family had distinguished himself, and attracted the "best company" to Stratford; the old walls had rung with merriment; the great door was wide open; everybody was welcome; and one could see there a good illustration of a long-passed manner of living, which had at least the merit of being hearty, open-handed, and picturesque. General Harry Lee, the careless soldier, partook of the family tendency to hospitality; he kept open house, entertained all comers, and hence, doubtless, sprung the pecuniary embarrassments embittering an old age which his eminent public services should have rendered serene 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 appointment from Virginia as a cadet at West Point. He obtained the appointment, and, in 1825, at the age of eighteen, entered the Military Academy. His progress in his studies was steady, and it is said that, during his stay at West Point, he was never reprimanded, nor marked with a "demerit." He graduated, in July, 1829, second in his class, and was assigned to duty, with the rank of lieutenant, in the corps of Engineers.

[Illustration: R.E. LEE, AS A YOUNG OFFICER New York D Apololay & Co.]

He is described, by those who saw him at this time, as a young man of great personal beauty; and this is probably not an exaggeration, as he remained to the last distinguished for the elegance and dignity of his person. He had not yet lost what the cares of command afterward banished—his gayety and abandon—and was noted, it is said, for the sweetness of his smile and the cordiality of his manners. The person who gave the writer these details added, "He was a perfect gentleman." Three years after graduating at West Point—in the year 1832—he married Mary Custis, daughter of Mr. George Washington Parke Custis, of Arlington, the adopted son of General Washington; and by this marriage he came into possession of the estate of Arlington and the White House—points afterward well known in the war.

The life of Lee up to the beginning of the great conflict of 1861-'65 is of moderate interest only, and we shall not dwell at length upon it. He was employed on the coast defences, in New York and Virginia; and, in 1835, in running the boundary line between the States of Ohio and Michigan. In September, 1836, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant; in July, 1838, to a captaincy; in 1844 he became a member of the Board of Visitors to the Military Academy; in 1845 he was a member of the Board of Engineers; and in 1846, when the Mexican War broke out, was assigned to duty as chief engineer of the Central Army of Mexico, in which capacity he served to the end of the war.

Up to the date of the Mexican War, Captain Lee had attracted no public attention, but had impressed the military authorities, including General Winfield Scott, with a favorable opinion of his ability as a topographical engineer. For this department of military science he exhibited endowments of the first class—what other faculties of the soldier he possessed, it remained for events to show. This opportunity was now given him in the Mexican War; and the efficient character of his services may be seen in Scott's Autobiography, where "Captain Lee, of