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Mary Ann Custis, wife of Robert E. Lee, was born at Annefield in 1808 while her mother was visiting here. Mary Anne’s mother rode from Arlington, Virginia in General Washington’s famous Italian “State” coach, before giving birth. She scarcely descended before the old Mount Vernon carriage, overstrained while crossing the mountains,
fell apart and had to be abandoned on the estate grounds.She was the only one of four children to survive infancy.
http://bikepptc.org/web_final/annefield_estate.htm
Mary Custis, a frail, blonde girl with aristocratic features , found herself being courted in the summer of 1830 by a distant relative and lifelong friend, Lt. Robert E. Lee. She succumbed to the charms of the intelligent and handsome young officer, and the two were wed at Arlington on June 30, 1831. Despite almost chronic ill health, Mary Lee bore seven children in 14 years. Robert was completely devoted to her, and even though he delighted in the company of pretty women, he was never led astray or involved in any scandal.
Mary referred to her husband as Mr. Lee, and even after the Civil War, when the South regarded him as a demigod, she would order Lee about and not hesitate to offer fiery opinions that differed from his. Yet she had a deep love and respect for her husband, and utter devotion bound the two together through the tragedies of her invalidism due to arthritis and his ultimately disastrous misfortune as the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
Though Mary Lee was a warm, gentle person, she was known as an untidy housekeeper and was generally unconcerned with her personal appearance. Once, after recovering from an illness, she found her hair so tangled that she took scissors and cut it off.
About Mary Custis Lee: Great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, her father, Washington Custis, was the adopted son of George Washington. Educated at home, she showed talent in painting.
She was courted by Sam Houston, and rejected his suit. Later, she married Robert E. Lee, a distant relative, after his graduation from West Point.
Highly religious from a young age, she was often troubled by illness. As the wife of a military officer, she traveled with him, though she was most happy at her family home in Arlington, Virginia.Eventually, the Lees had seven children, often suffering from illness and various disabilities.
When Virginia joined the Confederate States of America at the beginning of the Civil War, Robert resigned his commission with the federal army and accepted a commission in the army of Virginia. With some delay,Mary was convinced to pack up many of the family's belongings and move out of the home at Arlington, because its nearness to Washington, DC, would make it a target for confiscation by the Union forces. And so it was -- for failure to pay taxes, though an attempt to pay the taxes was apparently refused. She spent many years after the war ended trying to regain possession of her Arlington home.
Robert returned after the surrender of the Confederacy, and they moved to Lexington, Virginia, where he became president of Washington College.
During the war, many of the family possessions inherited from the Washingtons were buried for safety; after the war many were found to have been damaged, but some -- the silver, some carpets, some letters among them -- survived. Those that had been left in the Arlington home were declared by Congress to be the property of the American people.
Neither Robert nor Mary survived many years. He died in 1867, and she died in 1873 -- after making one trip to see her old home.Arthritis plagued Mary in her later years, and she died in Lexington on November 5, 1873. In 1882, the US Supreme Court in a ruling returned the home to the family, but Mary and Robert's son, Custis, sold it back to the government.
http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/civilwar/p/p_mary_lee.htm
Mary Ann Randolph Custis Lee, 1838 This portrait of Mrs. Robert E. Lee was copied from the original painted by William E. West of Baltimore in 1838.
It was considered a wedding portrait; although, by this time, the Lees had been married for seven years and had three children. They were married at her parent's home, Arlington, in 1831.This letter, written by Mary to her friend Lettie just a month after Robert E. Lee's death, is one example of the numerous letters she wrote eulogizing her husband. The last entry in Mary's journal - in December 1970 -
described her feelings of resignation: "I am left to pursue my weary pilgrimage alone." The document is from the manuscript collection at the Jessie Ball duPont Memorial Library, Stratford Hall Plantation. Letter image follows. Transcription of Mary Custis Lee's letter:
Lexington 15 Nov 1870
I have long intended to write to you my dear Lettie ever since I heard of the death of Rosa's dear little boy but was prevented by many things. What a sorrow it must have been to them & to you all & you never saw him. I know what a joy a baby is in a house & it was her first. You must give my affectionate love to her & tell her I have often thought of her. Will she not come & see you all this winter or some of you go to her? The sympathy of friends is very grateful to us when we know it is sincere & in my trouble dear Lettie I feel that it is all heartfelt that there is no feigned grief for him who all mourn who could appreciate true excellence & though it is very sad for me to lose the strong arm & caring heart on which I have leaned for so many eventful years, yet I mourn not for him but for myself. It never crossed my mind for one moment that I would outlive him, that a life so valueless as mine could be spared & his taken, so important to his family & country, but God knows what is best for us all & I am content. I would not recall him if I could. The toils of his crowded and eventful life are ended & had he succeeded in gaining the cause which cost him so much labor & sacrifice, he could not have been more beloved & lamented than he is now. Only the Hero of a lost cause yet as the blood of the Martyrs built up the Church so may the sacrifice of this Martyr yet produce fruit for his country that we know not of. "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform".My husband's last day on earth was crowded with cares & labors for others & when late in the evening he reached home and sank back in his chair unable to articulate a word I saw in the look of resignation on his face as he sat perfectly calm & upright waiting the arrival of the physicians that he knew the summons had come & though from the nature of his disease he did not express his feelings, never smiled & rarely spoke, yet he never expressed a single thought or anxiety for aught but lay calmly & quietly awaiting his end. Once when Agnes urged him to take some medicine, which he always seemed to take with great repugnance, he said quite plainly "tis no use" but took it as it was ordered. When he came so much better that they were very hopeful of his recovery, the Dr said "you must soon mount your favorite grey." He shook his head very emphatically & looked upward. He knew us all, welcomed us with a warm pressure of the hand & seem to like us around him, especially Custis who was a most efficient nurse. He slept a great deal & the last 48 hours the Dr. assured us was insensible to all pain & after a long night of breathing heavily awoke to rest with one deep long sigh. I cannot even now realise that he has gone. I listen for his step at the usual time & when he does not enter feel my sad disappointment. We had determined to remain here this winter & if Custis accepts the Presidency of the College may continue to make it our home for more years. I have been quite sick for more than 3 weeks first with a bilious attack & then a violent inflammation of my leg ankle & foot which was so painful that I could scarcely turn in bed & had to be lifted in & out of it, & still though it is much better, I spend part of every day in bed & out with my limbs spread out before me in such an uncomfortable position that I write with difficulty which must be my apology for this letter. The girls all desire to be particularly remembered to you & all your family & to Rosa to express their deep sympathy - also remember us to Mrs. Meredith & other kind friends. Do you ever hear anything of the Bufords now? Or of from Nat Burwell. Did he ever get the little dress? We have had the most beautiful weather ever known since that dreadful storm which commenced just about the hour when my husband was taken as if the very elements were in convulsive thrusts weeping with us, & since the skies have been radiant with beauty as rejoicing over the freed spirit in his glorified mansion. I would I had been able my dear Lettie to detail to you all the circumstances attend his last moments but I cannot now & will only subscribe myself your faithful friend,
M.C. Lee
When not traipsing around the country with small children in tow (in typical military wife fashion) she billeted temporarily at her family seat, "Arlington". When the Union government confiscated Arlington, ultimately
creating a cemetery for northern troops there, she was devastated. Even in later years she declined official invitations to visit her former family home, feeling it had been violated by strangers.
"I learn that my garden laid out with so much taste by my dear father's own hands has all been changed, the splendid forest leveled to the ground, the small enclosure allotted to his and my mother's remains surrounded closely by the graves of those who aided to bring all this ruin on the children and country. They are even planted up to the very door without any regard to common decency....Even savages would have spared that place...yet they have done everything to debase and desecrate it." --Mary Custis Lee, 1866
Arlington House under Union occupation in 1861. The home was originally seized to prevent Confederate forces from using it as an artillery emplacement against the Federal capital. Date: 1870
Original Format: Cabinet Card Photograph
Photographer: Michael Miley
