Robert E. Lee, Jr.

Robert Edward "Rob" Lee Jr. (October 27, 1843 – October 19, 1914) was the youngest of three sons of Confederate General Robert Edward Lee Sr. and Mary Anna Randolph Custis, and the sixth of their seven children. He became a soldier during the American Civil War, and later was a planter, businessman, and author.

Rob Lee was born and raised at Arlington House across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. 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 and as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Unlike his father and two older brothers, Rob apparently never envisioned a military career, never serving in the United States Army. In 1860, he enrolled at the University of Virginia.

When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, his father and his two older brothers, Custis and Rooney, all chose to serve Virginia in the Confederate Army. To his mother's dismay, Rob joined them in 1862, enlisting in the Rockbridge Artillery as a private.