Mary Custis Lee

Mary Custis Lee (July 12, 1835 – November 22, 1918) 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.

In 1902, while in Alexandria, Virginia, she was arrested for refusing to sit in the whites-only section of a segregated streetcar, opting instead to sit with her black maid. Her arrest was controversial, and used by some as a symbol for desegregation, although historians debate what her intentions were for refusing to change seats. Afterward, she left for France, where she lived until the outbreak of World War I.

Early life and family

Lee was born on July 12, 1835, the second child and first daughter of Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Custis Lee, at Arlington Plantation in Arlington County, Virginia. She was named after her mother. She was one of seven children, and was the sister of George Washington Custis Lee, William Henry Fitzhugh Lee, Anne Carter Lee, Eleanor Agnes Lee, Robert E. Lee Jr., and Mildred Childe Lee. A member of the prominent Lee family of Virginia, she descended from American colonist Richard Lee I. Through her mother, Lee was a descendant of Martha Washington through her first marriage to Daniel Parke Custis, and also descended from Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore and Charles II of England.

As an infant, Lee was nicknamed "Mee" by her father, and was later called "Daughter" by her family after she turned thirteen. Her arrest was controversial, and historians have argued about what her intentions were for refusing to change seats. The tents were part of a group of family heirlooms confiscated by the Union Army and restored to the family in 1901.

In the late 1800s, Lee left for France. Upon hearing of the death of her sister, Mildred, in 1905, she did not return to the United States. She finally came home in 1914 due to the start of World War I.

Lee died in Hot Springs, Virginia on November 22, 1918. Her body was cremated and the ashes were placed in the family crypt in University Chapel.