People forget that Robert E Lee was superintendent at West Point prior to Civil War. (And most of the faculty fought for Confederacy out of loyalty, being from the south.) He said that he would fight for whichever side Virginia chose, and did not support the institution of slavery. His uncle left him a large plantation in northern VA with 300 slaves prior to the War. He freed all of the slaves, and gifted the property to the US government. The name of the plantation was "Arlington."