Lee Mansion
NATIONAL MEMORIAL
Arlington National Cemetery
VIRGINIA
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
March 3, 1849
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Douglas McKay, Secretary
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Conrad L. Wirth, Director
Reprint 1953 16—52238-7 U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
Lee Mansion National Memorial
In this Mansion, which became his home when he married MaryCustis, Robert E. Lee wrote his resignation from the United StatesArmy in April 1861, to join the cause of Virginia and the South.
The Lee Mansion National Memorial,or Arlington House, as it was formerlyknown, distinctive through its associationswith the families of Custis, Washington,and Lee, stands within the Nation’s mostfamous cemetery on the Virginia side ofthe Potomac opposite Washington. Thishouse of the foster son of the First Presidentwas for years the treasury of both theWashington heirlooms and the Washingtontradition. Here Robert E. Lee, ayoung lieutenant in the U. S. Army, andMary Custis, the great-granddaughter ofMartha Washington, were married andreared a family. Here, also, Col. Robert E.Lee, torn between devotion to his countryand to his native State, made his fatefuldecision, the substance of which he hadwritten to his son a few months before: “Itis the principle I contend for.... But Ican anticipate no greater calamity for thecountry than a dissolution of the Union....Still, a Union that can only be maintainedby swords and bayonets ... has no charmfor me. I shall mourn for my country andfor the welfare and progress of mankind.If the Union is dissolved ... I shall returnto my native State ... and save indefence will draw my sword on none.”Today Arlington House, furnished withappointments of its early period, preservesfor posterity the atmosphere of graciousliving, typical of a romantic age of Americanhistory.
Early History
George Washington Parke Custis, builderof Arlington House, was the grandson ofMartha Washington and the foster son ofGeorge Washington. When Martha DandridgeCustis became the wife of Col.George Washington she was a widow withtwo children, Martha Parke Custis andJohn Parke Custis. Martha Parke Custisdied in her teens without having beenmarried, but John Parke Custis marriedEleanor Calvert of Maryland in 1774, andupon his death at the close of the RevolutionaryWar left four children. The deathof John Parke Custis was a shock, not onlyto his mother, Mrs. Washington, but toGeneral Washington as well, as he is reportedto have remarked to the grievingmother at the deathbed, “I adopt the twoyoungest children as my own.” Theirnames were Eleanor Parke Custis (Nellie)and George Washington Parke Custis.They were reared at Mount Vernon andare often referred to as the “Children ofMount Vernon.”
In 1802, the year his grandmother, Mrs.Washington, died, George WashingtonParke Custis began building ArlingtonHou