Robert Edward Lee had perhaps a more illustrious traceable lineage than any American not of his family.  His ancestor, Lionel Lee, crossed the English Channel with William the Conqueror.  Another scion of the clan fought beside Richard the Lion-hearted at Acre in the Third Crusade.  To Richard Lee, the great landowner on Northern Neck, the Virginia Colony was much indebted for royal recognition.  His grandson, Henry Lee, was the grandfather of “Light-horse Harry” Lee, of Revolutionary fame, who was the father of Robert Edward Lee.

Robert E. Lee was born on Jan. 19,1807, in Westmoreland County, Va., the same county that gave to the world George Washington and James Monroe.  Though he was fatherless at eleven, the father’s blood in him inclined him to the profession of arms, and when eighteen,—­in 1825,—­on an appointment obtained for him by General Andrew Jackson, he entered the Military Academy at West Point.  He graduated in 1829, being second in rank in a class of forty-six.  Among his classmates were two men whom one delights to name with him,—­Ormsby M. Mitchell, later a general in the Federal army, and Joseph E. Johnston, the famous Confederate.  Lee was at once made Lieutenant of Engineers, but, till the Mexican War, attained only a captaincy.  This was conferred on him in 1838.

In 1831, Lee had been married to Miss Mary Randolph Custis, the grand-daughter of Mrs. George Washington.  By this marriage he became possessor of the beautiful estate at Arlington, opposite Washington, his home till the Civil War.  The union, blessed by seven children, was in all respects most happy.

In his prime, Lee was spoken of as the handsomest man in the army.  He was about six feet tall, perfectly built, healthy, fond of outdoor life, enthusiastic in his profession, gentle, dignified, studious, broad-minded, and positively, though unobtrusively, religious.  If he had faults, which those nearest him doubted, they were excess of modesty and excess of tenderness.

During the Mexican War, Captain Lee directed all the most important engineering operations of the American army,—­a work vital to its wonderful success.  Already, at the siege of Vera Cruz, General Scott mentioned him as having “greatly distinguished himself.”  He was prominent in all the operations thence to Cerro Gordo, where, in April, 1847, he was brevetted Major.  Both at Contreras and at Churubusco he was credited with gallant and meritorious services.  At the charge up Chapultepec, in which Joseph E. Johnston, George B. McClellan, George E. Pickett, and Thomas J. Jackson participated, Lee bore Scott’s orders to all points until from loss of blood by a wound, and from the loss of two nights’ sleep at the batteries, he actually fainted away in the discharge of his duty.  Such ability and devotion brought him home from Mexico bearing the brevet rank of Colonel.  General Scott had learned to think of him as “the greatest military genius in America.”