God Bless General Robert E. Lee and may he rest in Peace.
One addendum:
In response to one section in the above article, it was Robert E. Lee and the Lee family who donated his estate to the United States government.
Some historical accounts called it a donation and some have referred to it as tax bounty.
There is a report that during the Civil War, General Lee desired to pay Federal taxes to the US Government but was prevented from doing so because payment meant physically crossing over into Union territory.
Accordingly, General Lee accrued a tax debt, which became tax plus interest during the War years.
It has been reported that General Robert E. Lee was involved in the discussion and plans for a National Cemetery. General Lee then decided to donate the Lee estate for the purpose of creating such a National Cemetery.
The donation of the Lee estate to the Federal government in turn satisfied General Lee's tax obligations accrued during the war.
The entire acreage of the Lee Estate donated by General Lee and the Lee Family, and according to General Robert E. Lee's wishes then became Arlington Cemetery.
The article said: "Arlington House would be occupied by the Federals, who would turn the estate into a war cemetery. Today it is one of our country's most cherished memorials, Arlington National Cemetery."
Martha Dandridge was born on June 2, 1731 on a plantation near Williamsburg. At eighteen, Martha married Daniel Parke Custis, the wealthy owner of the 17,000 acre Custis plantation. Daniel died in 1757 when Martha was twenty-six. Their son, John Parke Custis, was three years old.
Sometime later, Martha met a young colonel in the Virginia Militia. His name was George Washington.
Martha married George on January 6, 1759. The marriage changed George from an ordinary planter to a wealthy landowner. George, Martha, John Parke (4), and younger sister Patsy (2) moved into Mt. Vernon.
George Washington died on December 14, 1799.
On May 22, 1802, Martha Dandridge Custis Washington died. She was laid to rest next to her husband at Mt. Vernon.
THE CUSTIS ESTATE
George Washington Parke Custis was a colonel in the United States Army. Born at Mount Airy, Maryland, on April 30, 1781, his parents were John Parke Custis and Eleanor (Calvert) Custis.
After his father died, young G.W.P. Custis was raised by his grandmother Martha and her second husband, George Washington at Mount Vernon. The Custis mansion, intended as a living memorial to George Washington, was owned and constructed by the first president's adopted grandson, G.W.P. Custis, son of John Parke Custis who himself was a child of Martha Washington by her first marriage and a ward of George Washington. His house, begun in 1802 but not completed until 1817, held a collection of Washington heirlooms.
George Washington Parke Custis considered calling the estate Mount Washington, but eventually adopted the name of the Custis family ancestral estate.
The mansion was built on an 1,100-acre estate that Custis' father, John Parke Custis, purchased in 1778. It was designed by George Hadfield, a young English architect who was for a time in charge of the construction of the Capitol. The north and south wings were completed between 1802 and 1804. The large center section and the portico, presenting an imposing front 43 meters (140 feet) long, were finished 13 years later.
In 1804, G.W.P. Custis married Mary Lee Fitzhugh. Their only child to survive infancy was Mary Anna Randolph Custis, born in 1808.
George Washington Parke Custis died on October 19, 1857. His wife, Mary Fitzhugh Custis, died on April 23, 1853. They were buried in a private lot on the estate.
On June 30, 1831, Mary Anna Randolph Custis married her husband Robert, son of a former three-time governor. For 30 years this mansion was their home, and six of their seven children were born there.
G.W.P. Custis left the estate to his daughter Mary for her lifetime, to be passed on to the her eldest son. The estate was in need of repair and Mary's husband Robert, as executor, oversaw the improvements.
THE CUSTIS ESTATE AND THE CIVIL WAR
Virginia adopted an Ordinance of Secession on April 17, 1861. On April 22, 1861, Robert left his beloved home, never to return. About a month later, Mary also left, managing to send some of the family valuables off to safety. Later, many of the remaining family possessions were moved to the Patent Office for safekeeping. Some items, however, including a few of the Mount Vernon heirlooms, had already been looted and scattered.
"It is better to make up our minds to a general loss. They cannot take away the remembrance of the spot, and the memories of those that to us rendered it sacred. That will remain to us as long as life will last, and that we can preserve," wrote Robert in a letter to Mary.
THE CUSTIS ESTATE WRONGFULLY SEIZED
In 1863 Congress levied a tax on all confiscated properties, but payment was rejected for the Custis estate.
A wartime law required that owners of property in areas occupied by Federal troops appear in person to pay their taxes.
The property was confiscated by the federal government when property taxes levied against the estate were not paid in person by the owner, which was Mary. The property was offered for public sale on January 11, 1864, and was purchased by a tax commissioner for "government use, for war, military, charitable and educational purposes."
Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, who commanded a wartime garrison at the estate, appropriated the grounds June 15, 1864. Intending to render the house uninhabitable should the family ever attempt to return, Gen. Meigs ordered union dead to be buried as close to the home as possible. A stone and masonry burial vault in the rose garden, 20 feet wide and 10 feet deep, and containing the remains of 1,800 Bull Run casualties, was among the first monuments to Union dead erected under Meigs' orders. Meigs himself was later buried within 100 yards of the house with his wife, father and son.
Neither Mary, as title holder, nor Robert as executor, ever attempted to publicly recover control of the estate.
After the death of his parents, George Washington Custis brought an action for ejectment in the Circuit Court of Alexandria County, Va. As the eldest son, he claimed that the land had been illegally confiscated and that, according to his grandfather's will, he was the legal owner. In December 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, returned the property, stating that it had been confiscated without due process
On March 3, 1883, the Congress purchased the property for $150,000, and it became a military reservation.
AND NOW, THE REST OF THE STORY...
Today the mansion, conceived as a living memorial to George Washington, looks somewhat out of place. The effort begun by General Meigs continued and the mansion is now surrounded by hundreds of thousands of graves.
Originally envisioned as Mount Washington, the estate came to be named after the ancestral Custis estate, Arlington.
George Washington's descendant, Mary Anna Randolph Custis married her husband Robert Edward Lee.
The estate was unlawfully confiscated from the lawful owner, the wife of Robert E. Lee.
Ownership was returned to the Custis family by a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court rendered on December 4, 1882. U.S. v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196 (1882)
On March 3, 1883, the Congress purchased the property from George Washington Custis Lee for $150,000.
On March 4, 1925, restoration of the Mansion was authorized. On August 10, 1933, it was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service. On June 29, 1955, it was declared a permanent memorial to Robert E. Lee, with a name change to "Custis-Lee Mansion."
On June 30, 1972, the mansion was restored to its historic name, Arlington House.
It is the former estate of Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Lee that became Arlington National Cemetery. Arlington House was their home.
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EPILOGUE
Augusta Academy was founded in 1749. In 1776, the name was changed to Liberty Hall. Four years later the school was moved to the vicinity of Lexington, where in 1782 it was chartered as Liberty Hall Academy by the Virginia legislature and empowered to grant degrees.
In 1796, George Washington saved the struggling Liberty Hall Academy when he gave the school its first major endowment- $20,000 worth of stock. The trustees promptly changed the name of the school to Washington Academy as an expression of their gratitude.
General Robert E. Lee accepted the position of president of the college in 1865. During his brief presidency, Lee established the School of Law. He also inaugurated courses in journalism, which developed by 1925 into The School of Journalism - now the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications. These courses in business and journalism were the first offered in colleges in the United States.
General Robert E. Lee died on October 12, 1870 and was buried on the university campus.
After Lee's death in 1870, the trustees voted to change the name to Washington and Lee University.
Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee died on November 5, 1873 at the age of 66. She is buried next to her husband on the Washington & Lee campus in Lexington, Virginia.
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