Stephen Dill Lee (1833 - 1908)

Born 22 Sep 1833 in Charleston, Charleston County, South Carolina

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 28 May 1908 at age 74 in Vicksburg, Warren County, Mississippi

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Biography

Stephen Lee is Notable.

Lt Gen Stephen Lee served in the United States Civil War.
Side: CSA

Stephen Dill Lee was an American politician who served as the 1st president of Mississippi State University from 1880 to 1899. Prior to that, Lee was a senior officer of the Confederate States Army in the Eastern and Western theaters of the American Civil War. Graduate of the United States Military Academy in 1854. Resigned from the US Army in 1861 and entered the Confederate forces as a Captain in the South Carolina Militia. Lee reached the rank of Lieutenant General in 1864, making Lee the youngest at this grade in the Confederate States Army.^[1]

Stephen Dill Lee, LL.D. Tulane University, La. First Lieutenant 4th Artillery, U.S.A., 1854-61, and three years regimentl quartermaster in same. Along with Gens. Wade Hampton and Richard H. Anderson, was one of the three Lieutenant-Generals in the Confederate Army appointed fro South Carolina. Was at various times an artillery, cavalry and infantry commander, the superior training that he had received at West Point having made him competent to hold any of these commands. He volunteered for the War with his native State, but after the termination of the great struggle, he took up his work for peace in Mississippi, as first president of the State A. & M. College, and latterly as Commissioner of the Vicksburg Military Park. As an aide to Gen. Beauregard, he was sent by that General , together with another young South Carolinian, to Major Robert Anderson, to demand the surrender of Fort Sumter. When the Federal officer refused to surrender, it was then Capt. Lee who gave the command to the Confederate gunner to open fire on the fort, this beginning in fact the War for Southern Independence.

He received his commission of Major in the artillery in Nov, 1861, and after the Battle of Yorktown, Gen. Johnston immediate made him a Lieutenant-Colonel. After courageous and effective work as Magruder's chief of artillery in the seven-days fight around Richmond, Lieut-Col. Lee was given the command of the 4th Virginia Cavalry, where he displayed a wonderful knowledge of this branch of the service. After the Battle of Antietam, Col. Lee was promoted to the command of Brigadier and was sent out West to assume charge of the defenses around Vicksburg. After the surrender Gen. Lee was commissioned a Major-General and was placed in command of all of the cavalry in the army of the Mississippi. At the age of 31, the brave South Carolinian received his commission as Lieutenant-General in the Confederate forces. Shortly after a serious wound, the first he had received, incapacitated him from further service during the war.

Son of Thomas Lee and Caroline Alison. Husband of Regina Lily Harrison. Father of Blewett. Stephen passed away in 1908. Final resting place in Friendship Cemetery, Columbus, Mississippi.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Stephen D Lee, Wikipedia.org, accessed September 23, 2019.
2. ↑ Stephen Dill Lee, Find A Grave: Memorial #11010, accessed September 23, 2019.