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Robert E. Lee is born

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Lee graduates second in his class from West Point Military Academy and chooses to join the Corps of Engineers.

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Lee becomes a Captain in the Corps of Engineers; after several assignments across America, surveying the state line between Ohio and Michigan, and supervising projects for controlling the flow of the Mississippi.

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Captain Lee serves in the Mexican-American War; he proves himself valuable to General in Chief Winfield Scott as a scout, and makes brevet (temporary) promotions to rank of colonel.

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Lee is made Superintendent of West Point; he spent three years as superintendent.

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Lee is assigned to Camp Cooper, Texas, and is given the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He leaves the Corps of Engineers and joins the Second US Cavalry Regiment. His service is based out of this position until the Civil War in 1861.

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Lee takes temporary command of a group of Marines and stops John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry.

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The South begins to discuss seceding from the Union. Lee was a great supporter of the Union, and does not want Virginia to secede.

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Lee resigns from the US army and decides to join the Confederate Army. He only does so because he wanted to protect his family, friends and home in Virginia.

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Lee, now a General, proves his value to the Confederacy by stopping McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, and he is given command of the Army of North Virginia for the rest of the Civil War. He also fights in the Second Battle of Bull Run, which was a victory for the South and pushed Britain and France to promise the confederacy aid if they could get another victory. They lost their chance of support as General Lee and his troops lost the Battle of Antietam, one of the bloodiest battles of the war. General Lee then led his troops to victory in the Battle of Fredericksburg.

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General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union manages to force General Lee and his forces to Petersburg, Virginia in June, where General Lee is incapable of leaving without Richmond being taken.

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General Lee and his troops can no longer hold out against Grant, and he surrenders to Grant At Appomattox Courthouse, ending the war in a chain reaction of the rest of the Confederacy surrendering.

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Lee was granted amnesty by the Union, and was then President of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia.

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Lee dies in Lexington, at the age of 63.