In the third week of April 1861, Robert E. Lee made the choice that defined the rest of his life. On April 18, summoned to Washington from his post as colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry, Lee met with Francis P. Blair Sr. — acting informally on behalf of Abraham Lincoln — and was offered command of the United States Army in the field. Lee had been considered the most capable senior officer in the regular army for a decade: distinguished service in the Mexican-American War on Winfield Scott's own staff, Superintendent at West Point from 1852 to 1855, the officer who had suppressed John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859. The offer was the command Lincoln most wanted to give. Lee declined it the same day. The day before — April 17 — the Virginia state convention had voted to secede from the Union. On April 20, Lee resigned a commission of thirty-two years and wrote Scott a single line that explained his decision: "Save in defence of my native State, I never desire again to draw my sword." He believed loyalty to Virginia preceded loyalty to the United States — a position legally and politically common in the South before 1861 — but he understood the cost. Within fourteen months he was commanding the Army of Northern Virginia in the field, having taken over from Joseph Johnston wounded at Seven Pines on June 1, 1862. From that day until April 9, 1865, he fought against Union armies almost always larger than his own. He destroyed McClellan's campaign against Richmond. He defeated Pope at Second Bull Run, Hooker at Chancellorsville, and Burnside at Fredericksburg. He fought Meade to a draw at Gettysburg and Grant to a year-long siege at Petersburg. The campaigns of those four years became the most studied in American military history — but every one of them began with the choice he made in three days in April 1861.

This is the iconic image of Lee: the gray Confederate general's frock coat with the three stars-in-wreath on the collar marking a full general, the wide black slouch hat preferred over the formal kepi or bicorne, the white-gray beard, the black silk neck stock, the buff gauntlets carried in his left hand. It is Lee as Mathew Brady and other photographers captured him during and after the war — not at the head of a charge, but observing, dignified, calm. He was unfailingly courteous to subordinates and to enemies, including at the surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, where he wore his finest uniform — he had been told he might be made a prisoner — and accepted Grant's generous terms with the simple line, "This will have a very happy effect upon my army." Pair this figure with Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the opposite number Lee fought through the Overland Campaign and surrendered to at Appomattox; with Lt. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, his most trusted lieutenant — Lee called him his "right arm" — killed at Chancellorsville; or with Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, the corps commander he called his "Old Warhorse" who served at his side from the Seven Days through Appomattox.

Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. W. Britain model 31317. From the American Civil War range. Single foot figure, supplied painted and ready for display.