Civil War Confederate Major General. Born at Fredericksburg, Virginia, he graduated 42nd of 45 in the United States Military Academy class of 1838. He saw action during the Mexican War and later fought Indians on the frontier and Mormons in Utah. He was commissioned Colonel of the 53rd Virginia Infantry in July 1861, and was promoted to Brigadier General on February 27, 1862. He was then ordered to the Western theater, where he took part in Major General E. Kirby Smith's invasion of Kentucky in August. Advanced to the rank of Major General, he was sent to Vicksburg, Mississippi, to command a division in Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton's army. On May 16, 1863, the division was outflanked at the Battle of Champion's Hill and was forced to retreat. Two months later, he and others counseled Pemberton to surrender the city. He was exchanged in time for the Chattanooga Campaign. In September 1863 he and his old division were stationed on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and on November 24 were attacked by Union troops under the command of Major General Joseph Hooker. Heavily outnumbered, his men were assaulted on the front and flank and finally had to withdraw to the sanctuary of the main Confederate line on Missionary Ridge. He subsequently served under General Joseph E. Johnston during the Atlanta Campaign, his division being heavily engaged at the Battle of Resaca on May 15, and at Kennesaw Mountain on June 27, 1864. During the Franklin and Nashville Campaign, in December, the division stoutly defended Overton Hill, Tennessee, until forced to retreat in the face of overwhelming numbers. On December 17 Lieutenant Stephen D. Lee was wounded at Winstead Hill, Georgia, and he was placed in temporary command of his corps. In the closing months of the war, he served in the Carolinas against Major General William T. Sherman's army. He fought his last major engagement at Bentonville, North Carolina, on March 19 to 21, 1865. After the war, he turned to engineering. He died in Caroline County, Virginia. He was the son of Carter L Stevenson, Esq., a senior member of the Fredericksburg Bar.