Robert Edward Lee, the future legendary Confederate commander, was born in Virginia. His father was General Harry Lee, a friend and close associate of George Washington. Lee and his wife, Mary Curtis, Washington’s niece, settled in a beautiful villa directly across from Washington, in what is now Arlington Cemetery, behind the Lincoln Monument. Of Whig (conservative) leanings, he did not believe in slavery but believed in the Union, but fate would lead him to fight against the Union itself and become its formidable enemy.
