When LEE first left college his military duties, as has been already
stated, carried him to the far West, and he there saw some rough
service. The Utah expedition was a training school for soldiers and
generals, and many who afterwards gained renown and fame, under the
different standards were there associated together in a common duty.
Besides the leader and commander, Col. Johnston, were Robert E. Lee,
Hardee, Thomas, Kirby Smith, Palmer, Stoneman, Fitz Lee, and Hood. When
the Army first entered upon this service there was a small cloud of war
in the horizon, but it soon cleared away, and the company to which LEE
was attached was assigned to a dull and monotonous routine of garrison
life. This possessed no attractions for the young lieutenant, and there
were other influences drawing him towards his native State. He resigned
his commission, returned to Virginia, and settled at the White House, in
New Kent County, where George Washington had married the widow Custis.
The plantation had descended to her son, George Washington Parke Custis,
and from him through LEE's mother to the grandson. He soon established
his cousin, Miss Wickham, as queen of this historic home, and he was
here with his little family amid these surroundings, with everything to
make life attractive, when Virginia and her sister States of the South
passed their ordinances of secession and sent delegates to Montgomery to
unite in the attempt to form a Southern Confederacy.
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