Robert Edward "Rob" Lee Jr. (October 27, 1843 – October 19, 1914) was the sixth of seven children of
Confederate
Confederacy or confederate may refer to:
States or communities
* Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities
* Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...
General
Robert E. Lee
Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, towards the end of which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army. He led the Army of Nort ...
and
Mary Anna Randolph Custis. He became a soldier during the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, and later was a
planter, businessman, and author.
Early life
Rob Lee was born and raised at
Arlington House across the
Potomac River
The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...
from Washington, D.C. He was close to his father, who he was named after, and his sister,
Mildred Childe Lee
Mildred Childe Lee (February 10, 1846 – March 27, 1905) was an American society hostess and the youngest child of Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis Lee. She was the last member of the Lee family to be born at Arlington Plantation and had a p ...
.
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
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...
and as Superintendent of the