Lee, George Washington Custis, 1832-1913

George Washington Custis Lee (September 16, 1832 – February 18, 1913), also known as Custis Lee, was the eldest son of Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis Lee. His grandfather George Washington Custis was the step-grandson and adopted son of George Washington and grandson of Martha Custis Washington. He served as a Confederate general in the American Civil War, primarily as an aide-de-camp to President Jefferson Davis, and succeeded his father as president of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. George Washington Custis Lee was born in Fort Monroe, Virginia. When Lee was not admitted to West Point at age 16,[1] his father, Robert E. Lee, sent a letter to General Winfield Scott on his son's behalf, which precipitated a nomination from Zachary Taylor.[2][clarification needed] Lee was then accepted to West Point at 17. He served primarily in California, Georgia, and Florida during his time in the United States Army.[1][2] In 1855, he was given the rank of second lieutenant in the Regular Army. In 1859, Lee was commissioned a first lieutenant.[2] Lee was then stationed in Washington D. C., during the period of secession and Fort Sumter. He then resigned from the Army, in the spring of 1861 after Virginia seceded from the Union. He resigned about two weeks after his father had done the same. Lee then offered his services to his father's Virginia state forces.[1] Custis Lee served in the Virginia state forces, until July 1861. At that time he was given a commission as a captain in the Confederate States Army.[1] During the next few months, Lee worked in the Confederate Engineers. He spent his time constructing fortifications for the new capital city, Richmond. At the end of August 1861, Lee was offered and accepted the position of aide-de-camp to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.[3] He was then promoted to the rank of colonel. Lee served in his position for the next three years of the war. He was often sent on missions to assess the military, and would then return to report to Davis.[1] When Robert E. Lee became the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, Custis Lee had constant contact with his father. In 1862, during the Peninsula Campaign, Custis Lee was put in charge of supervising the engineers at Drewry's Bluff.

In June 1863, he was promoted to brigadier general.[1] Shortly before the end of the war, he commanded troops in the field and was captured at Sayler's Creek by David Dunnels White a private in the 37th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment on April 6; three days before his father surrendered on Palm Sunday April 9, 1865, to Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant In late 1865, Lee was hired as a professor at the Virginia Military Institute.[3] Lee held this position until the death of his father. Between 1871 and 1897, Lee served as the ninth president of Washington and Lee University.[4] In 1877, seven years after his father's death, Custis Lee sued in a case with assistance from Robert Lincoln that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court to regain title to the family mansion,[5] Arlington House and plantation, which had become Arlington National Cemetery. Lee's case, United States v. Lee (106 U.S. 196),[6][7] was decided in his favor by a 5–4 vote, in 1882. Lee won both the house and the 1,100 acres (4.5 km2) surrounding the mansion, but was less interested in retaining the estate then gaining a cash compensation for its value. In 1883, Lee sold Arlington House back to the United States Government for $150,000.[5] In 1897, Lee resigned as president of Washington and Lee University. He then moved to the home of his late brother, Major General William Henry Fitzhugh Lee's Ravensworth Mansion.[3] Custis Lee died on February 18, 1913, in Alexandria, Virginia, and is buried in the University Chapel, near his family members.[3][8] He never married, and had no children.[9]

Born in 1832, Custis (or "Boo," "Bunny," etc.) was the oldest of the Lees' children and had the reputation of a trouble maker as a small child. But he grew up to be a serious, and most capable young man and graduated at the top of his class from the United States Military Academy in 1854. After graduation, Custis pursued a military career. In May 1861, Custis resigned his commission in the U.S. Army shortly after Virginia voted to secede from the Union. During the Civil War he attained the rank of Brigadier General, C.S.A., serving as aide-de-camp to President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy. Though Custis spent most of the war working in Davis's office, he volunteered to take his younger brother Rooney's place as a prisoner of war so that Rooney could come home to be with his dying wife in 1863. After the war he was a professor of military science and engineering at Virginia Military Institute, and in 1871 succeeded his late father as President of Washington College (now Washington & Lee University).

Following the death of his mother, in 1873, Custis brought suit against the U.S. Government in hopes of gaining compensation for Arlington after its seizure during the Civil War. After a long court battle, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Arlington had been illeagally seized and Custis regained title to the property. Knowing that he could not live at Arlington and operate it as a plantation estate, he sold the title back to the U.S. Government for $150,000.

Custis Lee died at Ravensworth in Fairfax County, Virginia in 1913. His association with the rooms at Arlington was primarily with the boys' chamber upstairs and with what Mrs. Lee in 1861, called his "office," presumably the end room in the south wing.