and without delaying, he left, taking poor Natty to Georgia, near St. Augustine in Florida, named the Cannes of America.
There, he personally looked after him with all the care the most ingenious solicitude could invent. The illness was the stronger, but when old Natty expired, it was in the arms of his young master.
We will pass briefly over the first years of Robert Lee's career. Later on, as it comes into light, we will follow it step by step.
First in Savannah, next in Fort Hamilton, Robert Lee was in charge of following -- or directing -- military engineering. Everywhere, he had the satisfaction of succeeding. As in West Point, his method was to neglect nothing, so as to perfect his job. For him, work was something different from a necessity of existence or a means to arise professionally. It was a manly task that needed to be scrupulously accomplished. He gave the proof that he understood thus his career, when in 1831 was presented to him a most natural occasion of leaving his military status. He married Miss Mary Custis, granddaughter of Washington's widow, and heiress to most of the fortune of the great man. Young Mistress Lee[1] brought her husband the beautiful land of
Arlington on the banks of the Potomac ; and that of the White
- ↑ She died in 1872.
