1850 | 
1865 |
Robert E. Lee
Through the courtesy of General G. W. C. Lee, who furnished information of much value concerning several portraits in this chapter, -there is reproduced above the actual appearance of his distinguished father in 1850. This portrait was copied, embellished with a uniform painted on by hand, and widely circulated. To study the unretouched original is particularly interesting. Lee at this period was in Baltimore, in charge of defenses then being constructed. Three years before, in the Mexican War, he had posted batteries before Vera Cruz so that the town was reduced in a week. After each of the battles of Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, and Chapultepec, he received promotion, and for his services in the last he was breveted colonel. A born soldier, the son of a soldier, this handsome young man is not as handsome by far as the superb general who later lent grace and dignity to the Confederate gray. He little realized the startling future when this photograph was taken.
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