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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings

	CUSTIS-LEE MANSION now known as Arlington House Virginia	Arlington House
Arlington County, in Arlington National Cemetery; address: George Washington Memorial Parkway Turkey Run Park McLean, VA 22101. Arlington House

At this mansion, splendid ante bellum home of the Custis and Lee families, Robert E. Lee in 1861, torn between devotion to his country and to his native State of Virginia, wrote his letter of resignation from the U.S. Army. Designated by Congress in 1955 as a permanent memorial to Lee, it has primary associations with the Civil War period. It also, however, has some associations with the phases of history treated in this volume. Furnished today with historical appointments, it preserves for posterity the atmosphere of gracious living enjoyed by the Custis, Washington, and Lee families. It has been for many years a treasury of Washington heirlooms.

George Washington Parke Custis, builder of Arlington House, as the Custis-Lee Mansion was originally known, was the grandson of Martha Washington and the foster son of George Washington. When Martha Dandridge Custis became the wife of Col. George Washington, she was a widow who had two children, Martha Parke ("Patsy") Custis and John Parke Custis. Martha Parke Custis died in her teens without having been married, but in 1774 John Parke Custis married Eleanor Calvert of Maryland, and upon his death at the close of the War for Independence left four children. The death of John Parke Custis was a shock, not only to his mother, Mrs. Washington, but to General Washington as well. He is reported to have remarked to the grieving mother at the deathbed, "I adopt the two youngest children as my own." Their names were Eleanor Parke Custis (Nelly) and George Washington Parke Custis. They were reared at Mount Vernon.

In 1802, the year his grandmother, Mrs. Washington, died, George Washington Parke Custis began building Arlington House on the estate of nearly 1,100 acres that his father had purchased in 1778 from the Alexander family. He named the estate "Arlington" and the home "Arlington House" in honor of the ancestral homestead of the Custis family on the eastern shore of Virginia. Two years later, at the age of 23, he married Mary Lee Fitzhugh of Alexandria and "Chatham." George Hadfield, a young English architect, drew the plans for the house. The north wing was built first, and the south wing was completed in 1804. The foundation stone and timber came from the estate. The bricks with which the house was built were burned from native clay. The portico and large center section were not finished until 1817.

Arlington House, also known as the Custis-Lee Mansion. The house is preserved today as a memorial to Gen. Robert E. Lee. From a lithograph by Pendleton, published in The Washington Guide, 1830. Courtesy, Library of Congress.

In 1824-25 General Lafayette visited the house. Not long thereafter, in 1831, Mary Ann Randolph Custis, only child of the Arlington Custis family and the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, married Lt. Robert E. Lee, a young West Point graduate, in the family parlor. Much of her married life was spent at the estate, sometimes with her husband, sometimes awaiting his return from the Mexican War or other distant tours of duty. Six of the seven Lee children were born there. George Washington Parke Custis, who died in 1857, bequeathed the estate of Arlington to his daughter for her lifetime, and afterward to his eldest grandson and namesake, George Washington Custis Lee. Because of the rundown condition of the Arlington plantation upon the death of Mr. Custis, Robert E. Lee, as executor, felt that his presence at Arlington was necessary if he were to give proper attention to the estate. He therefore obtained extended leave from the Army and settled down to the life of a farmer. More than 2 years elapsed before he rejoined his regiment.

Following the news of the secession of Virginia, news that he had hoped never to hear, Lee on April 20, 1861, resigned his commission in the U.S. Army. The next day, at the request of the Governor of Virginia, he departed for Richmond. Mrs. Lee remained at Arlington engaged in the work of dismantling her home and sending family possessions to a place of safety. Soon after she left Washington, Federal troops occupied the lands between Washington and Alexandria. The few remaining family possessions were later taken from Arlington to the old Patent Office in Washington, but not before many things, including some of the Mount Vernon heirlooms, had been carried away.

Arlington House.

Situated on the line of fortifications guarding Washington, the Arlington estate soon became an armed camp. Headquarters of the general commanding the forts in the vicinity was located in the mansion. Confiscated by the Government when Mrs. Lee was unable to appear personally to pay taxes as required, about 200 acres of the estate were set aside for a national cemetery in June 1864. Upon the death of Mrs. Lee, in 1873—General Lee having died in 1870—Custis Lee took steps to recover the Arlington property willed to him by his grandfather, George Washington Parke Custis. His case was carried to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a decision favorable to him was obtained. He then consented to give the United States clear title to the property for $150,000, and in 1883 Congress appropriated the necessary funds.

For years after the war, the mansion stood an empty shell—an office for the superintendent of the cemetery and a place for his tools. In 1925 Congress empowered the Secretary of War to undertake restoration of Arlington House to its pre-Civil War condition, including as many furnishings as possible. For original furniture that could not be obtained, similar period pieces and a few copies have been substituted. In 1933 the War Department transferred Arlington House to the Department of the Interior.

The front of the two-wing mansion extends 140 feet. The wings are identical, except that in the north wing the space corresponding to the state dining room in the south wing was divided into small rooms for the temporary accommodation of Mr. and Mrs. Custis while the house was being built and was never changed. The central portion is divided by a wide central hall. A large formal drawing room with two fine marble fireplaces lies south of this hall. To the north of it is the family dining room and family parlor, separated by a north and south partition broken by three graceful arches. The second story is also divided by a central hall, on either side of which are two bedrooms and accompanying dressing rooms. A small room used as a linen closet is at the end of this ball. The third floor attic was used only for storage purposes. The grand portico facing the Potomac has eight massive Doric columns. At the rear two buildings used as servants' quarters, smokehouse, workroom, and summer kitchen form a courtyard.

The mansion is open to the public daily and National Park Service personnel conduct tours. Not far away, beyond the formal garden, is a special museum devoted to the career of Robert E. Lee.