Valley of the Nile, to a pygmy perched on Mount Atlas.” Though, in fairness, the Grant-as-Butcher image pre-dated the Lost Cause, going at least as far back as the Overland Campaign. The Northern public was disgusted with the massive number of corpses he was producing, to the point where Lincoln, Pre-Atlanta-and-Mobile-Bay, thought he was going to lose reelection. [[/note]]. Such victory requires no skill; delaying it for so long shows how amazing Lee is.

On the second day Lee ordered attacks from all directions to take the hill. It didn’t work, in part due to a [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment controversial]] performance from James Longstreet. On the third day, Lee decided on a risky drive aimed at the Union center. The result was Pickett’s Charge. It barely succeeded in getting there, and was crushed in the Union counterattack [[note]] The Confederate casualty rate was over fifty percent. George Pickett, for whom the attack is named, lost all of his generals and half of his field-grade officers. Staggering back, he found Lee riding out to meet him. Lee told him to rally his division to a defensive line. Pickett said to him, “[[EverybodysDeadDave General, I have no division.]]” and walked to the rear. Fun History Fact: even though the charge was named for him, Pickett only commanded a minority of the soldiers. [[/note]]. Famously, Lee went among his men and personally apologized for the assault. The Battle of Gettysburg was decided; the army retreated. Vicksburg surrendered the next day, [[UsefulNotes/AmericanHolidays July 4th]].

The Overland Campaign took the unprecedented [[note]] for America[[/note]] bloodshed of the Civil War and managed to crank it into higher gear. Grant started with the Battle of the Wilderness. It was inconclusive and bloody, the fifth bloodiest battle of the war, but where his predecessors would have retreated, Grant kept going. He disengaged and went at Richmond from a different way. The result was Spotsylvania Court House, the third bloodiest battle of the war. When it clicked that this wasn’t going anywhere, Grant disengaged, maneuvered again, leading to the Battle of Yellow Tavern. Rinse ([[WeHaveReserves in blood]]) and repeat, to the Battle of North Anna. [[UpToEleven Repeat again, for Cold Harbor]]. None of these were the victories Grant hoped for—Cold Harbor was an unqualified defeat—but they caused massive casualties, which only his side could absorb. Every battle kept the South on the defensive and every battle made it less able to defend, a situation that would end in the army being unable to protect Richmond.

* Lee helps provide a DeathByIrony in the horror film {{Film/Antebellum}} where [[spoiler: one villainess, having enslaved African-Americans on a modern-day plantation/Civil-War-cosplay-gone-horribly-wrong, meets her end by getting slammed into one of his statues.]]
* In Film/ArmyOfFrankensteins, Lee orders that Lincoln be murdered with zombies.
* Lee gets a bizarre HistoricalHeroUpgrade in the satire [[{{Film/CSATheConfederateStatesOfAmerica}} C.S.A: The Confederate States of America]]. In a film that portrays the Confederacy and slavery lasting to the current day in the most caricatured form possible, Lee is portrayed as someone who fought for abolition after independence.
* Film/Emperor2020 has Lee as a racist but AffablyEvil antagonist, doing his job by putting down John Brown’s Raid.
* Creator/MartinSheen gives a wooden performance for Lee in the otherwise-watchable Film/Gettysburg, probably because he agreed to the role at the last minute. The scene of Lee being cheered by his men was actually the re-enactors thanking Sheen for coming in.
** Creator/RobertDuvall, on the other hand, gives a good performance for Lee in the otherwise ''un''watchable Film/GodsAndGenerals.
* Lee has a [[TheVoiceless Voiceless]] OneSceneWonder role in Film/Lincoln, of him at Appomattox.
* Film/SevenAngryMen is about John Brown’s Raid.

* If it’s an alternate history where the Confederacy wins, expect Lee to show up. The pre-eminent example is Creator/HarryTurtledove’s Literature/TheGunsOfTheSouth.

* Literature/TheKillerAngels, and its adaptation, Film/Gettysburg, feature Lee as a viewpoint character, portraying him as honorable, and tired. He’s also a main character in the prequel and sequel novels, Literature/GodsAndGenerals and Literature/TheLastFullMeasure.
* The main characters of Literature/LincolnsDreams set out to know why one of them keeps dreaming of Lee. The supernatural is involved.

* Literature/ToKillAMockingbird gives Lee and his subordinate Richard Ewell the dubious honor of naming the white-trash villain named after them.

* Literature/UntilEveryDropOfBloodIsPaid

* He is portrayed as a WorthyOpponent in Series/Grant2020.
* [[Creator/KenBurns Ken Burns’]] Series/TheCivilWar, of course.
* Even if you know nothing else about [[Series/TheDukesofHazzard The Dukes Of Hazzard]], you know what they named their car.
* Series/TheWildWildWest episode The Night Of Fire and Brimstone has Gordon disguise himself as Lee to get an insane Civil War holdout to stand down

* The infamously-cringe "Accidental Racist", by Music/BradPaisley and featuring Music/LLCoolJ, gives him a ShoutOut.
* "The Day They Drove Old Dixie Down", by Music/TheBand, has the main character catch a glimpse of Lee and mention it in his list of Civil War experiences/traumas.
* Music/JohnnyCash’s "God Bless Robert E. Lee".

* VideoGame/CivilWarGenerals

* A manatee joke from WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy. Peter’s ancestor Ulysses S. Griffin won the Civil war by defeating Lee in a drinking contest.

[[foldercontrol]]

[[foldercontrol]]