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He disliked the institution—more for its inefficiency than from moral repugnance—yet defended it throughout his life. Custis, however, had liberated his slaves in a messy will that stipulated that they be released within five years. Lee interpreted this to mean that the slaves could be held for the entire period. The slaves, believing they were already free, accosted Lee and escaped in large numbers. Lee responded by hiring out many Arlington slaves, breaking up families that had been together for decades. Only when the courts ruled against him did Lee finally free the slaves.
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On December 4, 1863, the federal government dedicated Freedman's Village, a planned community for freed slaves on the southern portion of the property. Freedman's Village grew to a community of 1,500, with a hospital, two churches, schools and a home for the elderly. Freed African Americans lived and farmed there until 1900, when the government closed Freedman's Village and incorporated the land into Arlington National Cemetery.
At Robert E. Lee's Former Residence, Researcher Opens the Door to… - Maryland Today
At Robert E. Lee's Former Residence, Researcher Opens the Door to….
Posted: Wed, 14 Jun 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Family and Military Life
Lee launched the Gettysburg Campaign when he abandoned his position on the Rapahannock and crossed the Potomac River into Maryland in June. Hooker mobilized his men and pursued, but was replaced by Gen. George G. Meade on June 28, a few days before the two armies clashed at the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in early July; the battle produced the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War. Some of Lee's subordinates were new and inexperienced to their commands, and J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry failed to perform effective reconnaissance. The first day was a surprise affair for both sides, and the Confederates managed to rally their forces first, pushing the panicked Union troops away from town, and towards key terrain that should have been taken by General Ewell, but was not.
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Lee won two major victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville before launching a second invasion of the North in the summer of 1863, where he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg by the Army of the Potomac under George Meade. He led his army in the minor and inconclusive Bristoe Campaign that fall before General Ulysses S. Grant took command of Union armies in the spring of 1864. George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of George Washington, built the mansion as a memorial of sorts to the country’s first president. Robert E. Lee came to Arlington House after he married Custis’ daughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis. Meigs himself was buried in Arlington National Cemetery behind the house when he died in January of 1892, and Meigs lived to see the cemetery start to gain prestige, Dodge says. Meigs’ death came a few years after General Philip Sheridan was interred near the front of the Arlington house upon his death in August of 1888.
The South went into universal mourning and Lee became a charismatic symbol of honor and sacrifice in the region. In the nineteenth century, proponents of the Lost Cause view of the Civil War used both myth and fact to mold a public image of Lee as a titan of personal virtue and military genius. Early in the twentieth century, several national figures, including U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, praised him as a unifying personality, citing his efforts to pacify the South after the war. Recent scholarship has more-closely probed Lee’s motives and battlefield decisions, as well as his support for a racially stratified society. Since his decision to withdraw from the Union in 1861, his actions have provoked controversy. Yet Lee remains a significant historical figure, whose importance lies as much in the questions he prods Americans to ask about patriotism and loyalty as it does in his battlefield prowess.
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The first body to be buried was William Henry Christman on May 13, 1864. The native of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania died of measles and had only served in the Army about 60 days. About a month later, on June 15, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton ordered that the new cemetery become Arlington National Cemetery, which at the time was about 200 acres. Within a year, more than 5,000 soldiers, mainly privates, were buried there. Today, the cemetery is 639 acres, where about 400,000 veterans and their eligible dependents are interred.
The Virginia mansion where Robert E. Lee once lived underwent a rehabilitation that includes an increased emphasis on those who were enslaved there. Neither Robert E. Lee nor his wife, as title holder, ever attempted to recover control of Arlington House. In 1874, Lee's eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, sued the U.S. government for the return of the Arlington property, claiming that it had been illegally confiscated. A few months later, in March 1883, the federal government purchased the property from Lee for $150,000 (over $4 million today), and Arlington National Cemetery continued its mission as a burial ground for U.S. service members and their families. Upon George Washington Parke Custis's death in 1857, he left Arlington Estate to Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee for her lifetime when it would then go to her eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee.
Late 1850s: Arlington plantation and the Custis slaves
Confederate fort and naval gunnery dictated nighttime movement and construction by the besiegers. The city of Savannah would not fall until Sherman's approach from the interior at the end of 1864. The battle that resulted was fought at Gettysburg for three days from July 1 until July 3, 1863. The first day’s contest began as an incidental cavalry encounter and escalated as both sides augmented their forces. P. Hill, Richard S. Ewell, and Jubal A. Early—had driven their opponents outside Gettysburg, but the Union troops made a prescient decision to retreat to high ground south of town.
Civil War
In 1857, his father-in-law George Washington Parke Custis died, creating a serious crisis when Lee took on the burden of executing the will. After seven years of planning and $12.5 million in restoration work, the National Park Service reopened the former home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on Tuesday. The mansion — officially called the Robert E. Lee Memorial — was built by enslaved people more than 200 years ago.
Through surprise and daring, Lee had turned a vulnerable defensive position into a brilliant tactical offense. Mary Lee later called the moment “the severest struggle” of her husband’s life. Faced with a divided family and the collapse of his career, Lee spent two days consulting scripture and quietly considering his future. Army, telling friends that he could not participate in an invasion of the South. As Custis’s executor, Lee found himself confronted with the political reality of slavery.
In addition, much of the Southern public was buoyed by theatrical successes such as Chancellorsville and anxious for quick victory. But this Napoleonic style of warfare was less effective against improved weaponry and technology, such as railroads, that allowed troops to be easily reinforced. As general, Lee was first assigned a desk job, where he undertook a methodical organization of Virginia’s forces. Finally given a field command in western Virginia, he was “mortified” when Union general William S. Rosecrans defeated him at Cheat Mountain in September 1861.
For seventeen years, Lee worked to strengthen the nation’s frontier defenses. Assigned throughout the country, he redirected rivers, designed coastal fortifications, and surveyed newly acquired territory. In the army Lee was known for his sociability and attention to detail, but called himself “an indifferent engineer.” Opportunities for advancement were meager and the work required extended absences from his family. “I would advise no young man to enter the army,” he regretfully admitted in a letter to his wife. In 1864 the new Union general-in-chief, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, sought to use his large advantages in manpower and material resources to destroy Lee's army by attrition, pinning Lee against his capital of Richmond.
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