Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial

Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Memorial
Location	Arlington, Virginia, USA
Coordinates
Area	28.08 acres (11.36 ha)
Built	1803
Architect	George Hadfield
Architectural style	Greek Revival
Visitation	576,816 (2011)
NRHP Reference #	66000040
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966

Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, formerly named the Custis-Lee Mansion, is a Greek revival style mansion located in Arlington, Virginia, USA that was once the home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It overlooks the Potomac River and the National Mall in Washington, D.C. During the American Civil War, the grounds of the mansion were selected as the site of Arlington National Cemetery, in part to ensure that Lee would never again be able to return to his home. However, the United States has since designated the mansion as a National Memorial to Lee, a mark of widespread respect for him in both the North and South. Arlington Woods, located behind Arlington House, contains the oldest and largest tract of climax eastern hardwood forest that still exists in Arlington County.

Construction and early history

Arlington House from a pre-1861 sketch, published in 1875

The mansion was built on the orders of George Washington Parke Custis, the step-grandson and adopted son of George Washington and only grandson of Martha Custis Washington. Custis was a prominent resident of what was then known as Alexandria County, at the time a part of the District of Columbia.

Arlington House was built at a high point on an 5,100 ft acre (445 ha) estate that Custis' father, John Parke Custis, had purchased in 1778. ("Jacky" Custis died in 1781 at Yorktown after the British surrender.) George Washington Parke Custis decided to build his home on the property in 1802, following the death of Martha Washington and three years after the death of George Washington. Custis originally wanted to name the property "Mount Washington", but was persuaded by family members to name it "Arlington House" after the Custis family's homestead on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

George Hadfield, an English architect who also worked on the design of the United States Capitol, designed the mansion. Construction began eleven years after L'Enfant's Plan for the future "Federal City" (later called "Washington City", then Washington D.C.) had designated an area directly across the Potomac River to be the site of the "President's House" (later called the "Executive Mansion", now the White House) and the "Congress House" (now the United States Capitol).

The north and south wings were completed in 1804. The large center section and the portico, presenting an imposing front 140 ft (43 m) long, were finished 13 years later. The house has two kitchens, a summer and a winter. The most prominent features of the house are the 8 massive columns of the portico, each 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter.

Custis was a prominent resident of the jurisdiction that was then named Alexandria County and is now named Arlington County. Guests at the house included such notable people as Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, who visited in 1824 (see: Visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to the United States). At Arlington, Custis experimented with new methods of animal husbandry and other agriculture. The property also included Arlington Spring, a picnic ground on the banks of the Potomac that Custis originally built for private use but later opened to the public, eventually operating it as a commercial enterprise.

Custis married Mary Lee Fitzhugh. Their only child to survive to adulthood was Mary Anna Randolph Custis. Robert E. Lee, whose mother was a cousin of Mrs. Custis, frequently visited Arlington and knew Mary Anna as they grew up. Two years after graduating from West Point, Lieutenant Lee married Mary Anna Custis at Arlington on June 30, 1831. For 30 years Arlington House was home to the Lees. They spent much of their married life traveling between U.S. Army duty stations and Arlington, where six of their seven children were born. They shared this home with Mary's parents. After their deaths, Mary's parents were buried not far from the house on land that is now part of Arlington National Cemetery.

The Custises extensively developed the Arlington estate. Much of the steep slope to the east of the house became a cultivated English landscape park, while a large flower garden with an arbor was constructed and planted south of the house. To the west of Arlington House, tall grass and low native plants led down a slope into a natural area of close-growing trees the Custises called "the Grove." About 60 feet (18 m) to the west of the flower garden, "the Grove" contained tall elm and oak trees which formed a canopy. An informal flower garden was planted beneath the trees and maintained by the Custis daughters. It is not clear when "the Grove" began to be developed, but it was under way by at least 1853.

Upon George Washington Parke Custis' death in 1857, he left the Arlington estate to Mary Custis Lee for her lifetime and thence to the Lees' eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee. The estate needed much repair and reorganization, and Robert E. Lee, as executor of Custis' will, took a three-year leave of absence from the Army to begin the necessary agricultural and financial improvements. The will also required the executor to free the slaves on the estate within five years of Custis' death. Robert E. Lee fulfilled this requirement by manumitting the slaves in December 1862.

Civil War

East front of Custis-Lee Mansion with Union Soldiers on lawn

In April 1861, Virginia seceded from the United States. Robert E. Lee resigned his commission in the United States Army on April 20, 1861, and joined the military forces of the Confederate States of America. With Arlington House on high ground overlooking the capital, the government of the United States knew it must occupy the mansion or be left in an untenable military position. Although unwilling to leave Arlington House, Mary Lee believed her estate would soon be occupied by federal soldiers and left to stay with relatives on May 14. Union troops occupied Arlington without opposition on May 24.

In June 1862, the U.S. Congress enacted legislation which imposed a property tax on all land in "insurrectionary" areas of the United States. The 1863 amendments to the statute required these taxes to be paid in person. But Mary Lee, afflicted with severe rheumatoid arthritis and behind Confederate lines, could not pay the tax in person. The Arlington estate was seized for nonpayment of taxes. It was auctioned off on January 11, 1864, and the U.S. government won the property for $26,800 ($414,293 in 2024 dollars).

During the war, Union troops cut down many of the trees on the Arlington estate, especially those to the north and east of Arlington House in and near Fort Whipple (north of the house) and Arlington Springs (near the Potomac River). However, a number of large trees remained, particularly those in a forested area (now known as Arlington Woods) west of the house.

By early 1864, the military cemeteries of Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, Virginia, were rapidly filling with war dead. Quartermaster General of the United States Army Montgomery C. Meigs proposed using 200 acres (81 ha) of the Arlington estate as a cemetery. United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton approved the establishment of a military cemetery on June 15, 1864, creating Arlington National Cemetery. Meigs believed Lee committed treason in deciding to fight against the Union, and denying Lee use of the mansion after the war was politically advantageous. Meigs decided that a large number of burials should occur close to Arlington House to render it unlivable. Officers were to be buried next to the main flower garden south of the house, and the first burial occurred here on May 17. Meigs ordered that additional burials commence immediately on the grounds of Arlington House in mid-June. When Union officers bivouacked in the mansion complained and had the burials temporarily stopped, Meigs countermanded their orders and had another 44 dead officers buried along the southern and eastern sides of the main flower garden within a month.

In September 1866, a memorial and a burial vault containing the remains of 2,111 Union and Confederate soldiers who died at the First Battle of Bull Run, Second Battle of Bull Run, and along the Rappahannock River were buried on the former site of "the Grove" southeast of the mansion beneath the Civil War Unknowns Monument.

Post-Civil War

The second-floor chamber shared by Lee and his wife. A replica c. 1850 U. S. Army (lieutenant of engineers) uniform lies across the bed.

Robert E. Lee made no attempt to visit or restore his title to Arlington before his death in 1870. Mary Lee died in 1873, having visited to the house only once, a few months before her death. (Too upset at its condition, she refused to enter and left after just a few moments.)

In April 1874, Robert E. Lee's eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, filed suit against the United States government in a Virginia circuit court to regain his property. Custis Lee was a Major General in the Civil War and was captured by Union forces at the Battle of Sailor's Creek VA on April 6, 1865 [see David Dunnels White]. A jury found in favor of Custis Lee, leading to extensive appeals by both parties. In 1882, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of Lee in United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196. The court, by a 5-4 majority, found that the estate had been "illegally confiscated" in 1864 and ordered it returned. But Lee was less interested in obtaining the estate than he was in just compensation for it. After several months of difficult negotiations, Lee and the federal government settled on a sale price of $150,000 ($3,809,464 in 2024 dollars). Congress enacted legislation funding the purchase on March 3, 1883; Lee signed over the title on March 31; and the title transfer was recorded on May 14, 1883.

In 1920, the Virginia General Assembly changed the name of Alexandria County to Arlington County to end ongoing confusion between Alexandria County and the independent city of Alexandria. The name, Arlington, was chosen to reflect the presence of the Arlington estate.

In 1925, the War Department began to restore Arlington House, and the Department of the Army continues to manage over half of the original plantation's 1,100 acres, as Arlington National Cemetery. On March 4, 1925, Congress passed legislation (Public Resolution – NO. 74) that authorized the restoration of the Lee Mansion in the Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia. However, for several years after the 1925 legislation was passed, when the War Department was responsible for managing the house and grounds, the enabling legislation was largely ignored. In direct violation of the enabling legislation, the War Department, largely at the insistence of Commission of Fine Arts director Charles Moore, decided to furnish and interpret to “the first half of the republic.” This decision was based, in part, on the popularity of the Colonial Revival movement which was still popular in 1925. The Mansion was restored to the period of George Washington Custis, and no furniture manufactured after 1830 was accepted. This approach utterly negated Lee’s role and presence at Arlington.

In 1955, Congress passed Public Law 107 officially designating Arlington House as a permanent Memorial to Robert E. Lee and ensuring that the correct interpretation of its history would be applied. Gradually the house was furnished and interpreted to the period of Robert E. Lee as specified in the original legislation.

The National Park Service received jurisdiction over the building and some 28 acres of adjacent gardens (distinguished from the cemetery) beginning June 10, 1933.

The Gray family

One of the lesser known histories about Arlington House, concerns the Gray family, who helped to preserve the legacy of George Washington Park Custis as well as the Lee Family. Selina Norris Gray, the daughter of Leonard and Sally Norris, was a second-generation Arlington slave. In 1831 she married Thornton Gray, a fellow Arlington slave, and eventually had eight children who grew up at Arlington. With the onset of the Civil War, the Lee family had to evacuate their home before the Union troops came and occupied the property. Even though Selina was a personal maid to Mrs. Lee, she and her family were left behind; however, before leaving, Mrs. Lee left the house keys to Selina and the responsibility to protect the treasures of the home. Several of these treasures included cherished family heirlooms that had once belonged to Mrs. Lee's great-grandmother, Martha Custis Washington, and President George Washington. Within months of Union General McDowell occupying the home, Selina realized that several precious heirlooms were missing due to soldiers looting the property. When she discovered that some of the Washington relics had also disappeared, she promptly provided a list of the missing objects to General McDowell and convinced him that the significance of the collection required his involvement. He first secured the attic and basement areas to prevent further theft, then had the remaining Lee heirlooms shipped to the Patent Office in Washington, DC for safekeeping. While Selina is credited with saving the heirlooms and treasures of Arlington House, her children later on are credited with helping to restore the home as well as provide accurate details about the layout of the home, personal stories of the Lee family, and help preservationists in the early twentieth century. During major restorative efforts to Arlington House from 1929 to 1930, the Gray family made another important contribution to the history of Arlington County and the nation. Four of Selina and Thornton’s daughters provided crucial details about the house and its furnishings, and their input proved vital to the authenticity of the project. In 2014 a rare photograph of Selina was acquired by the National Park Service.

Recent history

Main article: Arlington National Cemetery § Arlington Woods expansion controversy

In 1995, officials of the United States Department of the Interior and the United States Department of the Army signed an agreement to transfer 22 acres (89,000 m²) of Arlington Woods from Arlington House to Arlington National Cemetery in order to increase burial space. Environmentalists expressed concerns that the agreement would result in the partial destruction of the 24 acres (9.7 ha) remnant of an historically important stand of native trees. Congress enacted legislation in September 1996 authorizing the transfer. The size of the transfer was later scaled back to just 4 acres (16,000 m²) in 1998, and (barring any legal challenges) a final environmental impact assessment finalizing the transfer and reclamation of the land for burials published in June 2013.

Beginning in 2007, Arlington House and its outbuildings and gardens underwent a five-year, $6 million refurbishment. This included general repairs as well as restoration of the north slave quarters, frescoes in the mansion's hunting hall, and replacement some of the doors and windows.

Arlington House suffered moderate damage in the 2011 Virginia earthquake, requiring the closure of the back halls and upper floor pending an architectural assessment. On July 17, 2014, philanthropist David Rubenstein donated $12.5 million to the National Park Foundation (the arm of the National Park Service which raises funds through private contributions) to rehabilitate Arlington House, its outbuildings, and grounds. The 30-month project is intended to restore the mansion, buildings, and grounds to the way they looked in 1860. The project will repair the earthquake-damaged foundation, and add new interior lighting and a modern climate-control system. National Park Service officials said they are likely to close Arlington House and the slave quarters for several months in 2016, during which most of the work will be done.

Replicas

Old Administration Building, Arlington National Cemetery

In 1919, a replica was built for the short-lived Lanier University in Atlanta, designed by architect A. Ten Eyck Brown. It is still standing at 1140 University Drive NE, and houses the Ben H. Zimmerman Religious School and the Canterbury School. Arlington Hall, a two-thirds scale replica of Arlington House, was built in 1939 in Robert E. Lee Park in Dallas, Texas.

The facade of the Old Administration Building in Arlington National Cemetery resembles that of Arlington House. The building is 500 feet (150 m) west of Arlington House.

External links

• Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial official Web site
• Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial Virtual Museum Exhibit, National Park Service
• PBS Interview with Matt Penrod, Education Programs Manager at Arlington House