Mrs. Lee and her daughters then sought a home at the “White House,” on the Pamunkey river, where Washington married the “Widow Custis,” and which had been left by Mr. Custis to one of General Lee’s sons. Mrs. Lee and her daughters were soon driven from there by the hosts of McClellan, and the house was burned to the ground. At last, they found a home in Richmond, where they lived until the close of the war.
RESIDENCE OF GENERAL LEE IN RICHMOND.
Mrs. Lee’s health had failed, but a large part of her time was spent in knitting socks for the poor bare-footed soldiers of the South. Her brave daughters, also, knit socks, and nursed the sick and wounded soldiers.
Those were sad times, and the Lee family suffered most heavily.
The death of her noble husband was a great shock to Mrs. Lee, who was then not able to walk without aid. She did not survive him many years, and now rests beside him in the College chapel at Lexington, Virginia. Their daughter Agnes, who died shortly after her father, is buried in the same place.
MARY CUSTIS LEE.
Close by is the grave of Stonewall Jackson. How meet that these two friends and heroes should rest so near each other!
The blue mountains of their loved Virginia keep “watch and ward” over their graves; and each year, pilgrims from every part of the land come to visit their tombs and place fresh flowers and green wreaths upon them.