Virginia, on the 19th of January, 1807.[1]

[Footnote 1: The date of General 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