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Early life and education

Lee was born at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia, to Henry Lee III and Anne Hill Carter Lee on January 19, 1807. His ancestor, Richard Lee I, emigrated from Shropshire, England, to Virginia in 1639.

Lee's father suffered severe financial reverses from failed investments and was put in debtors' prison. Soon after his release the following year, the family moved to the city of Alexandria which at the time was still part of the District of Columbia, which retroceded back to Virginia in 1847, both because there were then high quality local schools there, and because several members of Anne's extended family lived nearby. In 1811, the family, including the newly born sixth child, Mildred, moved to a house on Oronoco Street.

In 1812 Lee's father moved permanently to the West Indies. Lee attended Eastern View, a school for young gentlemen, in Fauquier County, Virginia, and then at the Alexandria Academy, free for local boys, where he showed an aptitude for mathematics. Although brought up to be a practicing Christian, he was not confirmed in the Episcopal Church until age 46.

Anne Lee's family was often supported by a relative, William Henry Fitzhugh, who owned the Oronoco Street house and allowed the Lees to stay at his country home Ravensworth. Fitzhugh wrote to United States Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, urging that Robert be given an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Fitzhugh had young Robert deliver the letter. Lee entered West Point in the summer of 1825. At the time, the focus of the curriculum was engineering; the head of the United States Army Corps of Engineers supervised the school and the superintendent was an engineering officer. Cadets were not permitted leave until they finished two years of study and were rarely allowed off the academy grounds. Lee graduated second in his class behind Charles Mason (who resigned from the Army a year after graduation). Lee did not incur any demerits during his four-year course of study, a distinction shared by only five of his 45 classmates. In June 1829, Lee was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. After graduation, while awaiting assignment, he returned to Virginia to find his mother on her deathbed; she died at Ravensworth on July 26, 1829.