Robert E. Lee, Jr.

Robert Edward "Rob" Lee, Jr. (October 27, 1843 – October 19, 1914) was the youngest of three sons of Confederate General Robert Edward Lee, Sr. and Mary Anna Randolph Custis, and the sixth of their seven children. He became a soldier during the American Civil War, and later was a planter, businessman, and author.

Early life

Robert E. Lee, Jr. and his mother, Mary (c. 1845)

Rob Lee was born and raised at Arlington House across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. He attended boarding schools during much of the 1850s, while his father, a career U.S. Army officer, was serving in the Mexican-American War and as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Unlike his father and two older brothers, Rob apparently never envisioned a military career, never serving in the United States Army. In 1860, he enrolled at the University of Virginia.[1]

Civil War

When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, his father and his two older brothers, Custis and Rooney, all chose to serve Virginia in the Confederate Army. To his mother's dismay, Rob joined them in 1862, enlisting in the Rockbridge Artillery as a private.

After the Battle of Sharpsburg, he was promoted to the rank of Captain and assigned as aide to his older brother Custis. The latter was a major general and aide-de-camp to the Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and involved in defending Richmond, Virginia.[2]

Postbellum career

All four Lees survived the Civil War. After the war, Rob lived and farmed Romancoke Plantation on the north bank of the Pamunkey River in King William County, which he inherited from his maternal grandfather George Washington Parke Custis. Romancoke was located approximately four miles from the Town of West Point.

Rob also became a writer, gathering his memories of his family and life in Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee (1904). The first-hand account provides a valuable source of information on day-to-day life at Arlington House during his youth, and includes many items of interest regarding his father's entire life. (see link for online portion of this book below) However, some are now offended by racial views expressed therein.[3]

Robert E. Lee, Jr. died in 1914. He was interred with his parents and siblings in the Lee Chapel in Lexington, Virginia, where his father and brother Custis each had served as a president of the college now known as Washington and Lee University.

Marriage and family

Rob married twice. On November 16, 1871, he married Charlotte Haxall (October 23, 1848 - September 22, 1872). No children survived her.

On March 8, 1894, in Washington D.C., Rob Lee married Juliet Carter (6 April 1860 - 17 November 1915), who was 17 years younger than he. They had two daughters, Anne Carter Lee (b. July 21, 1897) and Mary Custis Lee (b. December 23, 1900).[4]

Rob's mother, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, was the only surviving child of George Washington Parke Custis and Mary Lee Fitzhugh. George was the grandson of Martha Dandridge and adopted son of George Washington.

Notes

  1. ↑ http://www.nps.gov/arho/historyculture/robert-lee-jr.htm
  2. ↑ "Robert E. Lee and His Horse", HistoryNet
  3. ↑ http://www.confederatepastpresent.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=130:robert-e-lee-advises-robert-e-lee-jr-that-african-americans-are-their-enemies-and-not-to-hire-them-&catid=38:reconstruction-and-fusion
  4. ↑ Alexander, Frederick Warren (2010) [1912]. Stratford hall and the Lees connected with its history; biographical, genealogical and historical. Nabu Press (reprint). p. 330. ISBN 1-178-21224-6.

References

External links

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