George Washington Custis Lee

George Washington Custis Lee was born on September 16, 1832, in Fort Monroe, Virginia. He was the eldest son of Robert E. Lee, a prominent Confederate general, and Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee. His grandfather was George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, wife of George Washington.

Lee received early education at various boarding schools, including the classical school of Reverend George A. Smith and the mathematical school of Benjamin Hallowell. Although initially not admitted to the United States Military Academy at West Point at age 16, a letter from his father to General Winfield Scott facilitated his acceptance from Zachary Taylor, and he entered West Point at age 17.

He attended West Point from 1850 to 1854, excelling academically and militarily. His first year was marked by near-expulsion due to an incident involving alcohol, but he narrowly avoided expulsion and performed well thereafter. He graduated first in his class of forty-six in 1854, alongside future notable officers such as J.E.B. Stuart, William Dorsey Pender, Oliver Otis Howard, and others. Upon graduation, he was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers as a brevet second lieutenant.

During his service in the U.S. Army, Lee was stationed in California, Georgia, and Florida. He was promoted to second lieutenant in 1855 and to first lieutenant in 1859. He was stationed in Washington, D.C., during the period of Virginia's secession and the events leading to the Civil War. In spring 1861, shortly after Virginia seceded from the Union, Lee resigned from the U.S. Army and offered his services to Virginia’s state forces.

In the Civil War, Custis Lee served initially in the Virginia state forces before joining the Confederate States Army as a captain in July 1861. He worked with the Confederate Engineers in constructing fortifications around Richmond. In August 1861, he became aide-de-camp to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and was promoted to colonel, serving in this capacity for three years. During this period, he conducted military assessments for Davis and maintained contact with his father, who was commanding the Army of Northern Virginia.

In 1862, he supervised engineers during the Peninsula Campaign at Drewry's Bluff. In June 1863, Lee was promoted to brigadier general. Despite Davis's discouragement of field command, Custis Lee requested a field assignment, which his father supported, but was advised to prioritize obedience to superiors. During the Battle of Gettysburg, he was given command of troops in Richmond. In 1864, he commanded Richmond's defenses against Union Generals Grant and Butler, later commanding eastern defenses at Chaffin's Bluff, and was promoted to major general that year.

He was captured at Sayler's Creek on April 6, 1865, just three days before his father surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Following the war, Lee was employed as a professor at the Virginia Military Institute until his father's death.

Between 1871 and 1897, Lee served as the ninth president of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. In 1877, with assistance from Robert Lincoln, he initiated a legal case, United States v. Lee (1882), to recover Arlington House and the surrounding estate, which had become Arlington National Cemetery. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor, awarding him the estate in 1882, but he sold Arlington House back to the government in 1883 for $150,000.

In 1897, Lee resigned as president of Washington and Lee University and moved to Ravensworth Mansion, the home of his late brother William Henry Fitzhugh Lee. Custis Lee died on February 18, 1913, in Alexandria, Virginia. He was buried in the university chapel at Washington and Lee University. He did not marry and had no children.