Robert E. Lee: Larger-than-life icon

The most celebrated Confederate general of the American Civil War (1861-1865), Robert Edward Lee, was and remains a bigger-than-life historic figure. Nicknamed the 'Marble Man,' the tall lean Virginian came to be even more revered among Southerners after his surrender to superior Union Army forces than he had been during the war Lee was the one soldier in whom most of the higher officers of the Army of the Potomac had complete, undiluted admiration. Among the many achievements of that remarkable man, nothing is much more striking than his ability to dominant the minds of the men who were fighting against him. On July 1, 1825, an eager, serious-minded 18-year-old Virginian entered the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, with plans of studying science and engineering. Entering the academy the same year as Lee was his academic equal, a New Yorker, two years his senior, Charles Mason.