"Wakefield," Westmoreland County, Virginia, was the birthplace of
Washington, and at Stratford in the same county and state, only
a few miles from Wakefield, Robert Edward Lee was born on January
19, 1807. Seventy-five years had intervened between those events
but, except in the matter of population, Westmoreland County remained
much the same as it had been during Washington's youth. Indians,
it is true, no longer lurked in he surrounding forests or paddled
the broad Potomac in their frail canoes, but the life had much of
the same freedom and charm which had endeared it to Washington.
All the streams and woods and haunts which he had known and loved
were known and loved by Lee, not only for their own sake, but because
they were associated with the memory of the great Commander-in-Chief
who had been his father's dearest friend.

It would have been surprising, under such circumstances, if Washington
had not been Lee's hero, but he was more than a hero to the boy.
From his father's lips he had learned to know him, not merely as
a famous personage of history, but as a man and a leader of men.
Indeed, his influence and example were those of a living presence
in the household of "Light Horse Harry;" and thus to young Lee
he early became the ideal of manhood upon which, consciously or
unconsciously, he molded his own character and life. But quite
apart from this, the careers of these two great Virginians were
astonishingly alike.

Washington's father had been married twice, and so had Lee's; each
was a son of the second marriage, and each had a number of brothers
and sisters. Washington lost his father when he was only eleven
years old, and Lee was exactly the same age when his father died.
Mrs. Washington had almost the entire care of her son during his