Last Cavaliers Trilogy

by Gilbert, Morris

  After dinner they retired to the formal drawing room, which adjoined the dining room. Mr. Custis talked to Lee for almost two hours. They found themselves talking about the Revolution, and about George Washington as a general, and of course about one of his most trusted young cavalrymen, General “Lighthorse” Harry Lee, Robert’s father. As the men talked, Mrs. Custis sewed and Mary read.

  At length Mr. Custis said he was going to go to his office and go over some papers and excused himself.

  Mary laid aside her book, and Robert asked, “What are you reading, Miss Custis?”

  “Ivanhoe,” she answered promptly. “I like Sir Walter Scott very much. I know that you don’t care much for novels, Robert, but would you please read to me? My eyes are growing a bit tired.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” Robert answered. He had a low, melodious voice, and with his warm manner, listeners found his recitations very enjoyable.

  “Chapter fourteen begins with a poem by Warton,” Robert said, and quoted with feeling:

  “ In rough magnificence array’d

  When ancient Chivalry display’d

  The pomp of her heroic games

  And crested chiefs and the tissued dames

  Assembled, at the clarion’s call,

  In some proud castle’s high arched hall.

  Prince John held his high festival in the Castle of Ashby….”

  After he had read for about an hour and was about to begin a new chapter, Molly Custis said, “Lieutenant Lee, it is such a great pleasure to hear you read. But I’m sure you need some refreshment. Mary, why don’t you take Lieutenant Lee into the dining room and get him something from the sideboard?”

  “Of course, Mother,” Mary said, rising and going toward the dining room.

  Robert followed her, but they had only taken a few steps when Mrs. Custis said, “Mary?”

  “Yes, Mother?”

  Molly Custis never looked up from her sewing. Quietly she said, “I had Colley set up refreshments in the family dining room, dear.”

  “Oh?” Mary said in surprise. “Oh! Of course. Come along, Robert.”

  Instead of going back into the formal dining room, Mary led him across the hall to a much warmer, more pleasant room. It was a large room. Two-thirds of it was taken up by a plain rectangular wooden table that held six places. At the other end of the room was a cozy family parlor. It was a much more intimate setting than the grand drawing room.

  Mary led him to the sideboard, took a plate, and put a piece of fruitcake on it. “Tea? Or—”

  He put his arm around her, turned her to him, and drew her close. “Mary, I don’t want to wait for tea or cake or anything else. I love you, Mary, I love you so much that I can’t imagine life without you. Would you do me the very great honor of marrying me?”

  “Finally,” she murmured and put her arms around him. They kissed, a long, lingering, sweet kiss.

  Robert E. Lee and Mary Custis both felt a rush of joy, for at last they were home.

  Truth to tell, George Washington Parke Custis was hiding.

  His office was more like a library—a comfortable room with a mahogany barrister’s desk, three walls lined with filled bookcases, and a window that looked out on the lawn and the park. By this window in summer he placed his favorite chair, perhaps the only piece of furniture in Arlington House that was shabby. It was a solid leather wing chair, overstuffed, with a matching hassock. Mr. Custis could spend hours in this chair, reading, looking out the window onto his magnificent grounds, or dozing. But on this early morning, he sat uneasily, trying to concentrate on a Dickens novel, but more often looking out the window, his brow furrowed.

  A peremptory knock sounded at the door. “Father?”

  “Come in, Mary,” he said resignedly.

  She came in, and he noted that she was looking particularly well this morning, wearing a sky-blue dress and matching ribbons in her curled hair. Her color was high, and her dark eyes were fiery. “Father, I can’t believe the way you treated Robert! How could you?”

  He stood slowly, laid down his book, and said in a kindly voice, “Mary, dearest one, please come sit down with me. Please?”

  She looked rebellious, but then relented and followed him to the corner by the fireplace, where there was a sofa and loveseat. She took her seat on the sofa, and her father sat by her.

  Taking her hand, he said quietly, “I didn’t refuse Lieutenant Lee, you know.”

  “I know that. It wouldn’t have done any good if you had. What I don’t understand is your attitude of clear reluctance, Father. Robert isn’t offended, because he is so kind and understanding. But I am offended for him,” she said ardently.

  “Mary, I like Robert. No, that’s not quite correct. I hold him in very high esteem. But I do have two objections to your marrying him. One I told him of, and we spoke of it at length. The other I said nothing about, but of course he would be aware of my concerns.”

  “It’s all that malicious gossip about his half brother, isn’t it?” Mary said with disdain.

  “It’s not just gossip, my dear. The story happens to be true,” Mr. Custis said gently.

  Robert E. Lee had an older half brother, Henry Lee, the son of “Lighthorse” Harry Lee’s first wife, who had died. Henry Lee had inherited the Lee family mansion, Stratford, and had married a neighbor, a young woman of means. Her sister, a seventeen-year old girl, had come to live with them. After the death of their first child, Henry’s wife became addicted to morphine, and Henry and his wife’s younger sister had an affair. All of this had happened many years previously, but it had only come out that year, because President Andrew Jackson had appointed Henry Lee as consul to Algiers. He and his wife, who had recovered from her addiction and reconciled with her husband, traveled there. But all of Henry Lee’s past, instead of merely being whispered about, was now soundly denounced on the floor of the Senate, and every senator who voted went against his confirmation. He had moved to Paris that summer of 1830, and the couple now lived in obscurity there.

  Mary argued, “I don’t care if it is true. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Robert.”

  “But it’s his family,” Mr. Custis said. “Even his father, an esteemed general and friend of my grandfather’s, with so many opportunities, went to debtor’s prison and left his family penniless.”

  “Yes, it is a terrible thing what happened to Robert and his mother and brothers and sisters,” Mary said evenly. “But his mother was a strong, determined, godly, loving woman who passed on all of those qualities to Robert. And she taught him self-reliance and frugality and self-control. His other, nobler qualities, like personal courage and sense of duty and honor are in his blood, Lee blood, and he is proud of it. It is an honor for me to marry this man, Father. Can’t you see that?”

  His eyes wandered to the window, that window that he had looked out on with such pleasure for over thirty years. “I suppose I do, Mary,” he said at last. “You’re right, of course. I’ve known Robert all of his life, and perhaps I have grown so accustomed to him that I have forgotten his finer qualities as a man.” He turned back to her and continued in a tone now tinged with worry. “But Mary, he is poor, and I can’t help but worry about that, and I addressed my objections to Lieutenant Lee. You’ve never been poor, child, you’ve no idea what it’s like. You, living in officer’s quarters in a fort? I tried to tell Lieutenant Lee that I would like to be allowed to help, but he—”

  Mary burst out laughing. “Oh Father, dear Father. For a moment there I really thought you were coming to understand us. Don’t you know Robert E. Lee at all? Don’t you know me? Neither Robert nor I would ever accept your charity under any circumstances. And no, we didn’t discuss this last night. Of course we talked about Fort Monroe and economies that would have to be made and so on, but neither of us ever mentioned asking you for help. We didn’t have to. We both knew that it was impossible.”

  “But Mary, a fort?” he protested weakly.

  “Yes, a fort,” she said f
irmly. “And in spite of my ignorance, I happen to know that there are many people that are much worse off than that. I am so blessed, so exceedingly blessed, and I’m so happy! I want you to be happy for me, too, Father. I believe that in time you’ll find that Robert will be just as treasured by you as if he were your own son.”

  He sighed. “That may be. He is a man that I admire, I freely admit. But it may take some time for me to be positively giddy about your marriage.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Not too much time, Father. Because I have told Robert that I’ve waited for him long enough. I refuse to have a long engagement. We’re going to be married next month.”

  On June 30, 1831, Robert E. Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis at Arlington House.

  It was a stormy day, and the Episcopalian minister had arrived soaking wet through and through. Mr. Custis loaned him some clothes that were ill fitting, but his vestments gave him an appropriate grand solemnity.

  Robert waited by the fireplace in the formal drawing room. Six of his friends stood with him. About forty people, all of them relatives to one degree or another to the Lees and the Custises, were in attendance. He looked expectantly past them to the door into the dining room, where his bride, with her six attendants, was to enter.

  Jack Mackay, his old friend from West Point and Cockspur Island, leaned forward and whispered, “Robert, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen you look pale. Are you all right?”

  Lee looked slightly surprised. “I’m pale? How very odd. No, I’m fine. I thought I would be more excited than this, but I feel only calm.”

  Mary’s attendants started coming through, but Robert only had eyes for his bride. Somewhat to his consternation, she looked very nervous. He mentally made a note to write of this day later to a friend not in attendance:

  The minister had few words to say, though he dwelt upon them as if he had been reading my Death warrant, and there was a tremulousness in the hand I held that made me anxious for him to end.

  But Mary recovered from her jitters as soon as the ceremony was over.

  The happy couple stayed at Arlington for a week then started making the rounds of nearby friends and family, all of whom had large estates and gracious homes.

  Robert E. Lee was the happiest of men. He and Mary had played together as small children, when he had come to love her as part of his extended family. They had teased each other and argued with each other and flirted with each other all through their teenage years. And now he was a man, and in the footsteps of the immortal Paul, he had put away those childish things.

  He loved Mary Anna with a devotion and loyalty and respect so deep that it would never waver, never falter. He knew he was blessed, for he had married the greatest love of his life.

  Mary Anna had to admit that, despite her insistence of her worldly knowledge to her father, life at Fort Monroe came as a great shock to her. The enlisted men who were assigned to the artillery school were a raucous, belligerent bunch of men who got drunk as often as possible and fought with each other, reeling drunk or rock sober, almost every day.

  Looking up from her book, she watched Robert with affection. He sat at his small camp desk, lit by a single lantern, sketching out mechanical drawings for breastworks. His handsome face was a study in total concentration, but it was not indicated by frowning or chewing his lip or any other facial gesture. He was expressionless, except for his intense gaze, and he was motionless except for his drawing hand.

  The room was small, a tiny parlor that barely held a sofa, two armchairs, and Robert’s desk. At the other end of the room was the kitchen, which consisted of a cookstove, three cabinets, and an oak table that served both as a worktable and a dining table. The door on the right-hand side of the room led to their bedroom, the only other room in the apartment. This shabby little second-floor flat was as far from Arlington House as two structures can possible be and still be called houses. But Mary didn’t care about the house. To her, home was where Robert was, and that made her happy.

  Robert finally looked up from his work. He rose and smiled at his wife. He came to kneel by her chair and took her hand and kissed it. “You know, I knew that our home would be happy, no matter how much of a setdown it is from Arlington. But what I didn’t really realize was what a good soldier’s wife you would become. This life is so different from your world.”

  “You are my world, Robert,” she said simply. “You have been my whole world for a long time.”

  He studied her then said warmly, “I love you, Mims. I thank the Lord for giving you to me. You are my treasure.”

  She smiled at him. “Robert, how would you like to have another treasure?”

  “Hm? What?”

  “An addition to our world. A small, noisy one that I fervently hope looks like you.”

  He took both her hands and stared up at her, his eyes so dark they looked ebony. “You’re pregnant? We’re going to have a baby?”

  “Yes, we are,” she said happily. “In September, I think.”

  Robert E. Lee laid his head down in her lap and, in quiet reverent tones, gave thanks to the Lord.

  He was born at the fortress on September 16, 1832. They named him George Washington Custis Lee.

  To Mary’s joy, even as a newborn, the boy had the aristocratic male handsomeness of the Lee men. Mary bore the birth well, and Custis was healthy.

  In her journal she wrote:

  The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness,

  The voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride,

  The voice of them that shall say,

  Praise the Lord of hosts:

  For the Lord is good;

  For his mercy endureth forever.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Life at Fort Monroe was pleasant for Robert and Mary. Robert’s immediate superior was a man named Captain Andrew Talcott, and they made fast friends. He married one of Mary’s cousins, a girl named Harriet Randolph Hackley, and the two couples enjoyed many good times: picnics in the summer, riding to Hampton Roads, and dinner parties.

  But extremely good news came to the Lees in the fall of 1834, when he was assigned to Washington as assistant to the chief of engineers. That meant that they would only be across the Potomac River from Arlington. Though Robert tried to find suitable lodgings for them in Washington, it was impossible to find a nice home for a couple with a son in the overcrowded city. So he rode back and forth to work every weekday from Arlington, and though it was difficult, he and Mary were blissfully happy to be back at the gracious home.

  Although Lee was happy with his home situation now, he intensely disliked his work. The politics in Washington—the bickering, the petty dislikes, the favoritism, the double crossing—irritated to the extreme his finer sensibilities. And he was exceedingly bored with office work.

  In the spring of 1835, a boundary dispute arose between Ohio and Michigan, and the young lieutenant eagerly applied to the Topographical Department to be assigned to the survey team. To his delight, his old friend Captain Talcott was commanding the team, and he immediately left Arlington for the Great Lakes.

  Mary and two-year-old Custis were sorry to see him leave, but Mary knew very well how he felt about his clerk’s position in Washington, though he never complained. She was pregnant again, right at six months when Robert left, but she was in good health. Custis was a strong and energetic child, and they were in the tender care of her parents and, of course, Bathsheba, who was like a lion with her cubs. And so Mary was happy for Robert, that he was able to get out in the field, which he loved.

  The surveying mission lasted the summer, and the final determination wasn’t made until late September. Robert had enjoyed the mission intensely; it was interesting, complex work, and Captain Talcott was a lively, obliging friend. They had even begun a friendly “rivalry” concerning their children, for the Talcotts had had a boy soon after Custis Lee’s arrival, and then in winter of 1834, both Harriet Talcott and Mary Anna found they were expecting. Lee was “betting” he’d h
ave a girl and Talcott would have another son, while the good-natured Talcott bet the opposite.

  Robert E. Lee won the bet. In July, news reached him that Mary had given birth to a girl, whom they named Mary Custis Lee. Robert was concerned because the child was a bit earlier than they had predicted, and Mary’s letters said she had not had such an easy time as before, with Custis. But she wrote that the baby was thriving, and though Mary was ill, it was nothing serious, and she was recovering.

  In September, Robert brooded over her latest letter. The tone of the letter was lighthearted, with descriptions of the leaves turning their glorious fall colors, with Bathsheba’s latest vocal antics, with descriptions of Custis’s mischief and baby Mary’s beauty. But Robert knew his wife as well as he knew his own soul, and he worried over the last paragraph:

  I am not recovering as quickly as I would wish, for Dr. Waters says I have some sort of infection, and it vexes me to the extreme, for on some days I must remain bedridden. On the good days I enjoy little Mary and even Custis’ rowdiness so much, I hate to miss a minute of their days. But don’t trouble yourself, please, Robert, for I’m sure that by the time you’re back home I shall be my old cranky self.

  Both Robert E. Lee and Mary regarded complaining as a personal weakness, and so he suspected that Mary was downplaying her illness. When he received his orders to return to Washington in October, he was much relieved.

  Mary stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was now twenty-eight years old, but she looked fifty-eight. Her face had gotten so thin in her prolonged illness that she looked positively gaunt, with deep purple shadows under her fever-dulled eyes. Her complexion had no hint of color; she was deathly pale.