Stephen D. Lee (September 22, 1833‑May 28, 1908) was a Confederate general. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, a distant relative of Robert E. Lee. After graduating from West Point in 1854, he served in the U.S. Army for seven years before resigning in February 1861 to join the Confederate Army. Lee started the war as a captain and aide-de-camp to Brig. Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard's staff at Fort Sumter. On April 11, 1861, Lee delivered an ultimatum from Beauregard to Union Major Robert Anderson demanding the evacuation of Fort Sumter. Anderson refused and the Confederates began bombardment of the fort, which fell two days later, precipitating the beginning of the U.S. Civil War.

Lee rose quickly through the Confederate ranks, seeing service at Second Battle of Manassas and Antietam. In November 1862, he was promoted to brigadier general. Lee was captured at Vicksburg, exchanged and promoted to major general in August 1863. In May 1864, he was appointed commander of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana. Promoted in June 1864, Lee was the Confederacy's youngest lieutenant general. He led troops in the Atlanta Campaign, the Battle of Ezra Church and the Franklin before being wounded while retreating from Nashville. He did not return to active duty until the Carolinas Campaign , at the war's end.

Following the war, Lee lived in Mississippi. There, he worked as a farmer, a member of the state legislature and first president of the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College (1878-97), now Mississippi State University. Lee helped organize the United Confederate Veterans and served as its president from 1904-08. He also helped promote women's rights, wrote about history and made efforts to preserve the Vicksburg battlefield sites. Lee died in Vicksburg, Mississippi and is buried in Friendship Cemetery in Columbus, Mississippi.