ARLINGTON HOUSE Historic Structures Report Voume 1

Arlington Plantation originally was part of a tract of 6,000 acres that Governor William Berkeley of Virginia granted in 1669 to a ship's captain named Robert Howsing in payment for transporting 120 settlers to the colony. [1] Howsing soon sold his wilderness tract to John Alexander, a surveyor and planter long familiar with that section of the colony, for six hogsheads of tobacco. [2] The grant remained in the possession of the Alexander family until December 1778, when Gerard Alexander sold 1,100 acres to John Parke Custis (Martha Washington's son) for 11,000 pounds. [3] Custis intended to develop this plantation as his family seat but he died on November 5, 1781, before he had made any improvements. [4] General George Washington unofficially adopted John Custis' two youngest children, six month old George Washington Parke Custis and his sister Eleanor, and raised them at Mount Vernon as his own.

John Parke Custis left no will, and therefore, according to the Virginia laws of that period, all his lands went to his male heir — George Washington Parke Custis, leaving only his personal property for his daughters. Coming of age (21) in 1802, George Washington Parke Custis had only to reach a settlement with his mother, Mrs. Nelly Stuart (she had remarried) regarding her dower rights in order to take possession of the 1,100 acre Arlington estate and other Custis plantations. Under the agreement reached in August 1802, Mrs. Stuart relinquished her dower rights in exchange for an annual payment of $1,750 in silver for as long as she lived. It was also stipulated that two of the 57 slaves included in this transfer would not be removed from the 1,100 acre estate under any circumstances. [5]

In August 1802 George Washington Parke Custis moved to his 1,100 acre estate, which he first named "Mount Washington" and later "Arlington", and took up residence in a four-room brick cottage that had been erected near the river by a former owner ca. 1746. [6] Later he built Arlington House. Custis died on October 10, 1857. Under the terms of his will, his daughter, Mary Custis Lee, Mrs. Robert E. Lee, was to have a life interest in the Arlington Plantation, Arlington House and its contents, and the Washington Forest Tract on Four Mile Run; all of which after her death would go to her son Custis Lee on condition that he take his grandfather's "name and arms." After the legacies had been paid, all the slaves were to be freed—"the said emancipation to be accomplished in not exceeding five years from the time of my decease." [7]

Mrs. Robert E. Lee was thus to have life use of the 1,100 acre plantation until her death. [8] At this point the title would have passed to her son Custis Lee. [9] In reality, of course, Col. and Mrs. Robert E. Lee were only to have possession of the Arlington property from 1857 until May 1861. On April 20, 1861, Col. Lee resigned his commission in the United States Army and on the 22nd rode south from Arlington to Richmond. [10] Mrs. Lee left Arlington May 15, having sent many things to friends for safekeeping and taking with her such furnishings as she could. The course of history was such that the Lees were never again to reside in Arlington House. [11]

By dawn of May 24, 1861, more than 8,000 Union troops had crossed the Potomac and occupied the Arlington estate and Alexandria. [12]Arlington was heavily fortified and became an important part of the defenses of Washington during the Civil War. Early in 1862, the U.S. Army moved away from Arlington, but the mansion continued to be used as a military headquarters. In January 1864, in pursuance of the Act of June 7, 1862, the federal government levied a direct tax of $92.07, plus a fifty percent penalty, payable in Alexandria, Virginia, on the Lees' Arlington property. Mrs. Lee was unable to appear personally as stipulated to pay the real estate tax, and payment through her agent was refused. The property, valued at $34,100, was then sold at a public auction held at Alexandria, Virginia, to the United States government on January 11, 1864 for $26,800. [13]

The facts in this case and the laws applicable are set forth in Lee V. Kaufman, Federal Case No. 8191 (1879), 3 Hughes 163. For a comprehensive study of the 1864 tax sale and its final settlement in 1882-83, see Enoch A. Chase, "The Arlington Case," Virginia Law Review, XV (January, 1929), 207-33.

On June 15, 1864, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton directed Quarter-master General Montgomery C. Meigs to lay out a national cemetery of no more than two hundred acres on the Arlington estate. Meigs was to have the grounds surveyed and suitably enclosed. Burials were made on June 17, 1864. [14] By April 29, 1865, nearly 5,000 soldiers had been buried there, and by 1868 the number stood at 15,000.

In 1874 Custis Lee sued to recover his title to the estate. The protracted case went through the courts and finally, on December 4, 1882, was decided in his favor by the United States Supreme Court. Because thousands of soldiers had been buried at Arlington by that date, Custis Lee accepted the offer of the government on March 10, 1883, to buy the property for $150,000. [15] Thus, while the estate and house had been in the possession of the United States since May 24, 1861, full legal title to the property resided in the federal government only from March 31, 1883.

Congress, in an act approved on March 4, 1925, authorized the establishment of the Robert E. Lee National Memorial at Arlington and the secretary of war was directed to restore the mansion "as nearly as may be practicable . . . to the condition in which it existed immediately prior to the Civil War." Arlington House was then to be refurnished with pieces known to have been in the mansion prior to the war, replicas of such pieces, or contemporary period pieces. [16]

With the assistance of the Fine Arts Commission, the War Department set about the task of restoration in 1928. [17] In 1929-30 many of the structural changes made since 1861 were removed and gradually, room by room, the mansion was refurnished with period pieces. The sum of $90,000 was appropriated and expended on these projects. [18]

As the result of a government reorganization, the mansion was transferred on June 10, 1933, by executive order from the War Department to the National Park Service, which has administered it to date. [19] The site includes a total of 27.91 acres of federally owned land, of which approximately three acres are located immediately adjacent to the house. The site was made a permanent memorial to Robert E. Lee by an act of Congress on June 29, 1955, and the name of the property was changed by Public Law 92-333 to "Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial" on June 30, 1972. [20] The balance of the 1,100 acre estate is administered by the Fort Myer military reservation and the Department of Defense as Arlington National Cemetery.