The Carters of Virginia

Aristocracy of the Old South.

 [O]ne is almost forced to conclude that there was something in the stock of the Carters that bred greatness through the female side, or else that something in the dealings of the Carter mothers with their sons inspired successive generations to high endeavor. The Alexandria boy who played on the lawn of Shirley [Plantation], during his mother’s visits, was wholly unconscious of it but his possession of his mother’s blood, in descent from Robert Carter, was the best endowment for greatness that he could have had in the Virginia of his day. In some subtle way, he was advantaged in the contests of men because his mother was of the Carters of Corotoman.

By those same Carters at Shirley, as by his mother in his own home, Robert [E. Lee]  saw exemplified a very simple, straightforward loyalty to family, to church, and to God. (Read entire post.)

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