{⋆★⋆} MG Lee, George Washington Custis

George Washington Custis Lee

:CSA1stNat:
csa_1850-1854_george-washington-custis-lee-jpg.jpg


Born: September 16, 1832

Birthplace: Fortress Monroe, Virginia

Father: General Robert Edward Lee 1807 – 1870

Mother: Mary Anna Randolph Custis 1808 – 1873

Nickname: Boo

Education:

1854: Graduated West Point Military Academy – (1st in class)​

Occupation before War:

1854 – 1855: Brevet 2nd Lt. United States Army Engineers
Custis 4.jpg
1855 – 1859: 2nd Lt. United States Army Engineers​
1859 – 1861: 1st Lt. United States Army Engineers​

Civil War Career:

1861: Captain Confederate Army Engineers​
1861 – 1863: Colonel and Aide to President Jefferson Davis​
1863 – 1864: Brigadier General and Aide to President Jefferson Davis​
1863: Volunteered to take Rooney’s place as Prisoner of War so Rooney could be with his sickly dying wife​
1864 – 1865: Commander of defenses of Richmond, Virginia​
1864 – 1865: Major General in the Confederate Army​
1865: Captured at the Battle of Sayler’s Creek, Virginia
Custis.jpg

Occupation after War:
Professor Military Science and Engineering Virginia Military Institute​
1871 – 1897: President of Washington & Lee University​
1882: Won Back Arlington House in United States Supreme Court​
1883: Sold Arlington House to the United States for $150,000.00​
1897 – 1913: Lived at Ravensworth Plantation in Fairfax County, Virginia​

Died:
February 18, 1913

Place of Death: Ravensworth Plantation, Annandale, Virginia

Age at time of Death: 80 years old

Burial Place: Lee Chapel Museum, Lexington, Virginia


Custis 2.jpg


Custis 6.jpg


Custis 5.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've never before seen the one pic below the one with his father and Taylor. Thank you for posting that! He looks so much like his father in that one IMO. :wub:

Here he's as cadet at West Point:
CSA_1850-1854_George Washington Custis Lee.jpg


Here's one with JEB Stuart and his brother:
 
I’ve always been interested in the Lee children especially the daughters - none of whom were married - but also with Custis a bachelor all his life. He was engaged for a few months during the war to Miss Sally Warwick. Her family were from Baltimore and were wealthy. The engagement was announced in the early Spring of 1864. It ended in early September 1864 - and of course the reasons are numerous - - -

1. Sally got bored with the rather dull, boring and overbearing Lee.
2. Custis at 34 was perhaps a bit too old for the 17 year old.
3. Custis was a man of simple tastes and when he gave her his class ring from West Point, let’s say Sally wasn’t impressed.
4. Some rumors have said that Custis, while in Richmond was known to visit a “lady friend” who worked at a hospital. It’s said that when confronted by his father, both ladies were gone from his life.

Sally went on to marry an Army officer and Custis Lee’s sister was invited to her wedding. General Lee wrote to his daughter on December 5, 1865 - - -

“My Worrying Little Agnes; your letter of the 1st received tonight. Sally is going to marry a widower. I think I ought to know, as she refused my son, and I do not wish to know his name. I wonder if she knows how many children he has. Tell Mr. Warwick I am sorry for him. I do not know what he will do without his sweet daughter. Nor do I know what I will do without her, either. Your mother has written - Mildred, too - and I presume has told you all domestic news. Custis is promenading the floor, Rob reading the papers and Mildred packing her dress. Your mamma is up to her eyes in news and I am crabbed as usual. I miss you very much and hope this is the last wedding you will attend. Good-bye. Love to everybody. - Your affectionate father, R.E. Lee”

Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee by Captain Robert E. Lee
 
I had always wondered about Custis why he never married. Then I found this clipping:
Wheeling Daily Register, 2 December 1868, p 1.jpg

Wheeling Daily Register, December 2, 1868, page 1

Do you know anything about that, @DBF ? Since Rooney's first wife's maiden name was Wickham I thought maybe a confusion of the newspaper, but Charlotte died in 1863 so now I'm confused. :confused:
 
Find a grave on General W.C. Wickham lists 2 daughters - Anne Carter Wickham Byerly (1851-1939) and Julia Leiper Wickham (1859-1873) the latter dying at 14 leaves her out - so it could be Anne Carter. One interesting fact regarding the General Wickham - on April 23, 1865 he announced his Republican affiliation in an open letter which “estranged” many of his friends.

I checked in my 2nd volume of “The Perfect Gentleman” the life and letters of George Washington Custis Lee, by Bernice-Marie Yates and according to the book - - -

“The year of 1868 (date of paper is December 2, 1868) had come to a close . . . General Lee was enjoying good health, while Custis’ health wavered. Nevertheless, it led his father to comment by mid-January, “Custis, I think, looks better.”

In a letter to a friend he commented on all his children “Custis and Robert are still bachelors and I fear likely to remain so for sometime.”


The author goes on to state that Lee has resigned himself that Custis will never marry. Of course he had lost his inheritance, his brothers had not, and Custis was prone to bouts of depressions. In some of the future letters from R.E. Lee to his family he says at one point Custis is "so-so".

It doesn’t sound like he was engaged by the end of 1868 - but I do believe General Lee would have loved to have seen him with a wife.

Charlotte Lee - married Rooney was the daughter of George Wickham he died in 1841.
 
View attachment 321127


George Washington Custis Lee:
Born: September 16, 1832
Birthplace: Fortress Monroe Virginia
Father: General Robert Edward Lee 1807 – 1870
Mother: Mary Anna Randolph Custis 1808 – 1873
Nickname: Boo
Education:
1854: Graduated West Point Military Academy – (1st in class)
Occupation before War:
1854 – 1855: Brevet 2nd Lt. United States Army Engineers
1855 – 1859: 2nd Lt. United States Army Engineers
1859 – 1861: 1st Lt. United States Army Engineers
Civil War Career:
1861: Captain Confederate Army Engineers
1861 – 1863: Colonel and Aide to President Jefferson Davis
1863 – 1864: Brigadier General and Aide to President Jefferson Davis
1863: Volunteered to take Rooney’s place as Prisoner of War so Rooney could be with his sickly dying wife
1864 – 1865: Commander of defenses of Richmond Virginia
1864 – 1865: Major General in the Confederate Army
1865: Captured at the Battle of Sayler’s Creek Virginia
Occupation after War:
Professor Military Science and Engineering Virginia Military Institute
1871 – 1897: President of Washington & Lee University
1882: Won Back Arlington House in United States Supreme Court
1883: Sold Arlington House to the United States for $150,000.00
1897 – 1913: Lived at Ravensworth Plantation in Fairfax County Virginia

Died: February 18, 1913
Place of Death: Ravensworth Plantation Annandale Virginia
Age at time of Death: 80 years old
Burial Place: Lee Chapel Museum Lexington Virginia


View attachment 321121

View attachment 321122

View attachment 321123

View attachment 321124

View attachment 321125

View attachment 321126
Who is the gentleman with the two Lees? Is It a aid to RL?Which one of the two standing is Curtis?
 
Who is the gentleman with the two Lees?
The photo date is credited April 16, 1865 - by Matthew Brady and the other gentleman is Robert E. Lee’s aide - Colonel Walter Herron Taylor.
From Left to Right - Custis - Robert and Walter and maybe someone else knows, but I thought this was the last time REL wore his confederate uniform??
 
In celebration of Custis's 187th birthday, a story about him I find quite sweet:

Lee took Custis out for a walk one snowy day, and when they had ploughed along together awhile, Custis dropped behind. After a few minutes Lee looked back and found that his little boy was behind him, imitating his every move and walking in the tracks the father had made in the snow. "When I saw this," Lee told one of his friends long afterwards, "I said to myself, 'it behooves me to walk very straight when this fellow is already following in my tracks.' "​
Freeman, Robert E. Lee, Vol. 1 p. 187
 
Happy Birthday? Maybe, but Custis was never a very happy man. On one occasion he summed up his life by saying that he never had any fun. Like father, like son? Robert E. said he could never do what he wanted to do.
 
Custis Lee is certainly an odd duck in the war. He was top of his class at West Point, and yet it seems despite that and his legendary father's influence, he doesn't really have any prominent role in the war, besides some advisory assignments and defense posts around Richmond. Was that by choice? I know Lee wasn't all about promoting his own family in the army (only example of this being the fact he chose General Hampton to command Stuart's Cavalry instead of his nephew Fitzhugh).
 
Back
Top