Custis Lee Mansion 4

Custis Lee Mansion 4

A large debt had to be paid off before anything else could be done, and

Lee applied himself to making the farms as productive as possible by

putting more land under cultivation and planting larger crops. For a

time, it seemed that it would be impossible for him ever to discharge

his obligations satisfactorily, but he could still hide his

discouragement from his children, as when in the autumn of 1858 he came

upon one of his daughters saying a tearful goodbye to a friend, and said

cheerfully to the weeping girls: “No tears at Arlington, no tears.”

Fortunately, by the summer of 1859 he could see some improvement in the

situation, although much remained to be done.

 

 

JOHN BROWN’S RAID AND THE IMPENDING CRISIS. One morning in October 1859,

a young lieutenant, J. E. B. Stuart, who had been a guest at Arlington

several times, came with orders for Lee to report at once to the

Secretary of War. There he learned of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry

and was directed to take command of the forces being sent to quell the

uprising. This was soon accomplished, and in a short while Lee was home

again.

 

Affairs at Arlington were so encouraging that autumn, that Lee expected

soon to rejoin his regiment in Texas. Therefore, he arranged to have his

son, Custis, who was now in the Corps of Engineers, transferred to

Washington where he could supervise the estate. Unlike many army

officers, Lee had never been away long from his native State, and his

months of hard work at Arlington had given him a sympathetic

understanding of the problems faced by his kinsmen and fellow-planters

and reaffirmed his belief that his first loyalty was to Virginia.

 

These were his views when he went to Texas in February 1860, and they

remained unchanged as the discord between the North and South grew more

intense. Uneasily, he observed the recklessness of the extremists on

both sides, hoping always that the Union he loved would be preserved.

Texas seceded in February 1861, and Lee, who had been ordered to report

to Washington, arrived home at Arlington a month later. “I met Col.

Robert E. Lee at Gen. Scott’s office,” one of his army friends wrote in

his diary, March 5th. “He feels badly at the prospect.” Probably all

that Lee could tell his old friend was that if Virginia seceded he must

follow her, and that all he could do was to await developments.

 

 

LEE RESIGNS FROM THE UNITED STATES ARMY. While Lee watched, helpless,

events moved rapidly. Fort Sumter was bombarded in April, and in a few

days Lee heard that his own beloved Virginia had seceded. Great as was

his pride in the Union, he did not believe that it should be preserved

by force; moreover, he felt his first allegiance was to his State.

Though his career be sacrificed and the lives and property of his

children endangered, he believed he must do his duty as he saw it.

 

Arlington blazed with lights Friday night, April 19,1861, and was filled

with relations and friends anxiously discussing the recent events.

Finding it impossible to think about his problem amid the excitement,

Colonel Lee went outside and paced back and forth under the trees while

he pondered his future course. Still undecided, he returned to the house

and went up to his bedroom. Downstairs, Mrs. Lee and the others waited

anxiously. Overhead, they could hear Lee’s footsteps as he paced the

floor, stopping only when he knelt to pray. It was after midnight when

he finally arrived at a decision and sat down to write his resignation

from the United States Army. That done, he came down with it in his hand

to where his wife was waiting. “Well, Mary,” he said quietly, “the

question is settled. Here is my letter of resignation, and a letter I

have written to General Scott.”

 

[Illustration: _“Arlington House” as it appeared a few years before

the Civil War._ From a sketch by Benson J. Lossing.]

 

 

THE LEES LEAVE ARLINGTON. Monday morning, Lee said goodbye to his family

and left for Richmond. Before him were the long, hard years of a bitter

war from which he would gain unfading glory. But never again would he be

sheltered by the friendly roof of his old home at Arlington, and only

once would he have a glimpse of it, and then from a passing train,

several years after the war.

 

[Illustration: _A corner of the drawing room, 1956._]

 

[Illustration: _General Robert E. Lee in 1862._ U. S. Army Signal

Corps photograph.]

 

In view of the strategic location of Arlington, Lee urged his wife to go

to a place of safety, but no preparations had been made to leave when

word reached Mrs. Lee, early in May, that the Federal forces were soon

to move into Virginia. Then all was excitement as the family portraits

were taken from their frames and, with the plate and the most valuable

Washington relics, sent off for safekeeping. Curtains and carpets were

packed away in the attic, books and engravings put in closets, and the

china stored in boxes in the cellar. Most of the furniture had to be

left behind, but this Mrs. Lee trusted she could recover later. When

everything was in order, it was time to say farewell to the weeping

servants, and to leave her home for what was to be the last time.

 

[Illustration: THE ARLINGTON ESTATE IN 1860

March 1950 MEM LM 7000

High-resolution Map]

 

 

LEGEND

1. “Arlington House”

2. Ice House

3. Stable

4. Outbuilding

5. Grave of Mary Randolph

6. Custis Graves

7. Gravel Pit

8. Slave Cabins

9. Chapel

10. Barn

11. Overseer’s House

12. Apple Orchard

13. Arlington Spring

14. Slave Cemetery

15. Road to Long Bridge

 

 

 

 

_Arlington from 1861 to 1865_

 

 

ARLINGTON OCCUPIED BY THE FEDERAL ARMY. Mrs. Lee had been gone only a

few days when the Federal Army crossed the river and occupied the

heights opposite the National Capital. Overnight, what had been a quiet

country estate was transformed into a vast military encampment. New

roads were cut through the woods and much of it felled to open fields of

fire for the earthen forts being built a short distance west of the

house. Guards were posted to protect the house, and when the commanding

general learned that many articles nevertheless were being stolen, he

sent the Washington relics, which had been stored in the cellar, to the

Patent Office for safekeeping, and then established his headquarters

inside the mansion. Inevitably, the estate suffered greatly, though

strong efforts were made to prevent wanton destruction, particularly of

the fine old trees.

 

 

LEE BECOMES THE HERO OF THE SOUTH. While Arlington was blighted by grim

war, its former master was engaged in mobilizing the defenses of his

native State. Before long he was military adviser to the President of

the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, and successively commander of the Army

of Northern Virginia and general in chief of all the Confederate armies.

The qualities developed by his years in the army and his home life were

the same that now made him the military champion of the South and its

greatest hero. His self-discipline rarely deserted him, and his deep

religious beliefs gave him a humility and simplicity sufficient to

withstand the greatest discouragements. Even though the odds were

against him, his splendid presence on the field of battle and his

kindliness and courtesy to all regardless of rank won him the devotion

of his officers and men, while his brilliant military leadership gave

hope and fighting spirit to the entire South. Always he was the knightly

Christian gentleman, humane and magnanimous whether in victory or

defeat.

 

[Illustration: _East front of “Arlington House” in 1864._ From the

photograph by Brady in the National Archives.]

 

[Illustration: _Robert E. Lee in the full dress of a Confederate

General._ From the original photograph made in 1863 by Minnis and

Cowell, Richmond. U. S. Army Signal Corps photograph.]

 

 

THE NATIONAL CEMETERY ESTABLISHED AT ARLINGTON, 1864. Early in 1862, the

army moved away from Arlington for service in the field, but the mansion

continued to be used as a headquarters. In 1864, the Government levied a

tax on the Arlington estate. Because Mrs. Lee was unable to appear

personally to pay the tax as stipulated, payment through her agent was

refused and the property sold at public auction. In June of that year

the first burials were made in 200 acres set aside as a national

cemetery. Work was begun at once to restore the former natural beauty of

the grounds, and by the end of the war almost all the scars caused by

its military occupation had been erased. Only the long rows of white

headboards gleaming among the trees and the desolate house now used only

for the cemetery office bespoke the bitter strife that had wrought such

a profound change at Arlington.

 

 

 

 

_Arlington from 1865 to the Present_

 

 

LEE’S INFLUENCE HELPS TO RESTORE THE SOUTH AFTER THE WAR. The splendid

leadership which Lee had given his people during the war did not cease

at Appomattox. As president of Washington College (afterwards Washington

and Lee University), he devoted himself to restoring the South

culturally, economically, and politically. Magnanimous in peace as in

war, he urged his countrymen to forswear hatred and make the best of

their situation. By his advice and example he did much to bring about

the true restoration of the Union, not by force, but by the immeasurably

stronger bonds of reconciliation and a common loyalty.

 

For a time General Lee hoped to regain possession of Arlington for his

wife, but he died in 1870 without having recovered it. Mrs. Lee died 3

years later, and her son Custis then took legal action to obtain his

inheritance. In 1882, the case was finally decided in his favor by the

Supreme Court of the United States, but since thousands of soldiers had

been buried at Arlington, Custis Lee accepted the offer of the Government to buy the property for $150,000.