Robert Edward Lee was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, toward the end of which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army. He led the Army of Northern Virginia—the Confederacy's most powerful army—from 1862 until its surrender in 1865, earning a reputation as a skilled tactician.
Arlington House is the historic family residence of Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the Confederate Army during the American Civil War in Arlington County, Virginia. The estate of the historic home along with a memorial to Lee are now the center of Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, where they overlook the Potomac River and the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
George Washington Parke Custis was an American plantation owner, antiquarian, author, and playwright. His father John Parke Custis was a stepson of George Washington. He and his sister Eleanor grew up at Mount Vernon and in the Washington presidential household.
Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee was the wife of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee and the last private owner of Arlington Estate. She was the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis who was the grandson of Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, the wife of George Washington.
Colonel John Custis IV was an American planter, politician, government official and military officer who sat in the House of Burgesses from 1705 to 1706 and 1718 to 1719, representing respectively Northampton County and later the College of William & Mary. A prominent member of the Custis family of Virginia, he utilized his extensive landholdings to support a career in horticulture and gardening.
John Parke Custis was an American planter and politician, only son of Martha Washington before her marriage to George Washington. He is now known for his progeny, especially those raised by President Washington.
Douglas Syphax or Douglass Syphax was an African American from Virginia who resettled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after the American Civil War. A military veteran, he was active in the Grand Army of the Republic in the late 19th century, and he also became a property developer in Philadelphia.
Mary Custis Lee was an American heiress and the eldest daughter of Confederate States Army General Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis Lee. Throughout the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, she remained distant from her family. Spending much of her time traveling, she did not attend the funerals for her sisters nor those for her parents. Somewhat eccentric, she used her inheritance from the sale of Arlington House to fund trips abroad. She spent time in the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Russia, Monaco, Ottoman Empire, Ceylon, the Dutch East Indies, Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Australia, China, India, Japan, Mexico, and Venezuela. During her travels, she used her social status as the daughter of Robert E. Lee to obtain audiences with foreign royalty, nobility, and political leaders including Queen Victoria, Pope Leo XIII, and an Indian maharaja.
Robert Edward Lee Jr. was the sixth of seven children of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Randolph Custis. He became a soldier during the American Civil War, and later was a planter, businessman, and author.
Ravensworth was an 18th-century plantation house near Annandale in Fairfax County, Virginia. Ravensworth was the Northern Virginia residence of William Fitzhugh, William Henry Fitzhugh, Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis, William Henry Fitzhugh Lee and George Washington Custis Lee. It was built in 1796.
Edward Parke Custis Lewis was a Confederate Army colonel, lawyer, legislator, and diplomat who served as United States Minister to Portugal from 1885 to 1889.
Rosalie Stier Calvert was a plantation owner and correspondent in nineteenth century Maryland. A collection of her letters, titled Mistress of Riversdale, The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1991. The letters range in date from 1795 to 1821, and illuminate the life of Calvert's plantation household, including the events leading up to and during the War of 1812.
Mildred Childe Lee was an American society hostess and the youngest child of Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis Lee. She was the last member of the Lee family to be born at Arlington Plantation and had a privileged upbringing typical of members of the planter class, attending boarding schools in Winchester, Virginia, and Raleigh, North Carolina. A favorite of her father's, she was doted upon and given the nickname "Precious Life", often being referred to by this nickname in family letters. During the American Civil War, she sewed clothing for soldiers of the Confederate States Army and volunteered as a nurse in Confederate hospitals. Lee never married or had children, instead devoting her time to caring for her parents in their later years. After her father's death, she assisted her brother, George Washington Custis Lee, as hostess while he served as president of Washington College.
Selina Norris Gray was an African American woman known for saving some of George Washington's heirlooms when Union soldiers seized and occupied Arlington House, the home of Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee on May 24, 1861.
Anne Carter Lee was the fourth child and second daughter of General Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis Lee. She grew up at Arlington House on her family's plantation. During the American Civil War, she stayed with relatives at Ravensworth Plantation and White House Plantation. She and her mother and sisters were placed under house arrest by Union troops in 1861 before being allowed to cross over Confederate lines to join her father in Richmond. Lee suffered from various health conditions throughout her life and died of typhoid fever at the age of twenty-three. She was buried in Warren County, North Carolina, where she died. In 1994, her body was interred at University Chapel of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. The Anne Carter Lee Monument stands at her original gravesite in Warrenton.
Maria Carter Syphax, otherwise spelled Mariah, was the matriarch of the Syphax family, a prominent family of African Americans in the greater Washington, D.C., area who became civic leaders, civil servants, and educators. She was born into slavery as Maria Carter, daughter of an enslaved woman and George Washington Parke Custis, a grandson of Martha Washington through her first marriage. Syphax was thus a great-granddaughter of First Lady Martha Washington.
Edward Creston Gleed was an U.S. Army Air Force officer with the famed Buffalo Soldiers/9th Cavalry Regiment, 332nd Fighter Group’s operations officer, and combat fighter pilot with the 99th Fighter Squadron, best known as the Tuskegee Airmen. He was one of the more prominent members of Tuskegee Airmen's ninth-ever aviation cadet program, as well as one of 1,007 documented Tuskegee Airmen Pilots. His classmates included Robert B. Tresville, West Point's seventh African American graduate and the 100th Fighter Squadron's Commanding Officer.
William Syphax was born into slavery but manumitted when he was about one year old, along with his mother Maria Carter Syphax and sister. As a young man, he became a U.S. government civil servant in Republican administrations, and built a network in the capital city.
John Bryce Syphax was an African-American politician during the Reconstruction era. Born free in Virginia, he served as a justice of the peace of the Arlington Magisterial Board. He served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, serving from 1874 to 1875. Later in life he moved to New York City, where he settled in Brooklyn.
Arianna Carter was born around 1770 and brought to Mount Vernon by Martha Custis, who married George Washington in 1759. Martha Custis brought her 84 slaves which she had acquired from a previous marriage with her to Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate. Arianna Carter was an enslaved maid for the estate. George and Martha had no kids together, but Washington adopted Eleanor Parke Custis and George Washington Park Custis who went by “Wash” and “Nelly”. George Washington Parke Custis and Mary Fitzhugh married in 1804 They had 4 children, but only one of them would survive into her adult life. George Park Custis also had other children with slaves that Martha had brought from her previous marriage. George Washington Parke Custis had a child with Arianna Carter, in 1803 who was named Maria Carter.
