Eleanor Agnes Lee

Eleanor Agnes Lee was born on February 27, 1841, in Arlington, Virginia, and died of tuberculosis on October 15, 1873, in Lexington, Virginia. She was a member of the prominent Lee family of Virginia, as the fifth child of General Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis Lee. Lee was a granddaughter of American colonist Richard Lee I and a descendant of Martha Washington, Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, and Charles II of England through her maternal line.

Lee was the third daughter among her siblings, which included George Washington Custis Lee, Mary Custis Lee, William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, and Anne Carter Lee, and she had younger siblings Robert E. Lee Jr. and Mildred Childe Lee. Her family belonged to the planter class and resided at Arlington House on their plantation. She was raised in an environment of privilege and was closely bonded with her sisters, especially Anne Carter Lee.

Her early education was conducted at home by tutors, including instruction in music, English, French, and arithmetic provided by a governess. In 1855, she attended the Virginia Female Institute, a boarding school, after receiving a Christmas gift of a journal from a tutor, Sue Poor. She kept a diary from age twelve for five years, documenting daily life activities such as ice skating, family visits, and celebrations, which later provided detailed insights into family life at Arlington House. Her writings included both prose and poetry; her poetry collection contained titles such as "Motherhood," "A Statue in the Garden," "On the Jail Steps," "Peace," "A Roman Doll," "Her Going," and "Convention." She was confirmed in the Episcopal Church in 1857.

During her adolescence, Lee helped her mother and sisters teach enslaved children, despite it being illegal in Virginia. Her personal experiences, health issues, and family connections shaped her early life. She was close to her sister Anne Carter Lee, who contracted typhoid fever in 1862 and passed away after expressing concern for Agnes. Lee experienced a significant emotional impact from her sister's death and the execution of her cousin and former beau, William Orton Williams, a Confederate spy executed by the Union Army in 1863.

Throughout the American Civil War, Lee and her family engaged in activities supporting the Confederate cause, including knitting socks and gloves for soldiers and working in hospitals. During the war, her family was placed under house arrest by Union forces but was later allowed to join Robert E. Lee in Richmond after negotiations by General George B. McClellan.

After the Civil War, Lee's family relocated to Lexington, Virginia, where her father served as president of Washington University. During this period, she received multiple suitor proposals, including from an astronomy professor at the Virginia Military Institute, but she did not marry. In 1870, she joined her father on a trip to Georgia for his health, and later that year, she participated in his funeral preparations following his death.

Lee's death occurred three years later; she was buried alongside her family in University Chapel in Lexington. Her posthumous diary, titled "Growing Up in the 1850s," was published in 1984 and remains a significant record of the private life of the Lee family during that era.