William Henry Fitzhugh Lee

William Henry Fitzhugh Lee (May 31, 1837 – October 15, 1891), known as Rooney Lee (often spelled "Roony" among friends and family) or W. H. F. Lee, was the second son of General Robert E. Lee, of the Lee Family of Virginia, and Mary Anna Custis. He was a planter, a Confederate cavalry general in the American Civil War, and later a Democratic Congressman from Virginia.

Early life

Lee was born at Arlington House in Arlington, Virginia, and named for William Henry Fitzhugh (d. 1830), his mother's uncle. At an early age, his father began to call him Rooney; what prompted him to use this nickname is not known, but it stuck as a way to differentiate him from his cousin Fitzhugh Lee.

Harvard Rooney Lee, about 8 years old, with his father Robert E. Lee

Lee aspired to follow his father and older brother George Washington Custis Lee, to attend the United States Military Academy. However, probably because of an unofficial policy of not concurrently enrolling members of the same family, he was unable to, and in 1854 enrolled at Harvard College. Lee was a big and athletic young man, standing , weighing about , and was on Harvard's rowing team. However, he was less successful academically. Henry Adams, a classmate of Rooney Lee at Harvard College, described him thus: "Tall, largely built, handsome, genial, with liberal Virginian openness towards all he liked, he had also the Virginian habit of command and took leadership as his natural habit. No one cared to contest it. None of the New Englanders wanted command. For a year, at least, Lee was the most popular and prominent young man in his class, but then seemed slowly to drop into the background. The habit of command was not enough, and the Virginian had little else. He was simple beyond analysis; so simple that even the simple New England student could not realize him. No one knew enough to know how ignorant he was; how childlike; how helpless before the relative complexity of a school."

Early military career A failure at Harvard, he dropped out in 1857 and "gladly seized the chance of escape by accepting a commission offered him by General Winfield Scott in the force then being organised against the Mormons. He asked Adams to write his letter of acceptance." His cavalry regiment was assigned to the brigade of Brig. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, his cousin, for the Maryland Campaign. Following the Battle of South Mountain, Lee was knocked unconscious after a horse fell from under him, and was unable to participate in the Battle of Antietam. , reflecting both his public standing and his descent from multiple Revolutionary‑era patriot families. He served in the House until his death of a heart attack at Ravensworth in 1891. He is interred in the University Chapel at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, with his parents and siblings.

Marriage and family Lee married twice, first in 1859 to Charlotte Georgiana Wickham, daughter of George and Charlotte Carter Wickham and a descendant of the attorney John Wickham and his wife. They had two children, Robert Edward Lee (March 11, 1860 – June 30, 1862) and Charlotte Carter Lee (October 19, 1862 – December 6, 1862). Charlotte Georgiana Wickham Lee died December 26, 1863.

On November 28, 1867, he married Mary Tabb Bolling. They had two sons, who both lived to adulthood: Robert Edward Lee III (February 11, 1869, at Petersburg – September 7, 1922, at Roanoke, VA) and George Bolling Lee (August 30, 1872 at Lexington – July 13, 1948, at New York, NY).

Lee's mother, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, was the only surviving child of George Washington Parke Custis and Mary Lee Fitzhugh. George was the grandson of Martha Dandridge and step-grandson of President George Washington.

Lee was also a descendant of Charles II of England through Lady Charlotte Lee (granddaughter of Barbara Villiers), who married the 4th Baron Baltimore, and possibly, a descendant of George I, through Benedict Swingate Calvert (grandson of Lady Charlotte Lee), the illegitimate son of 5th Baron Baltimore and of an unknown mother, who was supposed to be Melusina von der Schulenburg, illegitimate daughter of the King.