Gen. Stephen D. Lee has recently been appointed
Lieutenant-General in the
Confederate States army, and placed in command of the Mississippi Department.
In connection with this announcement, a brief military biography of this officer will prove interesting.
He is a native of
South Carolina, and a graduate of
West Point, where he took his diploma in 1854; was a classmate of
Gens. J. E. B. Stuart,
J. B. Villepigue,
W. D. Pender, and
Horace Randall.
He commenced his military career as
2d Lieutenant of the 4th artillery, and was subsequently promoted to a 1st lieutenancy of the 1st regiment of regulars.
Soon after his native State seceded from the old Union, he resigned his position and repaired to
South Carolina, where he entered the army as captain, early in March, 1861. He served with
Beauregard in the taking of
Fort Sumter, and after the strife was fully inangarated, and a hostile army on the soil of the Old Dominion, he repaired to
Virginia with a battery of light artillery, and there, with the legion of
Hampton, figured conspicuously and honorably in many of the sanguinary engagements.
He was soon honored with the rank of
Major, next
Lieut. Colonel, and then
Colonel.
He commanded a battery on the
Potomac for some time; was in the battle of
Seven Pines and the seven days fight around
Richmond; was next assigned to duty as
Colonel of the 4th Virginia cavalry, and subsequently to a battery of artillery that gained distinction in the
second battle of Manassas and at
Sharpsburg.
When a commander was needed for the defences of
Vicksburg in the fall of 1862,
President Davis sent him to defend the stronghold of
Mississippi, having conferred upon him the rank of
Brigadier General.
he commanded at the
battle of Chickasaw Bayou, above
Vicksburg, where, in December, 1862, he whipped
Sherman and
Morgan Smith, who brought a large force against his heroic little band.
At the battle of
Baker's Creek he commanded a brigade of Georgians, and during the
siege of Vicksburg held that portion of
Stevenson's line so furiously assaulted on the 19th and 22d of May.
Shortly after the surrender
Gen. Lee was appointed to the rank of
Major General, and assigned to the command of all the cavalry in the Mississippi Department.
