Mildred Childe Lee

Mildred Childe Lee was born on February 10, 1846, at Arlington Plantation to Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis Lee. She was named after her father's sister, Catherine Mildred Lee Childe. She was the last member of the Lee family to be born at Arlington. Through her grandmother, Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis, she was a descendant of William Fitzhugh. Her maternal grandfather, George Washington Parke Custis, was George Washington's step-grandson and adopted son and the founder of Arlington House. Lee was the sister of Robert E. Lee Jr., Mary Custis Lee, Anne Carter Lee, Eleanor Agnes Lee, George Washington Custis Lee, and William Henry Fitzhugh Lee. A member of the planter class, she had a privileged upbringing typical for American gentry. She and her siblings grew up at Arlington House, the family's plantation that had been inherited by their mother. When she was three years old, the family moved to Baltimore, where her father was stationed. Her mother described her in a letter to a friend as "a most finished coquette." Later, the family moved to West Point. == Education and the Civil War ==

Lee was tutored privately at home before being sent to Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. Powell’s Female Seminary in Winchester, Virginia, where she studied Latin, French, music, and drawing. At Saint Mary's, Lee studied Biblical history, music, art, astronomy, Latin, and French. When the Confederate States of America was officially formed, Lee's mother wrote to her at school, saying "With a sad and heavy heart, my dear child, I write, for the prospects before are sad indeed. And as I think both parties are in the wrong in this fractricidal war there is nothing comforting even in the hope that God may prosper the right, for I see no right in this matter. We can only pray that in His mercy He will spare us." When the Civil War broke out later that year, Mildred was sent with her sister, Annie, to meet her mother at White House Plantation, a relative's home along the Pamunkey River. Union soldiers arrived at the house and placed her and her family under house arrest. In June 1862 her father asked Union General George B. McClellan to arrange a transfer for the family across Confederate lines so that they could join him in Richmond. While her father and brothers were fighting in the war, Lee and her sisters knitted socks and gloves for Confederate soldiers, and worked as nurses in Confederate hospitals for the wounded. == Later life and death ==

After the war ended, and Arlington was seized by the United States government, the family moved to Derwent, a cottage on the James River that had been offered to them as a residence. She never married, and stayed with her parents as a companion. She also travelled to Venice and France. She died from a stroke on March 27, 1905, in New Orleans. Her body was taken by train to Lexington, where a delegation of Confederate Veterans and members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy awaited the arrival. She was buried in the family crypt at University Chapel. After her death, flags flew at half mast throughout the Southern United States. == References ==