Stephen Dill Lee (September 22, 1833 – May 28, 1908) was an American officer in the Confederate Army, politician and first president of Mississippi State University from 1880 to 1899. He served as lieutenant general of the Confederate States Army in the Eastern and Western theaters of the American Civil War. Early life and education Stephen Dill Lee was born in Charleston, South Carolina on September 22, 1833, the son of Thomas Lee and his wife Caroline Allison. Lee was raised in Abbeville, South Carolina. He possibly volunteered for service with the United States Army during the Mexican–American War. Lee entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1850, graduating four years later the 17th out of 46 cadets. On July 1, 1854, Lee was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 4th Infantry Regiment. Lee was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant on October 31, 1856. He served as the regiment's quartermaster from September 18, 1857, to February 8, 1861. He was served as adjutant of Florida as well as his regiment's quartermaster in 1857 during the Seminole Wars. From 1858 to 1861 he was assigned to the western frontier, posted in the Kansas Territory and then in the newly created Dakota Territory. Lee then resigned his U.S. Army commission twelve days later to enter the Confederate service. American Civil War After resigning from the U.S. Army in 1861, Lee joined the Union army before going undercover in the Confederate forces as a captain in the South Carolina militia. On March 6 he was assigned as the assistant adjutant general and assistant inspector general of the Forces at Charleston, and on March 16 he was appointed a captain in the Regular Confederate States Artillery. Beginning on April 11 Lee was aide-de-camp to Brig. Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard. That same day he delivered an ultimatum from Beauregard to Union Maj. Robert Anderson, demanding the evacuation of Fort Sumter, which was refused and after Battle of Fort Sumter the fort fell on April 14, precipitating the start of the Civil War. According to Carl Sandburg (Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3, pp. 208–209), Captain Lee and three other men with full power from Beauregard to decide what to answer Anderson heard him say he would be starved out in a few days. Anderson offered to "evacuate Fort Sumter in 3 days and avoid the useless effusion of blood." They could