15. Robert E. Lee commanded all the Confederate Armies during the war
When Robert E. Lee betrayed his oath to the Constitution and offered his military services to the Confederacy, initially it was to the Commonwealth of Virginia. In command of Virginia troops, Lee led Confederate forces at the Battle of Cheat Mountain in September 1861. The small conflict was a defeat for the Confederates, and Lee bore much of the blame among his peers. He then commanded the defenses surrounding Savannah. In 1862 Fort Pulaski fell, another Confederate defeat blamed on Lee. Jefferson Davis then employed Lee as his military advisor. It was during that tenure Lee became known, somewhat derisively, as the “King of Spades” as he ordered massive trench systems built around Richmond. After Joseph Johnston, commanding the Army of Virginia, was wounded, Lee received the command. He renamed the Army “The Army of Northern Virginia”. He commanded the army until he surrendered.
Command of all the Confederate Armies rested with Jefferson Davis. The structure of those forces changed throughout the war as Davis ordered troops to support one operation or another. Lee could only recommend detaching troops from his command to support operations in the west. By the same token, he could only request reinforcement from one of the other Confederate armies. By 1864, Ulysses S. Grant commanded all of the Union Armies, though he made his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, commanded by George Meade. Lee commanded only the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant thus made decisions which affected the overall strategic situation as the Confederacy crumbled. Lee was finally made General in Chief in February 1865. It was far too late. By then he was trapped in the trenches before Richmond and the Confederacy were on its last legs.