Lieutenant Jack Mackay adjusted his wide-brimmed slouch hat so as to channel the heavy cold rain away from his neck. Then he continued the conversation. “But Robert, I really think my sister has become extremely attached to you. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed!”
Lieutenant Robert E. Lee looked up quickly in alarm. “Jack, you don’t think I’ve been misleading Miss Eliza, do you?”
“Of course not,” he said dismissively. “And neither does she. But she does find your attentions very welcome. I can tell.”
“I enjoy her company very much,” Lee said, “and also Miss Catherine’s. Both of your sisters are amiable and pleasant ladies.” He resumed walking slowly along the earthen embankment, occasionally stopping to plunge a sharp stick into the side.
In the previous month, November, a gale had destroyed part of this earthen wall, and the site for the fort had flooded. Due to illness and then rambling bureaucratic shuffling in Washington, the major commanding the site was not there. It had been up to Lieutenant Lee to supervise the repair of the breach and to strengthen the entire protective mud wall. He inspected it several times a day when it was raining, even on a dismal and cold day such as this.
“ ‘Amiable and pleasant,’ ” his friend repeated. “That could be said of every lady of our acquaintance. Robert, I don’t like to intrude, but may I ask you a question of a personal nature? Rude of me, I know, but I hope that you’ll excuse me because of our long friendship.”
Lee and Jack Mackay had been at West Point together, and they had been at Cockspur Island now for over a year. Somewhat to Mackay’s surprise, Lee grinned at him. “You’re going to ask me about why I’ve never courted anyone.”
“Well, yes. Certainly you’ve had ample opportunity. The ladies all adore you. Barely notice I’m in the room when you’re there,” he added, grumbling.
“Nonsense,” Lee said crisply. “Anyway, the answer to your admittedly rude, though forgivable question is that I have been courting a lady for a long time now.”
Mackay nodded. “Miss Custis, isn’t it? I know that every summer you spend most of your time up around Arlington House. And I know that you write her often.”
“It is Miss Custis,” Lee admitted readily. “It’s always been Miss Custis.”
The new commanding engineer reported to Cockspur Island just after Christmas. By spring, he had made his best evaluation: the plan for the fort would not do, and it must be redesigned. In April, Second Lieutenant Robert E. Lee was reassigned to Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia. Although it was almost one hundred eighty miles to the gracious home on the hills above Alexandria, it was still much closer than Savannah, Georgia.
Lieutenant Lee reported to his new post on May 7, 1831. Now with certainty in his course, he secured a leave of absence and made his way again up that long slope to Arlington House. It was a gorgeous day, balmy with occasional cool breezes that carried the sweetest scent of all, jasmine. The cherry trees and dogwoods in the park were blooming, their virginal white flowers bright against the cool green of new leaves. Northern Virginia was in her best dress, that of a sunny spring.
He was greeted happily by the family, at least by Mary Custis and Mrs. Custis. George Custis welcomed him but was perhaps a touch less effusive than his wife and daughter.
Lee, of course, noticed this, but it made no difference to him. He knew Mary Custis as well as any person on earth can truly know another, and her thoughts and desires were the only thing that mattered to him.
They sat on the veranda for a while sipping lemonade and talking mostly about Arlington, for Mr. Custis invariably brought the conversation around to his much-beloved home. As he and Lee talked, Mr. Custis soon warmed up to him, as he always did. Robert E. Lee was cordial and pleasant, and he had a quick and curious mind. He never feigned interest in any of Mr. Custis’s topics, whether it was George Washington or some scheme Mr. Custis had for an agricultural enterprise or news of the economy in England. Lee was truly interested in all of these things and many more.
Robert was invited to dinner, and just after sunset, they all repaired to the dining room. As it was still cool in the evenings, a fire had been lit, but in Robert’s opinion it did little to make the formal room more inviting. It was a magnificent room, grandly furnished. A very long Charles X mahogany table was centered in the room, covered with the finest French damask cloth. Intricately carved mahogany Chippendale chairs lined the walls, except for the four set at the table. An enormous George II serpentine-front sideboard was on one wall, the fireplace on the other.
A slave, dressed in a dark suit with a tailed coat, white vest, and spotless white gloves, stood behind each chair. Robert saw with an inward sigh that he was stranded at one end of the long expanse of the table. Mr. Custis said grace, and the servants began to prepare each dish for the diners from the sideboard.
Before her father could monopolize the conversation again, Mary asked, “Mr. Lee, please tell us about your new position. I’ve never been to Hampton Roads, though I’ve heard it’s a most pleasant holiday spot.”
“Hampton Roads may be, but I’m afraid Fort Monroe isn’t quite as congenial,” Robert said. “At least there is actually a fort, which is more than can be said for Cockspur Island.”
“And what is to be your work there, Lieutenant Lee?” Molly asked.
“Construction on the fort itself is pretty well complete. It houses a garrison, and in fact, they have just begun artillery training there. But the outerworks still aren’t finished, and it’s been decided to build an adjacent fort just offshore, on a rock bank sunk in deep water. I’m rather excited about the project,” he said, warming to the subject. “I do hope I’m assigned to work on the new fort, and not just finishing the outerworks on Monroe.”
“Good heavens, Mr. Lee, you’ve practically spent the last two years chin-deep in that swamp in Georgia,” Mary said spiritedly. “To this day I cannot imagine how you kept from dying, either from some noxious swamp fever or from catching a deathly chill in the winters.”
“I must have a strong constitution,” he said. “Do you know, I’ve never been ill in my life, except for the usual childhood things.”
“Yes, I know,” Mary said so assuredly that her father gave her a strange look. “But most mortal men do get ill at one time or another in such an environment. I’m glad that you’ll be better situated at Fort Monroe. So since it sounds already well established, I assume that they have adequate housing there? You know, officer’s quarters—and married officer’s houses?”
George Custis choked slightly on a bite of roasted pork, Molly Custis smiled knowingly, and Mary stared at Robert, her eyes sparkling, her expression challenging.
Robert E. Lee was definitely a man to squarely meet a challenge. “Oh yes, Miss Custis. Naturally I was most interested in the housing available. I saw several homes for officers. In fact, I am very partial to one of them. It is small, but it could be made into a comfortable home, I think, with the right touch.”
“A woman’s touch, I’m sure you mean,” Mary added mischievously.
“Of course. Could any house be called a home without the right woman’s touch?” Robert said with aplomb.
At this Mr. Custis felt it was important to intervene, so the rest of the dinner conversation revolved around Arlington and tidbits of family news.
After dinner they retired to the formal drawing room, which adjoined the dining room. Mr. Custis talked to Lee for almost two hours. They found themselves talking about the Revolution, and about George Washington as a general, and of course about one of his most trusted young cavalrymen, General “Lighthorse” Harry Lee, Robert’s father. As the men talked, Mrs. Custis sewed and Mary read.
At length Mr. Custis said he was going to go to his office and go over some papers and excused himself.
Mary laid aside her book, and Robert asked, “What are you reading, Miss Custis?”
“Ivanhoe,” she answered promptly. “I like Sir Walter Scott very much. I know that you don’t care much for novels, Robert, but would you please read to me? My eyes are growing a bit tired.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Robert answered. He had a low, melodious voice, and with his warm manner, listeners found his recitations very enjoyable.
“Chapter fourteen begins with a poem by Warton,” Robert said, and quoted with feeling:
“ In rough magnificence array’d
When ancient Chivalry display’d
The pomp of her heroic games
And crested chiefs and the tissued dames
Assembled, at the clarion’s call,
In some proud castle’s high arched hall.
Prince John held his high festival in the Castle of Ashby….”
After he had read for about an hour and was about to begin a new chapter, Molly Custis said, “Lieutenant Lee, it is such a great pleasure to hear you read. But I’m sure you need some refreshment. Mary, why don’t you take Lieutenant Lee into the dining room and get him something from the sideboard?”
“Of course, Mother,” Mary said, rising and going toward the dining room.
Robert followed her, but they had only taken a few steps when Mrs. Custis said, “Mary?”
“Yes, Mother?”
Molly Custis never looked up from her sewing. Quietly she said, “I had Colley set up refreshments in the family dining room, dear.”
“Oh?” Mary said in surprise. “Oh! Of course. Come along, Robert.”
Instead of going back into the formal dining room, Mary led him across the hall to a much warmer, more pleasant room. It was a large room. Two-thirds of it was taken up by a plain rectangular wooden table that held six places. At the other end of the room was a cozy family parlor. It was a much more intimate setting than the grand drawing room.
Mary led him to the sideboard, took a plate, and put a piece of fruitcake on it. “Tea? Or—”
He put his arm around her, turned her to him, and drew her close. “Mary, I don’t want to wait for tea or cake or anything else. I love you, Mary, I love you so much that I can’t imagine life without you. Would you do me the very great honor of marrying me?”
“Finally,” she murmured and put her arms around him. They kissed, a long, lingering, sweet kiss.
Robert E. Lee and Mary Custis both felt a rush of joy, for at last they were home.
Truth to tell, George Washington Parke Custis was hiding.
His office was more like a library—a comfortable room with a mahogany barrister’s desk, three walls lined with filled bookcases, and a window that looked out on the lawn and the park. By this window in summer he placed his favorite chair, perhaps the only piece of furniture in Arlington House that was shabby. It was a solid leather wing chair, overstuffed, with a matching hassock. Mr. Custis could spend hours in this chair, reading, looking out the window onto his magnificent grounds, or dozing. But on this early morning, he sat uneasily, trying to concentrate on a Dickens novel, but more often looking out the window, his brow furrowed.
A peremptory knock sounded at the door. “Father?”
“Come in, Mary,” he said resignedly.
She came in, and he noted that she was looking particularly well this morning, wearing a sky-blue dress and matching ribbons in her curled hair. Her color was high, and her dark eyes were fiery. “Father, I can’t believe the way you treated Robert! How could you?”
He stood slowly, laid down his book, and said in a kindly voice, “Mary, dearest one, please come sit down with me. Please?”
She looked rebellious, but then relented and followed him to the corner by the fireplace, where there was a sofa and loveseat. She took her seat on the sofa, and her father sat by her.
Taking her hand, he said quietly, “I didn’t refuse Lieutenant Lee, you know.”
“I know that. It wouldn’t have done any good if you had. What I don’t understand is your attitude of clear reluctance, Father. Robert isn’t offended, because he is so kind and understanding. But I am offended for him,” she said ardently.
“Mary, I like Robert. No, that’s not quite correct. I hold him in very high esteem. But I do have two objections to your marrying him. One I told him of, and we spoke of it at length. The other I said nothing about, but of course he would be aware of my concerns.”
“It’s all that malicious gossip about his half brother, isn’t it?” Mary said with disdain.
“It’s not just gossip, my dear. The story happens to be true,” Mr. Custis said gently.
Robert E. Lee had an older half brother, Henry Lee, the son of “Lighthorse” Harry Lee’s first wife, who had died. Henry Lee had inherited the Lee family mansion, Stratford, and had married a neighbor, a young woman of means. Her sister, a seventeen-year old girl, had come to live with them. After the death of their first child, Henry’s wife became addicted to morphine, and Henry and his wife’s younger sister had an affair. All of this had happened many years previously, but it had only come out that year, because President Andrew Jackson had appointed Henry Lee as consul to Algiers. He and his wife, who had recovered from her addiction and reconciled with her husband, traveled there. But all of Henry Lee’s past, instead of merely being whispered about, was now soundly denounced on the floor of the Senate, and every senator who voted went against his confirmation. He had moved to Paris that summer of 1830, and the couple now lived in obscurity there.
Mary argued, “I don’t care if it is true. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Robert.”
“But it’s his family,” Mr. Custis said. “Even his father, an esteemed general and friend of my grandfather’s, with so many opportunities, went to debtor’s prison and left his family penniless.”
“Yes, it is a terrible thing what happened to Robert and his mother and brothers and sisters,” Mary said evenly. “But his mother was a strong, determined, godly, loving woman who passed on all of those qualities to Robert. And she taught him self-reliance and frugality and self-control. His other, nobler qualities, like personal courage and sense of duty and honor are in his blood, Lee blood, and he is proud of it. It is an honor for me to marry this man, Father. Can’t you see that?”
His eyes wandered to the window, that window that he had looked out on with such pleasure for over thirty years. “I suppose I do, Mary,” he said at last. “You’re right, of course. I’ve known Robert all of his life, and perhaps I have grown so accustomed to him that I have forgotten his finer qualities as a man.” He turned back to her and continued in a tone now tinged with worry. “But Mary, he is poor, and I can’t help but worry about that, and I addressed my objections to Lieutenant Lee. You’ve never been poor, child, you’ve no idea what it’s like. You, living in officer’s quarters in a fort? I tried to tell Lieutenant Lee that I would like to be allowed to help, but he—”
Mary burst out laughing. “Oh Father, dear Father. For a moment there I really thought you were coming to understand us. Don’t you know Robert E. Lee at all? Don’t you know me? Neither Robert nor I would ever accept your charity under any circumstances. And no, we didn’t discuss this last night. Of course we talked about Fort Monroe and economies that would have to be made and so on, but neither of us ever mentioned asking you for help. We didn’t have to. We both knew that it was impossible.”
“But Mary, a fort?” he protested weakly.
“Yes, a fort,” she said firmly. “And in spite of my ignorance, I happen to know that there are many people that are much worse off than that. I am so blessed, so exceedingly blessed, and I’m so happy! I want you to be happy for me, too, Father. I believe that in time you’ll find that Robert will be just as treasured by you as if he were your own son.”
He sighed. “That may be. He is a man that I admire, I freely admit. But it may take some time for me to be positively giddy about your marriage.”
She squeezed his hand. “Not too much time, Father. Because I have told Robert that I’ve waited for him long enough. I refuse to have a long engagement. We’re going to be married next month.”
On June 30, 1831, Robert E. Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis at Arlington House.
It was a stormy day, and the Episcopalian minister had arrived soaking wet through and through. Mr. Custis loaned him some clothes that were ill fitting, but his vestments gave him an appropriate grand solemnity.
Robert waited by the fireplace in the formal drawing room. Six of his friends stood with him. About forty people, all of them relatives to one degree or another to the Lees and the Custises, were in attendance. He looked expectantly past them to the door into the dining room, where his bride, with her six attendants, was to enter.
Jack Mackay, his old friend from West Point and Cockspur Island, leaned forward and whispered, “Robert, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen you look pale. Are you all right?”
Lee looked slightly surprised. “I’m pale? How very odd. No, I’m fine. I thought I would be more excited than this, but I feel only calm.”
Mary’s attendants started coming through, but Robert only had eyes for his bride. Somewhat to his consternation, she looked very nervous. He mentally made a note to write of this day later to a friend not in attendance:
The minister had few words to say, though he dwelt upon them as if he had been reading my Death warrant, and there was a tremulousness in the hand I held that made me anxious for him to end.
But Mary recovered from her jitters as soon as the ceremony was over.
The happy couple stayed at Arlington for a week then started making the rounds of nearby friends and family, all of whom had large estates and gracious homes.
Robert E. Lee was the happiest of men. He and Mary had played together as small children, when he had come to love her as part of his extended family. They had teased each other and argued with each other and flirted with each other all through their teenage years. And now he was a man, and in the footsteps of the immortal Paul, he had put away those childish things.
He loved Mary Anna with a devotion and loyalty and respect so deep that it would never waver, never falter. He knew he was blessed, for he had married the greatest love of his life.
Mary Anna had to admit that, despite her insistence of her worldly knowledge to her father, life at Fort Monroe came as a great shock to her. The enlisted men who were assigned to the artillery school were a raucous, belligerent bunch of men who got drunk as often as possible and fought with each other, reeling drunk or rock sober, almost every day.
Looking up from her book, she watched Robert with affection. He sat at his small camp desk, lit by a single lantern, sketching out mechanical drawings for breastworks. His handsome face was a study in total concentration, but it was not indicated by frowning or chewing his lip or any other facial gesture. He was expressionless, except for his intense gaze, and he was motionless except for his drawing hand.
The room was small, a tiny parlor that barely held a sofa, two armchairs, and Robert’s desk. At the other end of the room was the kitchen, which consisted of a cookstove, three cabinets, and an oak table that served both as a worktable and a dining table. The door on the right-hand side of the room led to their bedroom, the only other room in the apartment. This shabby little second-floor flat was as far from Arlington House as two structures can possible be and still be called houses. But Mary didn’t care about the house. To her, home was where Robert was, and that made her happy.
Robert finally looked up from his work. He rose and smiled at his wife. He came to kneel by her chair and took her hand and kissed it. “You know, I knew that our home would be happy, no matter how much of a setdown it is from Arlington. But what I didn’t really realize was what a good soldier’s wife you would become. This life is so different from your world.”
“You are my world, Robert,” she said simply. “You have been my whole world for a long time.”
He studied her then said warmly, “I love you, Mims. I thank the Lord for giving you to me. You are my treasure.”
She smiled at him. “Robert, how would you like to have another treasure?”
“Hm? What?”
“An addition to our world. A small, noisy one that I fervently hope looks like you.”
He took both her hands and stared up at her, his eyes so dark they looked ebony. “You’re pregnant? We’re going to have a baby?”
“Yes, we are,” she said happily. “In September, I think.”
Robert E. Lee laid his head down in her lap and, in quiet reverent tones, gave thanks to the Lord.
He was born at the fortress on September 16, 1832. They named him George Washington Custis Lee.
To Mary’s joy, even as a newborn, the boy had the aristocratic male handsomeness of the Lee men. Mary bore the birth well, and Custis was healthy.
In her journal she wrote:
The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness,
The voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride,
The voice of them that shall say,
Praise the Lord of hosts:
For the Lord is good;
For his mercy endureth forever.