Inventor. He gained recognition for his part of designing mines and submarines for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. As an officer in the Confederate Army during the war, Lee developed submerged mines or torpedoes to be used by the Confederate Navy. Before the war, he was a prominent architect and creative inventor in South Carolina. He was not working in isolation as other submarines designers were busy with their projects, such as the much more famous "CSS H.L. Hunley." On October 5, 1863, the small cigar-shaped with a smokestack submarine, "CSS David", with a crew of only four men, exploded a torpedo against the hull of the US frigate "New Ironsides". As an advancement in warfare, this act was a shocking blow to enemy forces. On February 17, 1864, the "USS Housatonic" was sunk off the coastline of Charleston by "CSS H.L. Hunley." In 1864 in Charleston Harbor, the "David" would once again attack Union ships: the "USS Memphis" on March 6th and the "USS Wabash" on April 18th; neither attack was successful. Using private funding, he is credited with inventing the semi-submersible "David" and later another boat the "Torch." Dating from 1861 to 1874, his professional papers are archived at the University of South Carolina Library as OCLC# 31060503. At the order of President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis, no or little written documentation was to be kept on his inventions to maintain secrecy from the Union Forces. Other military correspondences between Lee and Confederate officers during the Civil War are available at the National Archives. Johnny Dwayne Littlefield's 2020 368-page doctorate dissertation from Texas A&M University gives details of Lee's pioneer ordeal of building a submarine during the war. After the Civil War, Lee migrated west, settling in St. Louis, Missouri and with architect Thomas B. Annan" designed the three-story $2 million Merchant's Exchange Building in St. Louis, which was built in 1875. The building hosted the 1876 Democratic National Convention. The original building was demolished in 1958. The two men are credited with the 1875 design of the Italianate-style Bradford-Martin Building on Washington Avenue, which became the May Company Department Store. The Roe Building at Broadway and Pine Street, which was built in 1886 by the two architects, has been a department store and twice a hotel. Both the Bradford-Martin and Roe Buildings are still in downtown St. Louis in the 21st century. His ability to work declined in the late 1870s and he died in 1885 at the age of 59, leaving a widow with minor children.