US History/US History (Bureau Development Inc.)(1991).ISO/dp/0026/00262.txt

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$Pretitle{20}
$Title{Arlington House - The Robert E. Lee Memorial
Arlington House - The Robert E. Lee Memorial [Complete Text]}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Brooks, Nancy Growald}
$Affiliation{National Park Service}
$Subject{lee
arlington
custis
house
washington
war
robert
virginia
family
union}
$Volume{Handbook 133}
$Date{1985}
$Log{Arlington*0026201.scf
Arlington Map*0026202.scf
Mary Custis*0026203.scf
Household Slaves*0026204.scf
Lee in Uniform*0026205.scf
Family Parlor*0026206.scf
Household Office*0026207.scf
The Lee's Bedroom*0026208.scf
Winter Kitchen*0026209.scf
}
Book:        Arlington House - The Robert E. Lee Memorial
Author:      Brooks, Nancy Growald
Affiliation: National Park Service
Volume:      Handbook 133
Date:        1985

           Overview of Arlington House - The Robert E. Lee Memorial

The Robert E. Lee Memorial -- Arlington House -- serves as a stately memorial
to Robert E. Lee.  It is located on a bluff in northern Virginia overlooking
Arlington Cemetery, the Potomac River and the City of Washington.

Arlington House - The Robert E. Lee Memorial [Complete Text]

Part 1 - Welcome to Arlington House

Honoring a Great Leader

     Robert E. Lee, born of two distinguished Virginia families, was raised to
follow the path of honor and duty.  A devoted son, an outstanding West Point
cadet, and a United States Army officer for 32 years, Lee came face to face in
1861 with a most difficult choice:  Allegiance to the American nation and the
flag he had served so long and well, or loyalty to his native Virginia.

     A lieutenant colonel in the cavalry on the Texas frontier, Lee was
ordered back to Washington in 1861 when Texas seceded from the Union.  Through
the long and tedious months of his Texas tour, he had hoped some way would be
found to avert civil war.  On his return to Arlington, the estate bequeathed
to his wife Mary by her father, George Washington Parke Custis, Lee was
offered the command of a large Union army being organized to take the field
against the South.  He courteously declined the offer, expressing his
opposition to both secession and war and an unwillingness to participate in an
invasion of the Southern states.  The next day news of Virginia's adoption of
the Act of Secession reached Lee.  Not wishing to be placed under orders he
could not follow, Lee wrote his resignation from the U.S. Army on April 20,
1861.

     Two days later, Lee bid farewell to his wife and children and to
Arlington and hoarded a train to Richmond to take command of Virginia's
military forces.  Well aware that Arlington's commanding site high on a bluff
overlooking the Nation's Capital would make it an early target of federal
capture, Lee may have wondered if he would ever return to the house and estate
he had known since childhood.

[See Arlington: View of Arlington House overlooking the front grounds. (FRONT
COVER)]

     As the war progressed, Arlington House was occupied by the Union Army.
The Lees lost title to the house in 1864 when Arlington was seized for non-
payment of taxes and acquired by the Federal Government for $26,800.

     In 1873 George Washington Custis Lee, the Lees' eldest son, sued the
Federal Government for the return of the property charging that the seizure
had been illegal.  The U.S. Supreme Court agreed and restored the estate title
to Lee in 1882.  By then, however, several thousand war dead had been buried
in Arlington's hills, and Custis Lee accepted $150,000 from the U.S.
Government for the property.  Union fortifications built on the property
during the Civil War were absorbed by Fort Myer, by Arlington National
Cemetery, and subsequently by the Department of Agriculture.  Freedman's
Village, a settlement established in wartime for emancipated slaves, operated
there for about 20 years.  At one time it provided homes and jobs for 2,000
residents and contained three churches, a school, an orphans home, and a home
for the aged.  From 1900 to 1933 the Department of Agriculture operated a 330-
acre experimental farm on estate land near the Potomac River.

     With the passage of time, many people came to appreciate Robert E. Lee's
role in reuniting the American nation after the Civil War.  The Confederate
general's example inspired men and women of his day to lay down old grievances
and get on with the job of rebuilding a new and better America. Lee used his
influence to move away from the bitterness of war to reunion and peace.
"Madam," Lee admonished a Southern visitor in his last years, "don't bring up
your sons to detest the United States Government.  Recollect that we form one
country now.  Abandon all these local animosities and make your sons
Americans."

     U.S. Rep. Louis Cramton of Michigan learned of Lee's greatness from his
father, a Union soldier who served in Virginia for nearly the entire war.  In
1925 Congress unanimously passed Cramton's legislation establishing the Lee
Mansion National Memorial.  In testimony supporting his bill, Cramton
declared; "I believe it is unprecedented in history for a nation to have gone
through as great a struggle as that was, and in the lifetime of men then
living to see the country so absolutely reunited as is our country there was
no man in the South who did more by his precept and example to help bring
about that condition than did Robert E. Lee."

     Restoration of Arlington House was begun in 1925 by the War Department
and has been continued by the National Park Service since 1933.  Today
Arlington House serves as a stately memorial to Robert E. Lee, welcoming
guests daily from around the nation and the world.  Across the Potomac River
stands the Lincoln Memorial commemorating the President who gave his life to
preserve the Union.  Thus Arlington Memorial Bridge, which links the two
memorials, symbolizes the reconciliation these two leaders sought between the
North and the South.

Part 2 - The Historical Legacy

The Child of Mount Vernon

     In 1781 Martha Washington's son by her first marriage, John Parke Custis,
died of camp fever while serving as an aide to Gen. George Washington at
Yorktown.  To ease the burden upon Custis' young widow, the Washingtons
brought home to Mount Vernon the couple's two youngest of four children, the
6-month-old George Washington Parke Custis and his 2 1/2-year-old sister
Eleanor Parke Custis.  Martha Washington doted on "Tub" and "Nelly," overjoyed
that her grandchildren were in perfect health and good spirits.

     Young Custis was greatly influenced growing up in the presence of George
Washington.  An indifferent student, Custis nonetheless absorbed a strong
sense of history and ideals from his guardian and the constant stream of
distinguished visitors to Mount Vernon.  Formal studies must have paled next
to the bustle and ceremonial flurry of daily life in the Washington household.
The Marquis de Lafayette, who spent considerable time at Mount Vernon, once
recalled how young Custis, clutching Washington's hand, would tag along as the
general showed visitors about the estate.  Between the ages of 8 and 16,
Custis witnessed the Washington presidency in New York and Philadelphia.  He
attended many theatrical productions and musical performances with Washington
in both cities, watched him lay the cornerstone for the Capitol, and heard
countless discussions about his guardian's hopes and dreams for America and
its economic independence from Europe.  Life with Washington imbued the young
man with a reverence for American history, a thirst for progress, ideals of
the Revolution, and a strong and energetic intellect that would serve him all
his days.

The Washington Treasury

     The deaths of George and Martha Washington in 1799 and 1802 deeply
affected Custis and closed a chapter in his life.  Disappointed that he was
unable to purchase Mount Vernon from Bushrod Washington, the general's nephew
and heir, Custis prepared to leave Mount Vernon, taking with him his bequests
from the Washingtons and as many relics and mementos as he was able to
purchase from the estate.

     Custis' portion of items from Martha Washington's estate included
furniture, silver, china, and family portraits.  At auctions in 1802 and 1803
Custis bought heavily; in the end he owed $4,545.  His purchases included
Washington's coach, tents used in the Revolution, and the Hessian and British
flags presented Washington by Congress in honor of the final victory at
Yorktown.

     Custis decided to settle on his 1,100-acre tract overlooking the City of
Washington that his father, John Custis, had purchased in 1778.  He moved in
1802 to a four-room brick cottage at "Mount Washington" - a name later changed
to Arlington after the Custis property on Virginia's Eastern Shore - with his
precious store of Washington relics and began to plan a handsome house to hold
the treasures from his boyhood home, Mount Vernon.

"A Very Showy Handsome Building"

     Twenty-one-year-old G.W.P. Custis is believed to have engaged the
professional services of George Hadfield, a young English architect, to draw
plans for his house.  Hadfield had studied in Italy and supervised part of the
construction of the U.S. Capitol.  The Greek Revival design of Arlington House
features a two-story central section framed by an impressive Doric-columned
portico and flanked north and south by lower wings.  The site Custis selected
for the mansion was a high bluff crowned with a forest of oak.  The serene
simplicity of the Arlington facade would be visible from the Capitol three
miles away.

[See Arlington Map: Map shows the extent of the Arlington estate about 1860.]

     Undaunted by a shortage of funds to complete the project, Custis began
work on the north wing in 1802 using materials from his estates.  This wing
was divided into living quarters and temporary space for the Washington
treasury.  The south wing was completed in 1804 and contained a large parlor
and a smaller room that served as an office and study.

     When Custis brought his young bride, Mary Lee "Molly" Fitzhugh, home to
Arlington that year, they set up housekeeping in the north wing and
entertained in the south wing.  Even incomplete, the building was quite
impressive.  Cornelia Lee, a relative, wrote that during an 1804 visit Custis
stopped caulking a boat long enough to offer a "glass of excellent wine" and a
tour.  "The House," she predicted, "will be a very showy handsome building
when complete."  After Robert E. Lee moved to Alexandria in 1811, he
frequently visited Arlington and saw the house under construction.

     The main section with its great portico was completed in 1818.  By then
Arlington House dominated the Virginia horizon opposite Washington.  G.W.P.
Custis possessed an intriguing combination of traits.  He was a practical man,
but he also was an idealist and an artist who found his highest calling in
perpetuating the memory of George Washington through oratory, poems, heroic
paintings, and preservation of his memorabilia.

     Custis also was an unpretentious individual, as was his wife Molly.  He
liked to wear rough clothing and a battered hat about his farm.  The farm
activities he directed at Arlington were limited and experimental in
character, and he relied on income from two farms on the Pamunkey River and
land on Virginia's Eastern Shore to sustain the household.

     The Custises had four children, but only their daughter, Mary Anna
Randolph Custis, lived past the age of three.  Custis left most of the child
rearing to his wife and devoted his time to his many interests.

     Custis was one of the first advocates of a U.S. Department of
Agriculture.  On his birthday in 1805 he inaugurated an annual sheep-shearing
to encourage improved breeding and to help establish an independent American
woolen industry.  Those gatherings gave local farmers an opportunity to
exhibit their best animals and homespun.

     He wrote plays celebrating both heroic episodes in the nation's past and
stirring current events.  Produced from Boston to Charleston, they helped
America create its own form of theater.  Among his successes were
"Pocahontas," commemorating the settling of Virginia, and "Railroad," an
operetta praising technology and progress.  His other writings included
"Conversations with Lafayette," written after the aged general's visit to
Arlington in 1825, and "Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington."

A Summer Wedding, 1831

     "Never was I more surrounded with the joys of life than at this time,"
Mary Custis wrote to a friend in the fall of 1830.  "I am engaged to one to
whom I have been long attached - Robert Lee."  The slim, dark-eyed daughter of
George Washington Parke Custis and Molly Fitzhugh Custis had attracted many
beaux, including the Tennessee frontiersman Sam Houston, but it was Lee, her
distant cousin and childhood playmate, whose proposal she accepted.

[See Mary Custis: Auguste Herview painted the oil portrait of Mary Anna
Randolph Custis shortly before her wedding.]

     Lee returned to his army post outside Savannah without a date set for the
wedding.  They were delighted the next spring with his transfer to Fort
Monroe, Virginia, closer to Arlington.  Plans for the wedding progressed.  Lee
wrote his brother Carter in New York to order wedding clothes: "I believe I
will wear my uniform coat on the important night, & therefore white pantaloons
must be in character.  Let the material of all be the best & don I let him
charge too much."

     Soon thereafter, Lee's commanding officer notified him he could take a
one-month furlough, and a date was set for the wedding.  Writing once again to
Carter, Lee confided: "The day has been fixed & it is the 30th of June. I can
tell you I begin to feel right funny when I count my days. . . .  Can you come
on to see it done? . . . I am told there are to be sit pretty Bridesmaids,
Misses Mason, Mary, Marietta, Angela, Julia and Brittannia & you could have
some fine Kissing.  For you know what a fellow you are at these weddings

     Meanwhile a whirlwind of preparations was underway at Arlington, with
extra quilts, mattresses, candlesticks, and silver being requisitioned from
Aunt Maria Fitzhugh and others to supply the wedding party, close friends, and
relations.

     Rain fell steadily on the last day of June, but candlelight set the
mansion aglow, reflecting the warm and happy atmosphere surrounding the
festivities.  The officiating clergyman, the Rev. Reuel Keith, arrived on
horseback drenched to the skin.  He was hastily fitted out in a coat and
trousers belonging to the bride's father - too short and too wide by far for
the rangy Mr. Keith, who managed to conceal his hilarious outfit beneath
clerical robes.

     Aunt Nelly Custis Lewis played music as Mary Custis entered the family
parlor and took her place next to Lee, resplendent in his white trousers and
dress uniform jacket, with its gold braid trim.  The bride's hands trembled
during the brief ceremony, Lee confided later to his commanding officer, and
"The Parson had few words to say though he dwelt upon them as if he had been
reading my Death warrant."

     "This evening was one to be long remembered," Mary Lee's bridesmaid and
cousin Marietta Turner recalled.  "My cousin, always a modest and affectionate
girl, was never lovelier, and Robert Lee with his bright eyes and high color
was the picture of a cavalier.  The elegance and simplicity of the bride's
parents, presiding over the feast, and the happiness of the grinning servants
. . . remain in my memory as a piece of Virginia life pleasant to recall."

     Following the custom of the day, the couple remained at Arlington with
the wedding party, gathering on the Fourth of July for a final round of
festivities at the home of family friends on Analostan (now Roosevelt) Island.
A few weeks later, Lt. and Mrs. Lee accompanied Mrs. Custis on a trip to visit
relatives.  At the end of the summer the Lees went to Fort Monroe, where he
resumed his army duties.

     The marriage vows exchanged at Arlington by Mary and Robert Lee in the
summer of 1831 bridged the loneliness that was inevitable in a soldier's life
and supported husband and wife as their family grew to include seven children,
three sons and four daughters.  The family usually traveled with Lee to his
various posts, and Mrs. Lee returned to Arlington for the births of six of
their seven children.  The whole family customarily returned to Arlington in
the winter when engineering projects closed down.

     Lee respected his wife's parents as his own, mindful of Custis' warm
reception of him as a son and Molly Custis' unfailing kindness to him
throughout his boyhood.  She was one of the few relatives in attendance when
Robert's mother, Ann Carter Lee, died in 1829 at Ravensworth, the Fitzhugh
estate.

     The Lees were a study in contrasts: she, outspoken, casual in appearance
and housekeeping, artistic and impulsive; and he, reserved, gracious and
whimsical, punctual, thrifty, and a born organizer.  They were devoted parents
anxious that each of their children learn their responsibilities and fulfill
their duties.  Their mutual affection was constant and a source of strength
through many separations and the final loss of their beloved Arlington.

     Writing to Mary on June 30, 1864, under Union fire in the trenches of
Petersburg, Lee asked, "Do you recollect what a happy day thirty-three years
ago this was?  How many hopes and pleasures it gave birth to!"

Christmas Puddings and Summer Picnics

     In the transitory life of a military family, Arlington House represented
permanency, and Christmas at the beloved homestead was a particularly happy
season of reunion.  The Lees were together at Arlington for 24 of the 30
Christmas seasons they celebrated before the Civil War.  In 1846, one of the
Christmases he missed, Lee wrote to sons Custis and Rooney: "I hope good Santa
Claus will fill my Rob's stocking to-night: that Mildred's, Agnes's, and
Anna's may break down with good things.  I do not know what he may have for
you and Mary, but if he only leaves for you one half of what I wish, you will
want for nothing!"

     For son Custis at West Point in 1851, Lee summed up the family's holiday
visit to the Custises at Arlington: "The children were delighted at getting
back, and passed the evening in devising pleasure for the morrow.  They were
in upon us before day on Christmas to overhaul their stockings . . . I need
not describe to you our amusements, you have witnessed them so often; nor the
turkey, cold ham, plum pudding, mince pies, etc., at dinner."

     The hospitality of Arlington spread far beyond the family circle.  G.W.P.
Custis opened Arlington Spring on the Potomac to picnicking parties from
Georgetown, Washington, and Alexandria.  Custis added a dancing pavilion and
kitchen, and he loved to mingle with visitors, playing his violin, singing
songs of the Revolution, and telling anecdotes and jokes.

[See Household Slaves: The slaves of the Arlington household include Sally and
Leonard Norris, top, and their daughter, Selina Gray.]

United States Army Officer

     Robert E. Lee began his impressive military career as a lieutenant in the
Corps of Engineers, and his first assignment was to work on the construction
of Fort Pulaski near Savannah.  Transfered to Fort Monroe, Virginia, in 1831,
he continued his work on harbor defenses.  He then was posted to Washington as
assistant to the Chief of Engineers in 1834 and on a temporary assignment to
survey and resolve the Michigan-Ohio boundary in 1835.  He was assigned in
1837 to St. Louis to work on stabilizing the Mississippi River channel and was
promoted to captain in 1838.  His success at St. Louis established his
reputation as an engineer, and he was assigned to Fort Hamilton in 1841 to
work on the New York harbor fortifications.

     When war with Mexico broke out in 1846, Lee welcomed combat service and
spent two years in Mexico as an engineering officer in reconnaissance and
staff operations.  Lee was praised for his "gallantry and good conduct," for
construction of fortifications, and for performance under "the heavy fire of
the enemy."  Gen. Winfield Scott called him "the very best soldier that I ever
saw in the field."

     The war gave him experience in planning strategy and handling troops.
Promoted to the brevet ranks of major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel for
gallantry and meritorious service, Lee returned from Mexico to a happy reunion
with his loved ones.  Assigned to Baltimore in 1848, he supervised
construction of Fort Carroll for nearly four years.

     The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, became home to the
Lees in 1852, when Lee was appointed superintendent.  G. W. Custis Lee
graduated first in his class there in 1854.  And Lee, in his three-year
tenure, raised academic standards, lengthened the program from four to five
years, and improved facilities.

     In 1855 Lee was transferred from the Engineers to the 2nd U.S. Cavalry
regiment being organized for duty on the Texas frontier.  Mary and the family
returned to Arlington, where she helped her elderly father manage the estate.
In October 1857 Custis died, and Lee returned to Arlington, requesting a leave
of absence to administer the estate as the only qualifying executor. In 1859,
while still at Arlington, Lee was given command of federal forces sent to
capture the abolitionist John Brown at Harpers Ferry.

     Lee left Arlington in early 1860 to rejoin his regiment in Texas and
uneasily watched his country slip toward civil war.  On January 22, 1861, he
wrote to Markie Williams: "I am unable to realize that our people will destroy
a government inaugurated in the blood and wisdom of our patriot fathers, that
has given us peace and prosperity at home, power and security abroad, and
under which we have acquired colossal strength unequalled in the history of
mankind.  I wish to live under no other government and there is no sacrifice I
am not ready to make for the preservation of the Union, save that of honour."

     On the next day, Lee wrote to his son Custis: "If the Union is dissolved,
and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the
miseries of my people, and save in defence will draw my sword on none.  On
February I Texas seceded from the Union and Lee was ordered back to
Washington.  He arrived on March 1 and was promoted to colonel of the 1st
Cavalry on March 16.  Abraham Lincoln signed the commission on March 28.

Lee's Fateful Decision

     At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, South Carolina shore batteries opened
fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor.  The federal forces surrendered on
April 14 without casualties, but the attack by a secessionist state forced the
Union to action.  On April 15 President Lincoln declared the existence of an
"insurrection" and called for 75,000 volunteers to give three months of
military service.  By that time seven states had left the Union, but not
Virginia.

     The war Lee had long dreaded was at hand.  For the North, with a
population of 22 million, a strong and balanced economy, a well-developed
railroad grid, and naval supremacy, the war began as one to restore the Union,
though slavery was an underlying issue.  The 11 states that eventually formed
the Confederacy had 9 million inhabitants (including 3.5 million slaves), an
agricultural economy, and inadequate railroad systems.  Overall the
Confederacy appeared woefully weak as it declared its independence.

     Lee still awaited Virginia's decision.  Unbeknownst to him, the Virginia
Secession Convention in a secret session on April 17 passed the Ordinance of
Secession 88 to 55.  On April 18 Lee met with Francis P. Blair, Sr., at his
home across from the White House.  Blair, acting on behalf of President
Lincoln, offered Lee command of the army being raised to fight the
Confederacy.  Lee declined.  After the war he recalled telling Blair "as
candidly and courteously as I could, that though opposed to secession and
deprecating war, I could take no part in an invasion of the Southern states."
Lee left Blair's home and met with Gen. Winfield Scott in the War Department
across the street and told his old friend what had transpired.

     Not until April 19 did Lee learn that the Virginia Convention had adopted
the Ordinance of Secession to be confirmed by public referendum on May 23.
Lee knew he must act quickly if he wished to resign before receiving orders.
As anxious friends and relatives gathered at Arlington House to discuss the
deteriorating situation, Lee walked alone in the garden.  He later went to his
bed chamber - pacing the floor and pausing to kneel in prayer. Shortly after
midnight, he emerged with his letter of resignation.

     Lee's decision cost him his Union Army career and Arlington House, and it
separated him from friends and relatives who would remain with the Union. To
his brother, Sydney Smith Lee, he wrote: "I wished to wait till the Ordinance
of Secession should be acted on by the people of Virginia; but war seems to
have commenced, and I am liable at any time to be ordered on duty, which 1
could not conscientiously perform.  To save me from such a position and to
prevent the necessity of resigning under orders, I had to act at once. . . ."

     On April 21, the governor of Virginia asked Lee to take command of the
state's military forces, an offer he felt he could not refuse.  The next day
he left for Richmond to accept the command.  He was never to return to
Arlington.

[See Lee in Uniform: In this 1864 photograph, Robert E. Lee wears his full
dress Confederate general's uniform with military sash and dress sword.]

     For four years Lee's audacity, brilliance, and charismatic leadership
inspired the Army of Northern Virginia and the South.  But the North's
overwhelming advantages in troops and supplies ultimately prevailed, and Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant finally took Richmond, the Confederate Capital, on April 3,
1865.  On April 9, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court
House.

Part 3 - The House and Grounds

Visiting The Estate

     Alighting from carriages before the great columned portico of Arlington,
guests in the 19th century were surely as moved as today's visitor by the
breathtaking panorama of the Nation's Capital spread before them.

     For more than 50 years Arlington House was first and foremost a home to a
lively brood of Custises and Lees, an extended family that included George and
Molly Custis, Robert E. and Mary Custis Lee, and the Lees' four daughters and
three sons.  The tall Greek Revival front doors of Arlington, open during all
but the coldest months of the year, welcomed waves of aunts, uncles, cousins,
friends, and even strangers drawn to the mansion by its legacy of Washington
relics and memories.  The Arlington atmosphere exemplified Virginia
hospitality; expected or not, guests were made to feel at home and often urged
to linger for a longer visit.

[See Family Parlor: Family parlor in Arlington House.]

     In the same spirit the National Park Service today invites you to visit
Arlington House and immerse yourself in its history as a family estate.  The
house and its furnishings provide tangible links with early America.  As you
take the self-guiding tour, imagine the family gatherings and daily routines
that took place here.  Also, walk about the grounds and visit the
outbuildings, museum, and bookstore.

[See Household Office: Furnishings in the office of Arlington House.]

     The house is open daily; the hours vary seasonally.  Subway service from
Washington and Alexandria is available on Blue Line trains.  You may park your
car at the Arlington Cemetery Visitor Center and walk, or ride the bus
service, to the house.

[See The Lee's Bedroom: The Lee's bed chamber contains a family bed.]

[See Winter Kitchen: Servants prepared meals for the Custis and Lee families
in the winter kitchen using fresh vegetables and fruits of the season.]

     For more information, ask the staff at the house or write to:
Superintendent, George Washington Memorial Parkway, Turkey Run Park, McLean,
VA 22102.