Lee's Youth

Robert E. Lee was born on January 19, 1807, at Stratford, the Lee family estate, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. His father was “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, who won fame in the Revolutionary War and was governor of Virginia, 1792–95. Robert grew up in Alexandria, Virginia. When he was six years old, his father went to the West Indies. The child never saw his father again, for the elder Lee died on his way home five years later.

Young Lee won an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and was second in his class when he graduated in 1829. He entered the army engineers' corps. In 1831 Lee married Mary Ann Randolph Custis, a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. His wife inherited an estate on the Potomac in Virginia called Arlington, and it became their home. (The land later became the site of Arlington National Cemetery and the home a memorial to Lee.)