She and her mother and sisters were placed under house arrest by Union troops in 1861 before being allowed to cross over Confederate lines to join her father in Richmond.

[1][4] When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Lee was sent with her sister, Agnes, to Ravensworth, their cousin's plantation in Fairfax County, Virginia.

[1] The family were placed under house arrest by the Union Army but were released after General George B. McClellan arranged for them to be sent across Confederate lines to join Robert E. Lee in Richmond.

[1][6] Upon learning of her death, her father wrote, "To know that I shall never see her again on earth, that her place in our circle which I always hope one day to rejoin is forever vacant, is agonizing in the extreme.

[5][9] In 1994, members of the Lee family arranged for her remains to be brought to Lexington, Virginia, where she was reinterred in the University Chapel.

[1][8] The moving of her remains had been protested by local chapters of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and members of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, who wanted the body to stay in North Carolina.