A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee | Page 7

and happy.
Our notice of Stratford may appear unduly long to some readers, but it
is not without a distinct reference to the subject of this volume. In this
quiet old mansion--and in the very apartment where Richard Henry and
Francis Lightfoot Lee first saw the light--Robert E. Lee was born. The
eyes of the child fell first upon the old apartments, the great grounds,
the homely scenes around the old country-house--upon the tall
Lombardy poplars and the oaks, through which passed the wind
bearing to his ears the murmur of the Potomac.
He left the old home of his family before it could have had any very
great effect upon him, it would seem; but it is impossible to estimate
these first influences, to decide the depth of the impression which the
child's heart is capable of receiving. The bright eyes of young Robert
Lee must have seen much around him to interest him and shape his first
views. Critics charged him with family pride sometimes; if he
possessed that virtue or failing, the fact was not strange. Stratford
opened before his childish eyes a memorial of the old splendor of the
Lees. He saw around him old portraits, old plate, and old furniture,
telling plainly of the ancient origin and high position of his family. Old
parchments contained histories of the deeds of his race; old
genealogical trees traced their line far back into the past; old servants,

grown gray in the house, waited upon the child; and, in a corner of one
of the great apartments, an old soldier, gray, too, and shattered in health,
once the friend of Washington and Greene, was writing the history of
the battles in which he had drawn his sword for his native land.
Amid these scenes and surroundings passed the first years of Robert E.
Lee. They must have made their impression upon his character at a
period when the mind takes every new influence, and grows in
accordance with it; and, to the last, the man remained simple, hearty,
proud, courteous--the country Virginian in all the texture of his
character. He always rejoiced to visit the country; loved horses; was an
excellent rider; was fond of plain country talk, jests, humorous
anecdote, and chit-chat--was the plain country gentleman, in a word,
preferring grass and trees and streams to all the cities and crowds in the
world. In the last year of his life he said to a lady: "My visits to Florida
and the White Sulphur have not benefited me much; but it did me good
to go to the White House, and see _the mules walking round, and the
corn growing_."
We notice a last result of the child's residence now, or visits afterward
to the country, and the sports in which he indulged--the superb physical
health and strength which remained unshaken afterward by all the
hardships of war. Lee, to the last, was a marvel of sound physical
development; his frame was as solid as oak, and stood the strain of
exhausting marches, loss of sleep, hunger, thirst, heat, and cold,
without failing him.
When he died, it was care which crushed his heart; his health was
perfect.

V.
LEE'S EARLY MANHOOD AND CAREER IN THE UNITED
STATES ARMY.
Of Lee's childhood we have no memorials, except the words of his
father, long afterward.
"Robert was always good," wrote General Henry Lee.[1]
[Footnote 1: To C.C. Lee, February 9, 1817.]
That is all; but the words indicate much--that the good man was
"always good." It will be seen that, when he went to West Point, he
never received a demerit. The good boy was the good young officer,

and became, in due time, the good commander-in-chief.
In the year 1811 General Henry Lee left Stratford, and removed with
his family to Alexandria, actuated, it seems, by the desire of affording
his children facilities for gaining their education. After his death, in
1818, Mrs. Lee continued to reside in Alexandria; was a communicant
of Christ Church; and her children were taught the Episcopal catechism
by young William Meade, eventually Bishop of Virginia. We shall see
how Bishop Meade, long afterward, recalled those early days, when he
and his pupil, young Robert Lee, were equally unknown--how, when
about to die, just as the war began in earnest, he sent for the boy he had
once instructed, now the gray-haired soldier, and, when he came to the
bedside, exclaimed: "God bless you, Robert! I can't call you 'general'--I
have heard you your catechism too often!"
Alexandria continued to be the residence of the family until the young
man was eighteen years of age, when it was necessary for him to make
choice of a profession; and, following the bent of his temperament, he
chose the army. Application was made for his