Custis Lee Mansion 1

Custis Lee Mansion 1

Custis Lee Mansion

The Robert E. Lee Memorial, Virginia

 

Author: Murray H. Nelligan

_Contents_

 

 

_Page_

History of Arlington to 1861 1

Arlington from 1861 to 1865 24

Arlington from 1865 to the Present 26

Guide to the House and Grounds 28

Visitor Service and Facilities 46

Administration 47

Suggested Readings 48

 

[Illustration: _General Robert E. Lee in 1865._ From the original

photograph by Mathew Brady in the National Archives.]

 

[Illustration: ]

 

Ever since it was built more than a century ago, the Custis-Lee Mansion

has dominated the scene across the river from the National Capital. An

outstanding example of a Greek Revival building of the early nineteenth

century, its dignity and strength, simplicity and steady grace, now make

it a most appropriate national memorial to one of America’s greatest

men, Robert E. Lee.

 

Built by his father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted

son of General Washington, the mansion was for many years a principal

repository of many objects associated with George Washington. As such,

it greatly influenced Robert E. Lee when the building was his home. Like

him, it experienced the vicissitudes of war and came to be associated

with his fame. Now it is maintained by the Nation in his honor, and in

the years to come will serve as a constant reminder of his nobility and

greatness.

 

Many years have passed since General Lee lived in the home at Arlington.

But so real are the memories evoked by its historic atmosphere, it seems

little more than yesterday that he left it for the last time. A visit to

the Custis-Lee Mansion gives a deeper, more personal understanding of

the life and worth of the man to whose memory it is now dedicated.

 

 

 

 

_History of Arlington to 1861_

 

 

ANCESTRY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON PARKE CUSTIS. George Washington Parke

Custis was born April 30, 1781. His mother was Eleanor (Calvert) Custis,

a granddaughter of the sixth Lord Baltimore; his father, John Parke

Custis, the only son of Martha Washington by her first marriage. John

Parke Custis grew to manhood at Mount Vernon, married Eleanor Calvert in

1774, and died of camp fever in 1781 while serving as aide to General

Washington at Yorktown. His death left four children fatherless, so the

two youngest, George Washington Parke Custis and his sister Eleanor,

were adopted by the Washingtons and taken to Mount Vernon to be raised

as their own.

 

 

HIS EARLY LIFE AT MOUNT VERNON. Only 6 months old when he was taken to

live at Mount Vernon, it was a remarkable experience for a boy as

sensitive and gifted as young Custis to grow up on terms of intimacy

with General Washington, whose affection the fatherless lad reciprocated

with the deepest love and respect. As far as public duties would allow,

the General supervised the training and education of the boy, who

acquired from him the interests and ideals which established the pattern

of his life. “It is really an enjoyment to be here to witness the

tranquil happiness that reigns throughout the house,” wrote a guest at

Mount Vernon in 1799, “except when now and then a little bustle is

occasioned by the young Squire Custis when he returns from hunting,

bringing in a ‘valiant deer’, as he terms it, that Grandpa and the

Colonel will devour: nice venison I assure you.”

 

 

GEORGE WASHINGTON PARKE CUSTIS MOVES TO ARLINGTON. Custis was 18 when

the General died in 1799. Mrs. Washington did not long survive her

husband, and when she died, early in 1802, Custis moved to “Mount

Washington,” as he first called the Arlington estate. This was a tract

of nearly 1,100 acres that Custis’ father had bought in 1778 with the

intention of establishing a family seat convenient to Mount Vernon, but

in 1802 the only tangible remains of his brief ownership were the

flourishing willows he had planted along the Potomac.

 

 

“ARLINGTON HOUSE” BEGUN. When Custis moved into a cottage built by the

former owners of the property, Arlington consisted mostly of woodland

and virgin oak forests, with a few cleared fields near the river. His

first concern was to get the fields under cultivation, using for the

purpose the mules and farm equipment he had purchased at the sales held

that year at Mount Vernon to settle the legacies of the several

Washington heirs. Equally urgent was the need to build a house worthy of

the furnishings and mementoes which he had inherited or bought at the

Mount Vernon sales, some of which were deteriorating badly in their

temporary quarters. To this end, he seems to have obtained building

plans from George Hadfield, a gifted young architect, who had come from

England in 1795 to take charge of the construction of the Capitol.

 

Influenced by the contemporary vogue for classical architecture, Custis

wanted his house to be in the new style, and the architect’s finished

design was a simplified Greek Doric portico balanced by extended wings,

the whole of such sturdiness as to show to advantage when viewed from

across the river. Since ornamentation would be lost at such a distance,

the architect largely dispensed with it, relying on good proportions to

give beauty to his creation. Rooms would be large and have high ceilings

and tall windows, and their severely plain walls would be perfect for

displaying the many portraits Custis possessed. Having the rooms open

into each other would give extensive vistas, framed by pleasing

semicircular arches.

 

[Illustration: _Early view of Mount Vernon._]

 

[Illustration: _George Washington Parke Custis._ From a miniature

made at Mount Vernon in 1799.]

 

Though clay for bricks and choice timber were at hand on his estate,

Custis lacked the money necessary to build his house all at once.

Therefore he followed the common practice of building the wings first,

and the main section later. The north wing was built about 1803, and was

evidently intended to be one great banquet room. By 1804, the south wing

was completed, containing an office and a large room for entertaining.

In that year Custis married Mary Lee Fitzhugh. To provide living

quarters for himself and his bride he had the north wing partitioned

into three small rooms. With a kitchen and laundry in the basement, the

young couple had the essentials of living at “Arlington House,” as

Custis named his new home, after the old family seat on the Eastern

Shore. At this point, work seems to have been stopped. A visitor

reported in 1811, “I was struck, on entering the grounds of Mr. Custis,

at Arlington, ... with several of the most picturesque views. This seat

is on a superb mount, and his buildings are begun in a stile of superior

taste and elegance.”

 

 

ARLINGTON AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. While building

his house, Custis inaugurated an annual fair designed to improve

agricultural practices in general, and particularly the breeding of

fine-wooled sheep. Beginning in 1803, Custis invited the local gentry

each spring to exhibit their best sheep and homespun cloth at Arlington

Spring, near the edge of the river. After prizes had been awarded, the

fair would close with patriotic speeches and a great dinner under the

tent which had been used by Washington during the Revolution.

 

[Illustration: “ARLINGTON HOUSE,” AS IT APPEARED FROM ABOUT

1804-1816]

 

By breeding the native stock on his farms with the imported stock he had

acquired from Mount Vernon, Custis himself developed a hardy race of

fine-wooled sheep, known as the “Arlington Improved.” Because the wool

of this breed could be woven into finer cloth than hitherto possible,

the Arlington sheep were widely diffused throughout the country. Custis

also sought to correct the primitive agricultural methods which had

already caused much land in his State to be abandoned because of soil

erosion. He advocated the establishment of a National Board of

Agriculture with functions like those of the Department of Agriculture

today, and he offered one of his outlying properties for use as an

experimental breeding station. So popular was the Arlington

Sheepshearing, as it was commonly called, that the idea was quickly

adopted elsewhere. Though economic conditions forced Custis to

discontinue the event after 1812, it was one of the primary sources of

the great program of agricultural improvement in effect today.

 

 

BIRTH OF MARY ANNA RANDOLPH CUSTIS. Mary Anna Randolph Custis, born in

1808, was the only one of the four Custis children to survive the first

year of infancy. Upon her the parents centered their affections and

hopes. The mother’s natural piety and devotion to her family were

deepened by the loss of her other children, while the father’s warm and

generous nature was such that in later years she could not recall ever

having received an unkind word from him.

 

 

CUSTIS AND THE WAR OF 1812. During the War of 1812, the British blockade

of the Chesapeake deprived Custis of much of the income from his other

estates, so it is doubtful if any building was done at Arlington at this

time. Convinced that Napoleon threatened the liberties of mankind more

than England, Custis strongly opposed the war. For this reason he was

chosen to deliver the funeral oration for General Lingan, a veteran of

the Revolution who was murdered by the same Baltimore mob which almost

killed Robert E. Lee’s father, “Light-Horse Harry” Lee. Nevertheless,

Custis followed the example set by George Washington during the American

Revolution by forbidding the managers of his plantations to furnish

supplies to the British; and when British troops approached the National

Capital in 1814, Custis fought in the ranks at the battle of Bladensburg.