Stratford Hall

Robert Edward Lee was born at Stratford Hall on January 19, 1807, to Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, a Revolutionary War hero, and Ann Hill Carter. He spent the first four years of his childhood there before moving with his parents and siblings to Alexandria, Virginia. During the Civil War, after his wife’s home, Arlington, had been turned into a United States military cemetery, he wrote to his daughters Agnes and Annie Lee on November 22, 1861, saying that Stratford was endeared to him by many recollections and that he had long desired to purchase it, a desire made stronger because he no longer had another home and the one he had loved had been polluted. He never purchased Stratford and never owned a home. After thirty-two years of service in the U.S. Army, he resigned his commission on April 20, 1861, accepted command of Virginia’s army and naval forces three days later, received command of the Army of Northern Virginia from Confederate President Jefferson Davis on June 1, 1862, became general-in-chief of Confederate forces on January 1, 1865, surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, became president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, in October 1865, and died there on October 12, 1870.

Virginia · United States