A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee | Page 6

Lee's birth has been often given
incorrectly. The authority for that here adopted is the entry in the
family Bible, in the handwriting of his mother.]
Before passing to Lee's public career, and the narrative of the stormy
scenes of his after-life, let us pause a moment and bestow a glance
upon this ancient mansion, which is still standing--a silent and
melancholy relic of the past--in the remote "Northern Neck." As the
birthplace of a great man, it would demand attention; but it has other
claims still, as a venerable memorial of the past and its eminent
personages, one of the few remaining monuments of a state of society
that has disappeared or is disappearing.
The original Stratford House is supposed, as we have said, to have been
built by Richard Lee, the first of the family in the New World.
Whoever may have been its founder, it was destroyed in the time of
Thomas Lee, an eminent representative of the name, early in the
eighteenth century. Thomas Lee was a member of the King's Council, a

gentleman of great popularity; and, when it was known that his house
had been burned, contributions were everywhere made to rebuild it.
The Governor, the merchants of the colony, and even Queen Anne in
person, united in this subscription; the house speedily rose again, at a
cost of about eighty thousand dollars; and this is the edifice still
standing in Westmoreland. The sum expended in its construction must
not be estimated in the light of to-day. At that time the greater part of
the heavy work in house-building was performed by servants of the
manor; it is fair, indeed, to say that the larger part of the work thus cost
nothing in money; and thus the eighty thousand dollars represented
only the English brick, the carvings, furniture, and decorations.
The construction of such an edifice had at that day a distinct object.
These great old manor-houses, lost in the depths of the country, were
intended to become the headquarters of the family in all time. In their
large apartments the eldest son was to uphold the name. Generation
after generation was to pass, and some one of the old name still live
there; and though all this has passed away now, and may appear a
worn-out superstition, and, though some persons may stigmatize it as
contributing to the sentiment of "aristocracy," the strongest opponents
of that old system may pardon in us the expression of some regret that
this love of the hearthstone and old family memories should have
disappeared. The great man whose character is sought to be delineated
in this volume never lost to the last this home and family sentiment. He
knew the kinships of every one, and loved the old country-houses of
the old Virginia families--plain and honest people, attached, like
himself, to the Virginia soil. We pass to a brief description of the old
house in which Lee was born.
Stratford, the old home of the Lees, but to-day the property of others,
stands on a picturesque bluff on the southern bank of the Potomac, and
is a house of very considerable size. It is built in the form of the letter
H. The walls are several feet in thickness; in the centre is a saloon thirty
feet in size; and surmounting each wing is a pavilion with balustrades,
above which rise clusters of chimneys. The front door is reached by a
broad flight of steps, and the grounds are handsome, and variegated by
the bright foliage of oaks, cedars, and maple-trees. Here and there in
the extensive lawn rises a slender and ghostly old Lombardy poplar--a
tree once a great favorite in Virginia, but now seen only here and there,

the relic of a past generation.
Within, the Stratford House is as antique as without, and, with its halls,
corridors, wainscoting, and ancient mouldings, takes the visitor back to
the era of powder and silk stockings. Such was the mansion to which
General Harry Lee came to live after the Revolution, and the sight of
the old home must have been dear to the soldier's heart. Here had
flourished three generations of Lees, dispensing a profuse and
open-handed hospitality. In each generation some one of the family had
distinguished himself, and attracted the "best company" to Stratford;
the old walls had rung with merriment; the great door was wide open;
everybody was welcome; and one could see there a good illustration of
a long-passed manner of living, which had at least the merit of being
hearty, open-handed, and picturesque. General Harry Lee, the careless
soldier, partook of the family tendency to hospitality; he kept open
house, entertained all comers, and hence, doubtless, sprung the
pecuniary embarrassments embittering an old age which his eminent
public services should have rendered serene