Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/415

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LEE


LEE


followed up to June 3, 1864, ended with the san- guinary battle of Cold Harbor in which Grant's army lost 16,000 men killed and wounded in a suc- cession of assaults on the entrenched army of Gen- eral Lee. In forcing Lee's army of 03,000 men seventy-five miles, General Grant with 149,000 men lost 61,000. Then followed the investment of the Army of Northern Virginia within the lineg of Ri(;limond and Petersburg, where the armies of the Potomac and James slowly crushed out its life after a ten months' siege, ending with the evacuation of Richmond, April 2, and the sur- render of its tpmnant of an army comprising 2!S.O00 officers and men at Appomattox. April 9, lyf!."). About an equal number liad been killed, wounded, captured or dispersed, or had deserted to their homes, in the week of the letreat. On Aug. 24. 1>^65. General Lee accepted the presi- dency of Wasliingtoi) college at Lexington, Va., at a salary of .$1500 per annum, declining at the same time several offers with much larger sala- ries. He was formally inaugurated Sept. 18, 1865, and under his administration the college greatly prospered. He received the lionorary degree of LL.D.from Mercer university, Ga., in 1866. In 1871 the general assembly of Virginia changed the name of the institution to Washington and Lee uni- versity, and as a further memorial a reciimbent statue of General Lee by Valentine was presented


CHAPEL /TT WA3HiN<iTOAI ANP UEB UNIVERSITY

to the university b\- the Lee Memorial association and his remains placed in a vault under the statue. This statue was unveiled by the association with appropriate ceremony in June, 1873. An eques- trian statue by Mercie surmounting a massive pedestal erected in Capitol Square, Richmond, Va., was unveiled and dedicated May 29, 1890. On June 19, 1901, bronze busts of Washington and Lee were unveiled at the university; the former being the gift of Oscar Straus of New York, and the latter of Frank T. Howard, class of 1874, of New Orleans. The busts were placed on either side of the archway leading to the rotunda. In the selection of names for a place in the Hall of Fame for great Americans, New York univers- ity, made in October, 1900, his was one of the twent}' names in " Class N, Soldiers and Sail-


ors." and secured a place, receiving sixty-nine votes. Grant with ninety-two and Farragut wim seventy-nine alone in the class .securing more votes. In 1869 Gen. G. W. C. Lee prepared a new- edition of and added a memoir to his fatlier's work, " War in the Southern Department of the United States" (2 vols.. 1812). See also; biogra- phies by John Esten Cooke (1871), Edward A. Pollard (1871), John W. Jones (1874), and E. Lee Childe (London, 1875); " Four Years with General Lee," by Walter H. Taylor (1877); " Memoirs," by Gen. A. L. Long (1886), and •' Robert E. Lee and the Southern Confederacy," by Henry A. White (1899). He died at Lexington. Va.. Oct. 12, 1870. LEE, Samuel Phillips, naval officer, was born at Sully, Fairfax county, Va.. Feb. 13, 1812; son of Francis Lightfoot and Jane (Fitzgerald) Lee, and grandson of Richard Henrj- and Anne (Gas- kins) Pinckard Lee and of Col. John and Jane (Digger) Fitzgerald. He was appointed midship- man from Virginia, Nov. 22, 1825; was promoted passed midshipman, June 4, 1831, and lieutenant, Feb. 9, 1837. He was married, April 27, 1843. to Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Preston and Eliza Violet (Gist) Blair, of Silver Springs, near Wash- ington, D.C. He was given command of the coast schooner Vanderbilt, Aug. 4, 1844, was in command of the coast survey schooner Xantilus, and of the coast survey brig Washington, and was present at the capture of Tobasco, Mexico. He was promoted commander, Sept. 14, 1855, and was a member of the board of examiners, 1858- 60. He was given command of the sloop-of-war Vandalia, with orders to sail to the East Indies, Nov. 1, 1860, but upon learning of the outbreak of the civil war he brought his ship back and was assigned to blockade duty off Charleston, S.C. He was ordered to command the sloop-of-war OneicZa, Jan. 20, 1862. In the expedition against New Orleans he commanded the advance division in the attack on Forts Jackson and St. Phil- ip and by driving off two rams succeeded in relieving the Var- una and capturing ^ Lieutenant Kennon, commander of thef;^" Confederate steamer ^ ^^-^ Governor Moore. He commanded the advance division below Vicks- burg and participated in both passages of the Vicksburg batteries, the Oneida being sec- ond in line on both occasions. He was pro- moted captain. July 16, 1862; appointed acting rear-admiral, Sept. 2, 1862, and ordered to com-


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