Robert E. Lee, Jr.

Robert Edward "Rob" Lee Jr. (October 27, 1843 – October 19, 1914) was the sixth of seven children of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Randolph Custis. He became a soldier during the American Civil War, and later was a planter, businessman, and author. Early life Rob Lee was born and raised at Arlington House across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. He was close to his father, who he was named after, and his sister, Mildred Childe Lee. He attended boarding schools during much of the 1850s, while his father, a career U.S. Army officer, was serving in the Mexican–American War and as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Unlike his father and two older brothers, Rob apparently never envisioned a military career, never serving in the United States Army. In 1860, he enrolled at the University of Virginia. Civil War When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, his father and his two older brothers, Custis and Rooney, all chose to serve Virginia in the Confederate Army. To his mother's dismay, Rob joined them in 1862, enlisting in the Rockbridge Artillery as a private. During the Battle of Sharpsburg in September 1862, young Robert watched his father ride up to his artillery battery, which had already been heavily engaged. Junior stood by expecting to hear a few words of affection from his father, but Lee did not recognize his own son, hidden by the grime of black powder on his face. When Junior finally spoke up to ask if they would be thrown back into the fight, the general recognized him by his voice. "Yes, my son. You must do what you can to drive those people back," Lee said. After the Maryland Campaign, he was promoted to lieutenant and assigned as an aide to his older brother General William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, rising to the rank of captain before the end of the war. "He frightened the family near the end of the war by disappearing for nearly a month after his horse was wounded on the retreat from Petersburg. By the time he had found another, the Federals were between him and his father's army. He turned south and was in the room in Greensboro, North Carolina, when Jefferson Davis got confirmation that the elder Lee had surrendered at Appomattox."