Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a career U.S. Army officer and combat engineer. He became the commanding general of the Confederate Army in the Civil War and a postwar icon of the South's "lost cause." 
In early 1861, President Abraham Lincoln invited Lee to command the entire Union Army. Lee declined because his home state of Virginia seceded from the Union. He soon emerged as the shrewdest battlefield tactician of the war, commanding the Army of Northern Virginia. His abilities were evident in his many victories, but his strategic vision became doubtful when he invaded the North. After the disaster at Gettysburg (1863), defeat for the South was almost certain. In 1864, the new Union commander, Ulysses S. Grant, began a series of campaigns to wear down Lee's army. The Confederacy was unable to replace their losses or provide rations to the soldiers. Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865.
After the war, as a college President, Lee became the great Southern hero of the war, and his popularity grew in the North as well. He remains an iconic figure of American military leadership.