He was born in Virginia on January 19th, 1807, which was two hundred years after Jamestown was settled. He was the fourth of five children His father was “Light-Horse” Harry a revolutionary hero and governor of Virginia. His father died when Lee was just eleven years old.
As a teenager Robert E. Lee wanted to join West Point military academy and entered the academy in the summer of 1825.
Lee fell in love with the adopted granddaughter of George Washington in 1831 and had seven children. Although he was a father, he was also a career army officer.
Before the Mexican War he was a military engineer in Georgia, Virginia and New York, including a fort near Cockspur Island. Winfield Scott was Lee's commander in the Mexican war and asked him to take over for him, but Lee refused.
During the Mexican war he wrote his wife and letter, that said “I never could see advantage to be gained by sending General Taylor unless it was to invite Mexicans to attack.” He returned to Virginia after the Mexican war, but was not able to see his mother before she died.
He had many assignments throughout the south. As the Civil War broke out, he was chosen to command the Army of Northern Virginia. He later became the General Chief of the Confederate Army. He considered Stonewall Jackson his best general. At the end of the war and the confederacy Lee met up with Grant and surrendered what was left of his army at the Appomattox courthouse in Virginia.
After the war he became president of Washington College, which is now called Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He died in Lexington on October 12th, 1870, and is buried there.
