So he grew up by her side, a good and noble boy. At first he went to school to a Mr. Leary, who was ever his firm friend. Then he went to the school of Mr. Benjamin H. Hallowell, who always spoke of him as a fine young man.
Robert was fond of hunting, and would sometimes follow the hounds all day. In this way he gained that great strength which was never known to fail him in after life.
The old home, in Alexandria, where his mother had lived, was always a sacred place to him. Years after, one of his friends saw him looking sadly over the fence of the garden where he used to play. “I am looking,” he said, “to see if the old snow-ball trees are still here. I should be sorry to miss them.”
When he was eighteen years old, he went to West Point to learn to be a soldier. He was there four years, and in that time never got a bad mark or demerit. His clothes always looked neat and clean, and his gun bright. In short, he kept the rules of the school and studied so well that he came out second in his class.
When he came home from West Point, he found his mother’s old coachman, Nat, very ill. He took him at once to the South and nursed him with great care. But the spring-time saw the good old slave laid in the grave by the hand of his kind young master.
Not very long after, his dear mother grew quite ill. He sat by her bedside day and night, and gave her all her food and medicine with his own hand. But his great care and love could not save her. He was soon bereft of her to whom he used to say he “owed everything.”
Some one has said, “Much has been written of what the world owes to ‘Mary, the mother of Washington’; but it owes scarcely less to ‘Anne, the mother of Lee.’”
Gĕn′-er-al, the head of an army. Ex′-pe-dĭ′-tion, a voyage; a trip, with an aim in view. Stăt′-ūre, height. Dråughts (dråfts), currents of air.
Tell what you remember about— Robert’s father. Robert’s mother. The situation of his home. Robert’s kindness to his mother. His life at West Point.
In 1829, when twenty-two years old, Robert entered the Engineer Corps of the United States, and thus became Lieutenant Lee.
It is the duty of these engineers in time of peace, to plan forts, to change the course of rivers which make sand-banks at wrong places, and to do other work of the same kind. Lieutenant Lee was sent at once to Hampton Roads, in Virginia, to build strong works, not dreaming that in after years it would be his fate to try to pull them down.