generations of American historians record its
stirring events with impartiality.

General Lee came from the class of landed gentry that has furnished
England at all times with her most able and distinguished leaders. The
first of his family who went to America was Richard Lee, who, in 1641,
became Colonial Secretary to the Governor of Virginia. The family
settled in Westmoreland, one of the most lovely counties in that
historic State, and members of it from time to time held high
positions in the government. Several of the family distinguished
themselves during the War of Independence, among whom was Henry, the
father of General Robert E. Lee. He raised a mounted corps known as
"Lee's Legion," in command of which he obtained the reputation of
being an able and gallant soldier. He was nicknamed by his comrades
"Light-Horse Harry." He was three times Governor of his native State.
To him is attributed the authorship of the eulogy on General
Washington, in which occurs the so-often quoted sentence, "First in
war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,"
praise that with equal truth might have been subsequently applied to
his own distinguished son.

The subject of this slight sketch, Robert Edmund Lee, was born January
9, 1807, at the family place of Stratford, in the county of
Westmoreland, State of Virginia. When only a few years old, his
parents moved to the small town of Alexandria, which is on the right
bank of the Potomac River, nearly opposite Washington, but a little
below it.

He was but a boy of eleven when his father died, leaving his family in
straitened circumstances. Like many other great commanders, he was in
consequence brought up in comparative poverty, a condition which has
been pronounced by the greatest of them as the best training for
soldiers. During his early years he attended a day-school near his
home in Alexandria. He was thus able in his leisure hours to help his
invalid mother in all her household concerns, and to afford her that
watchful care which, owing to her very delicate health, she so much
needed. She was a clever, highly gifted woman, and by her fond care
his character was formed and stamped with honest truthfulness. By her
he was taught never to forget that he was well born, and that, as a
gentleman, honor must be his guiding star through life. It was from
her lips he learned his Bible, from her teaching he drank in the
sincere belief in revealed religion which he