Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0389Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is of a building as seen behind a group of trees, the building features several columns. Above the image "44" is printed, below the image "32257 The Former Home of General Robert E. Lee, Arlington National Cemetery, Va." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company COPYRIGHTED Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Chicago, Ill., London, England." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
32257
THE ARLINGTON MANSION ONCE THE HOME OF GEN. R. E. LEE, ARLINGTON NAT. CEMETERY, VIRGINIA.
It was one of the strange dispensations of fate that the beautiful home of Gen. Robert E. Lee, the greatest leader of the southern Confederacy, should have become the chief national military cemetery of the United States and the last resting place of thousands of he soldiers who were Lee's opponents in the Civil War. The Arlingotn National Cemetery occupies ground originally a part of the Arlingotn estate, which became the property of Gen. Lee's wife in 1857, upon death of her father, George Washington Park Custis, adopted son of George Washington. By an executive order of resident Lincoln, on Jan. 6, 1861, the eastern tract of about 1100 acres was selected "for Government use, for war, military, charitable, and educational purposes," and at the same time the property was ordered sold for overdue taxes amounting to $92.07. It was thereupon bought by the government for $26,000, but the U. S. Supreme court in 1882 declared the tax sale invalid and the government paid to G. W. . Lee, the son of Gen. Lee, $150,000 for the property, a part of which had then been in use for 19 year as a cemetery.
On the brow of the N. E. bluff a few hundred feet N. of the Memorial Amphitheater we come to the old Lee Mansion. It is a large, dignified house in the best tradition of ante-bellum Southern architecture, its most conspicuous feature being the six massive Doric columns extending to the top of the second story and facing E., which forms its entrance portico. From this portico the view of Washington is unrivalled. On the slope, nearly in front of it are the tombs of Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, Major P.C.L'Enfant, the designer of the city of Washington, Gen. Horatio C. Wright, and Gen. Geo. H. Crook, the noted Indian fighter.
Copyright Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection