University of Virginia Library

ROBERT EDWARD LEE,
GENERAL-IN-CHIEF OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES ARMY.

The record of all time with its mighty roll of heroes and patriots
presents no more lustrous name than that of the immortal subject of
this sketch. His lineage, which has been already traced in this serial,
was illustrative of the excellencies which marked his own resplendent
career. Robert Edward Lee, the third son of "LightHorse
Harry" and Anne Hill (Carter) Lee, was born at "Stratford,"
Westmoreland county, Virginia, January 19, 1807. Entering the
United States Military Academy July 1, 1825, he was graduated
thence second in grade of a class of forty-six, July 1, 1829, and commissioned
Brevet Second Lieutenant, Corps of Engineers. Among
his classmates were Generals Joseph Eggleston Johnston, Albert G.
Blanchard and Theophilus H. Holmes, of the Confederate States
Army, and Generals B. W. Brice, T. A. Davies, A. Cady, T. Swords,
Seth Eastman, W. Hoffman, Sidney Burbank, O. M. Mitchell, C. P.
Buckingham and James Barnes, of the United States Army. Lieutenant
Lee served as Assistant Engineer in the construction of Forts
Monroe and Calhoun for the defense of Hampton Roads, Virginia,
1829-'34; as Assistant to the Chief Engineer at Washington, D. C.,

GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE,

In Confederate uniform, from life during the war,
never before engraved.

1834-'37, as Assistant Astronomer for establishing the boundary between
the States of Ohio and Michigan, 1835; as Superintending Engineer
of the improvement of St. Louis harbor, Missouri, and of the
Missouri and Upper Mississippi rivers, 1837-'41, having general
charge of the improvement of the Lower Mississippi and of the Ohio
river below Louisville, Kentucky, 1840-'41. He was promoted to
First Lieutenant September 21, 1836, and to Captain of the Corps of
Engineers July 7, 1838. Had charge of the construction and repairs
of the defenses at the Narrows entrance to the New York harbor,
1841-'44, 1844-'46; was Member of the Board of Visitors to the Military
Academy, 1844, Assistant to the Chief Engineer at Washington,
D. C., 1844; Member of the Board of Engineers for Atlantic Coast defenses
from September 8, 1845, to March 13, 1848; served in the war
with Mexico, 1846-'48, being engaged on the march as Chief Engineer
of the column commanded by Brigadier-General John E. Wool,
and earned the brevets of Major, Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel for
gallant and meritorious conduct in the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras,
and Churubusco, and at Chapultepec, where he was wounded.
His services as an engineer at Vera Cruz and the subsequent operations
in Mexico were highly eulogized by General Winfield Scott.
Colonel Lee was on special duty in the Engineer Bureau at Washington,
D. C., in 1848; Superintending Engineer of the construction of
Fort Carroll, Patapsco river, Maryland, 1848-'52, member of the
Board of Engineers for Atlantic Coast defenses from July 21, 1848, to
April 11, 1853; Superintendent of the United States Military Academy
from September 1, 1852, to March 31, 1855, in command at
Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, 1855, appointed Lieutenant-Colonel
Second Cavalry March 3, 1855, on frontier duty at Camp Cooper,
Texas, 1856, with expedition against the Comanche Indians, 1856; at
Camp Cooper, Texas, 1856-'57, at San Antonio, Texas (commanding
the Second Regiment), 1857, on leave of absence, 1857-'59; in command
of the forces at Harpers Ferry for suppressing the John Brown
raid, October 17-25, 1859; in command of the Department of Texas
from February 6 to December 12, 1860, and on leave of absence,
1860-'61, promoted Colonel of the First Cavalry March 16, 1861.
Ordered to Washington from his regiment in Texas, Colonel Lee arrived
at the Federal capital April 1, 1861, three days before the inauguration
of President Lincoln. The political horizon was even then
overcast with the portents of the mighty civil war which was soon to
convulse the nation. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Georgia and Louisiana had already seceded from the Union, and the
Provincial Government of the Confederate States had been formed at
Montgomery. The Virginia Convention, loth to assent to the dissolution
of the Union, was still in solemn deliberation. But all counsels and
peaceful overtures failed, and the proclamation of President Lincoln
calling for 75,000 men to subdue the seceded States forced Virginia
with her sisters of the South. The ordinance of secession, which she
passed on the 17th of April, determined Colonel Lee. To the Hon.
F. P. Blair, who brought him the tender of the supreme command of
the United States Army, he replied: "I look upon secession as anarchy.
If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice
them all for the Union. But how can I draw my sword against
Virginia?" On the 20th he resigned his commission and repaired to
Richmond. Governor Letcher immediately appointed him to the
Command-in-Chief of the Virginia force, and the convention unanimously
confirmed the nomination. Upon the appearance of General
Lee before that body, on the 25th of April, its venerable President
John Janney glowingly addressed him, thus concluding:

"Sir, we have by this unanimous vote expressed our conviction
that you are at this day among the living citizens of Virginia, `first
in war.' We pray to God most fervently, that you may so conduct
the operations committed to your charge that it will soon be said of
you, that you are first in peace,' and when that time comes you will
have earned the still prouder distinction of being `first in the hearts
of your countrymen.' "

General Lee thus replied: "Mr. President and Gentlemen of the
Convention: Profoundly impressed with the solemnity of the occasion,
for which, I must say, I was not prepared, I accept the position
assigned me by your partiality. I would have much preferred your
choice had fallen upon an abler man. Trusting in Almighty God, an
approving conscience and the aid of my fellow-citizens, I devote myself
to the service of my native State, in whose behalf alone will I ever
again draw my sword." Transferred from the State service to that
of the Confederacy, with the rank of General, his first service was in
the mountains of Northwest Virginia, where with inadequate forces
he held the invading column of the enemy in check and restored the
confidence which had been shaken by reverses in that department.
In the fall of 1861 he was transferred to the command of the South
Atlantic States. In March, 1862, he was recalled to Virginia and
charged "with the conduct of military operations in the armies of the
Confederacy." In the battles before Richmond, General Joseph E.
Johnston being disabled by a wound on the 31st of May at the battle
of Seven Pines, on the 3d of June, 1862, General Lee was assigned to
command in person the Army of Northern Virginia, and thenceforward,
as has been recorded in preceding pages, to the memorable 9th
day of April, 1865, when it finally laid down its arms at Appomattox
Court House, he remained at its head. Then, when all was lost save
honor, he unmurmuringly took his place as a modest citizen of his
scarred and harrowed State, to "abide her fortunes and share her
fate." Refusing numerously proffered gratuities and sinecure stations

which were pressed upon him by loving admirers, he found his meet
field of beneficence in the Presidency of a time-honored seat of learning,
Washington College, which had its origin in "The Augusta
Academy," the first classical school in the valley of Virginia, founded
in 1749 by Robert Alexander, a Scotch-Irish immigrant, and a Master
of Arts of Trinity College, Dublin. Under his successor, Rev. John
Brown, the Academy was first removed to "Old Providence," and
again to "New Providence Church," and just before the Revolution,
for the third time, to Mount Pleasant, near Fairfield, in the now
county of Rockbridge. In 1776 Rev. William Graham (whose remains
rest in the church-yard of the venerable St. John's at Richmond)
baptized it as "Liberty Hall Academy." It was now removed,
in 1777, to near the old Timber Ridge Church; and finally, in 1785,
to Lexington. In 1796 it was endowed by General Washington with
one hundred shares of the Old James River Company, which had
been donated him by the Virginia Assembly, and the trustees of the
academy, in honor of the illustrious benefactor, rechristened it Washington
Academy. The Assembly soon after gave the institution,
which it had already incorporated, the name of "The College of Washington
in Virginia." "The Cincinnati Society," of Virginia, on dissolving
in 1813, donated their fund, amounting to nearly $25,000, to
the college, and, thus endowed, its career onward for quite seventy
years was one of usefulness and honor. The civil war, however,
brought grievous disaster. The college was dismantled, its scientific
apparatus destroyed, its library sacked, its every apartment pillaged,
and with the close of the weary struggle, four professors, a handful of
students and the bare buildings, were all that remained.

Accepting the Presidency of the College October 2, 1865, he zealously
entered upon its duties, winning the meed of being "the best
College President this country has ever produced," and magnifying
the college into a university among the first in honor and influence
in the nation. In the fulness of his noble mission, General Lee was
stricken with a fatal malady, and sank to rest October 12, 1870.
General Lee married June 30, 1831, Mary Anne Randolph, born October
1, 1808, died November 5, 1873, daughter of George Washington
Parke and Mary Lee (Fitzhugh) Custis,[50] of "Arlington," Virginia
The issue of this blissful union was three sons and four daughters:

• i. George Washington Custis, Major-General Confederate States
  Army, succeeded his father in the Presidency of Washington-Lee
  University.

• ii. William Henry Fitzhugh, Major-General Confederate States Army;
  has been twice married, first to Charlotte, daughter of
  William Fanning Wickham, secondly, November 28, 1867, to
  Mary Tabb, daughter of George W. Bolling, of Petersburg,
  Virginia. Issue by both marriages.

• iii. Robert Edward, Captain Confederate States Army; married
  Charlotte (died September 22, 1872), daughter of R. Barton
  Haxall.

• iv. Mary, v. Anna (died 1870), vi. Mildred, and vii, Eleanor Agnes—
  died October 15, 1873.

The remains of General and Mrs. Lee, and of their youngest
daughter, rest in a mausoleum annex to the Memorial Chapel erected in
the College grounds by the Lee Memorial Association. In a chamber
directly over the crypt is the sarcophagus and famed recumbent
statue of the great chieftain, executed by the sculptor Valentine.