love which the people of the South bore, and
still bear, him because of his singularly sweet and unselfish character.
But, sentiment aside, and looking at him only as a soldier, he must be
given a place in the front rank of our greatest captains. There are not
more than two or three to rank with him--certainly there is none to rank
ahead of him.

Robert Edward Lee was a son of that famous "Light Horse Harry" Lee to
whose exploits during the Revolution we have already referred. He was
born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1807, entered West Point at
the age of eighteen, and graduated four years later, second in his
class. His father had died ten years before, and his mother lived only
long enough to welcome him home from the Academy. He was at once
assigned to the engineer corps of the army, distinguished himself in the
war with Mexico and served as superintendent of West Point from 1852 to
1855.

Meanwhile, at the age of twenty-four, he had married Mary Randolph,
daughter of Washington Parke Custis, of Arlington, and
great-grand-daughter of George Washington's wife. Miss Custis was a
great heiress, and in time the estate of Arlington, situated on the
heights across the Potomac from Washington, became hers and her
husband's, but he nevertheless continued in the service. The marriage
was a happy and fortunate one in every way, and Lee's home life was
throughout a source of help and inspiration to him.

In the autumn of 1859, while home on leave, he was ordered to assist in
capturing John Brown, who had taken Harper's Ferry. At the head of a
company of marines, he took Brown prisoner and, protecting him from a
mob which would have lynched him, handed him over to the authorities.
Two years later came the great trial of his life, when he was called
upon to decide between North and South, between Virginia and the Union.

Lee was not a believer in slavery; he had never owned slaves, and when
Custis died in 1859, Lee had carried out the dead man's desire that all
the slaves at Arlington should be freed. Neither was he a believer in
secession; but, on the other hand, he questioned the North's right to
invade and coerce the seceding states, and when Virginia joined them,
and made him commander-in-chief of her army, he accepted the trust.
Shortly before, at the instance of his fellow-Virginian, General Scott,
he had been offered command of the Union army, but declined it, stating
that, though opposed to secession and depre