Charles Lee was born on January 1, 1758, at Leesylvania plantation in Prince William County, Virginia. He was the third of eleven children of Henry Lee II and Lucy Grymes Lee. Through both parents he belonged to Virginia’s First Families, a network of wealthy, intermarried landowners who exercised considerable influence in colonial politics and society. His older brother Henry later became famous as “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, while another brother, Richard Bland Lee, also entered law and national politics. Charles’s extended relations included many of the colony’s best-known Lee, Grymes, and related families. Leesylvania provided a privileged upbringing, but its prosperity rested on plantation agriculture and enslaved labor. As a planter’s son, Charles would have grown up observing estate management, family patronage, and the responsibilities that elite Virginians associated with public leadership. He received the private education customary for a boy of his class, probably through tutors and family-directed study. The documentary record does not preserve a complete childhood curriculum, so particular teachers or subjects should not be asserted without evidence. In 1775 Lee went to the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University. The timing placed him in an institution alive with political debate on the eve of independence. College study emphasized classics, rhetoric, moral philosophy, logic, mathematics, and preparation for law, ministry, or government. The Revolutionary War disrupted the normal lives of many students, and members of Lee’s own family entered military and political service. After college, Charles studied law in Philadelphia under Jared Ingersoll, a prominent lawyer. Reading law in an established office gave him practical exposure to English legal authorities, drafting, litigation, and professional networks. He then returned to Virginia and entered practice. Before achieving public fame, therefore, Lee had been formed by plantation privilege, a large and politically active family, private schooling, collegiate study during the Revolution, and professional apprenticeship. These advantages helped him develop the learning and connections that later carried him into Virginia politics and the federal cabinet.