Edmund McCaffray Collection

Robert E. Lee was a Confederate general and commander of the Confederate States Army during the Civil War. As of June 1862, he commanded the Army of Northern Virginia and was made General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States from February until April 1865, when he famously surrendered to Union General in Chief Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.

Lee was born and raised by a military family in Virginia, where he worked as a military engineer and served in the U.S. Army, before resigning to join the Confederacy when the Union was set to march on Virginia. He married his third cousin, Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee, a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington via her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, in 1831. They had seven children. Lee initially fell ill with suspected heart disease in 1863 and never fully recovered. His health continued to fail through the remainder of the 1860s, until he finally passed away in the Fall of 1870.

James Ewell Brown Stuart, also known as Jeb for his initials of J.E.B., was a calvary commander and general in the Confederate army and served as one of Lee's most trusted confidantes and advisors. He was a major player at the Battle of Gettysburg, where his separaton from Lee's army has been charged with causing a failure to secure victory. Lee's nephew, Fitzhugh Lee, also served in the war as a Brigadier General under Stuart. Fitzhugh later became the 40th Governor of Virginia.