Robert Edward Lee, Jr.

Robert Edward Lee, Jr. (October 27, 1843 – October 19, 1914) was the youngest son of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis, and the sixth of their seven children. He became a soldier, farmer, businessman, and author.

Biography

Known as "Rob", his boyhood home was Arlington House (where he was born) across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. He attended boarding schools during much of the 1850s, initially while his father, a career man in the U.S. Army, was serving as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Unlike his father and two older brothers, Rob never served in the United States Army, and apparently had not contemplated a military career. In 1860, Rob enrolled at the University of Virginia.

However, 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, the following year, Rob joined them in wearing the Confederate Grey. Initially, Rob served as a private in the Rockbridge Artillery in 1862. After the Battle of Sharpsburg, he was promoted to the rank of Captain and assigned to serve as aide to his older brother Custis, who was a major general and aide-de-camp to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and was involved in defending Richmond, Virginia.

All four Lees survived the Civil War. After the war, Rob lived at Romancock Plantation on the north bank of the Pamunkey River in King William County, Virginia, which was his inheritance from his grandfather George Washington Parke Custis. Romancock was located approximately four miles from the Town of West Point. He went into private business.

Robert E. Lee, Jr. was married twice. In November, 1871, he married Charlotte Haxall. They had no children together. After her death, in 1894, he married Juliet Carter. With his second wife, he had two daughters, Anne Carter Lee and Mary Custis Lee.

Rob became an author and recorded his memories of his family and life in Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee, which was published in 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)

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 school now known as Washington and Lee University.

References

• Biographical Sketch, National Park Service

External links

• Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee online version