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As we chose this week’s reading, news stories continued to swirl about commemorative statues, plaques, street names, and institutional names that amplify white supremacy in America and in DC. We note, as the Historical Society fulfills its mission of offering thoughtful, researched context for today’s issues, that a key influence on the history of commemoration has come to the surface: the quiet, ladylike (in the anachronistic sense) role of promoters of the southern “Lost Cause” school of Civil War interpretation. Historian Michael Chornesky details how federal officials fended off southern supremacists (posing as preservationists) on how to interpret Arlington House, home of George Washington’s adopted family and eventually of Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. “Confederate Island upon the Union’s ‘Most Hallowed Ground’: The Battle to Interpret Arlington House, 1921–1937,” by Michael B. Chornesky. “Confederate Island” first appeared in Washington History 27-1 (spring 2015), © Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

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July 6, 2020

Confederate Island upon the Union’s “Most Hallowed Ground” The Battle to Interpret Arlington House, 1921–1937

BY MICHAEL B. CHORNESKY

n a 1931 sightseeing trip to Washington, General Lee’s home and not a picture of General D.C., Jane C. Gerard of Blue Ridge Sum- Lee?” He answered, “General Lee was really only Omit, Pennsylvania, crossed the Potomac an overseer for Mrs. Lee . . . he never owned an to pass a “delightful afternoon” at one of the area’s acre of land or a slave.” Dissatisfied with this oldest historic landmarks, the former Arlington answer, which sidestepped the point of her ques- estate of the Custis family. Occupied since the end tion, Gerard left in disgust. “I know how the South of the Civil War by Arlington National Cemetery, loves the great man’s memory and the North also the property’s centerpiece was Arlington House. respects and admires [him],” she continued in a The mansion was famous both for its association letter to the editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. with George Washington’s adopted family and as “I have always been taught how great he was.[I]t is the home of Robert E. Lee, his wife Mary, and a shame a Southerner is not put in this home or a their seven children during the three decades person who is big enough to . . . mention the splen- before Lee’s fateful decision to resign from the did Southern gentleman who was so beloved.”2 United States Army after Virginia seceded from the Jane Gerard’s displeasure was common to Union in April 1861. Led through the old house by many of Arlington House’s visitors in its early a “gentleman who told me he had been appointed days as a government-run historic site. Built by to attend to the furnishing and meet the people the slaves of George Washington Parke Custis who came to see the place,” Gerard later wrote, beginning in 1802, Arlington House is a remnant she found it, “beautiful . . . filled with exquisite old of one of Virginia’s most celebrated colonial fam- furniture.”1 ilies. Custis was the grandson of Martha Dan- Yet something was missing. According to dridge Custis, the widow of Daniel Parke Custis, Gerard, the caretaker told the crowd of tourists who eventually married George Washington and “everything about the Washington family and not became the first First Lady of the United States. a word about General Lee.” Lingering after the Orphaned at the age of six months, young Custis talk, Gerard asked the caretaker, “Why do you was adopted by the Washingtons and raised at have only the Custis pictures in the hall here at Mount Vernon.3 He moved to the 1,100-acre

Arlington House, also known as the Custis-Lee Mansion, became a contested site in the ongoing battle to interpret and memorialize the Civil War. Photographed here in 1864 with Union soldiers lounging on the steps, the mansion suffered from neglect under Union Army occupation and later as the offices of Arlington Cemetery managers.

21 ernment to provide historic restoration and inter- felled by the combination of a tyrannical Republi- pretation of the building. can government, its overwhelming military might, During the past decade, historians have delved and repeated violations of the Constitution. This into the origins and evolution of Americans’ per- interpretation first took shape in the final days of sisting disagreements on the causes and conse- the war and was shepherded into the post-Recon- quences of the Civil War. Narratives of the conflict, struction period by an alliance of Confederate vet- along with the complementary rituals and tradi- erans’ organizations and local Ladies’ Memorial tions, continue to resonate for many modern audi- Associations. These ladies’ associations began when ences. Was the war fought to emancipate the groups of southern women came together to enslaved? Was it the the result of economic factors, recover the Confederate dead from the war’s many or was it a clash of cultures that had grown apart battlefields for reinterment in local cemeteries. Dis- over time? Who prevailed in the battles between parate groups later combined into a national orga- influential citizens, memorial groups, and the gov- nization, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, ernment as they sought to circulate their stories of which took on the reburial functions and pursued the war and Reconstruction? After a war ends, a broader mission to perpetuate the Lost Cause how does a losing side honor its heroes on the through education and memorialization. By the same soil where the winners also celebrate their end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the own fallen? Along with honoring their dead, did four-year-old United Daughters of the Confeder- memorial associations in the South also perpetuate the “Lost Cause,” an amalgam of mythology and memory that celebrates the South’s “idyllic” plan- tations, its cultural supremacy, and its insistence George Washington Parke Custis, father of Mary Anna Lee (pictured about 1844 with Robert E. Lee, Jr.), made Arlington House a that secession was a constitutionally protected shrine to the step-grandfather who raised him, George Washington. Courtesy Library of Congress; Virginia Historical Society aspect of each state’s rights? The battle over how Arlington House would display and interpret the Arlington estate, which he received upon his history of its inhabitants is a revealing interlude for grandmother’s death in 1802, after realizing that how Americans have struggled and allowed cir- he would never inherit Mount Vernon. He dedi- cumstance to guide them toward divergent and cated his life to building and improving Arlington still evolving understandings of the Civil War. House, growing experimental crops on its farm, and perpetuating George Washington’s legacy by During a tumultuous decade of Reconstruction maintaining a portion of the home as a makeshift following the Civil War, Americans clashed over museum to his step-grandfather. how the states of the defeated Confederacy would Custis’s only daughter, Mary Anna Randolph be politically reintegrated and the extent to which Custis, married U.S. Army Lieutenant Robert E. they would be permitted autonomy within the Lee in the house’s White Parlor in 1831, shortly reunited Union. Reconstruction ended in the win- after Lee’s graduation from the United States Mili- ter of 1876-1877 with a contested election and a tary Academy at West Point. At the time, Arling- bargain that removed U.S. Army troops who had ton House seemed the perfect setting for a union remained stationed throughout the South in between two storied Virginia families. Between exchange for the ascension of Republican Ruther- 1861 and the mid-twentieth century, however, it ford B. Hayes to the presidency. White southerners instead became a battlefield in a protracted conflict proclaimed their “redemption” and acted quickly over the causes and meaning of the Civil War. The to undo many of the political reforms of Recon- Senate Park Commission’s (McMillan) Plan, out- struction, stripping free black southerners of their lined in 1901, prepared to usher the nation’s capi- civil rights and reducing them to second-class citi- tal into a new era through the eventual zens through violent repression and local fiat. redevelopment of the National Mall. The plan, As this protracted political conflict raged, white however, failed to provide specific recommenda- southerners also crafted and implemented a narra- Imogene Smith, president of the United Children of the tions for Arlington House (now linked to the Lin- tive of the Civil War that contested triumphant Confederate General Robert E. Lee, photographed in 1864, Confederacy, places a wreath on the statue of Jefferson Davis lived at Arlington House with his wife Mary until 1861. He coln Memorial by the Arlington Memorial Bridge northern stories about the Union and emancipa- in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall, 1938. Looking on are Eugenia wrote his letter resigning from the U.S. Army on the mansion’s that spans the Potomac River). In the 1920s and tion. The Lost Cause narrative claimed that the (“Mrs. Walter D.”) Lamar, national president-general of the second floor before leaving to head the Confederate forces. 1930s, lingering Civil War resentments flared South’s superior antebellum society had embarked United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Sen. Walter F. Courtesy, Library of Congress when public advocacy arose for the federal gov- on a noble quest for independence only to be George, Democrat of Georgia. Courtesy, Washington Post

22 WASHINGTON HISTORY Spring 2015 Confederate Island upon the Union’s “Most Hallowed Ground” 23 acy was already established as one of the most turncoat leader of the Confederate Army. The er’s daughters in 1907 to sit atop his resting place place or for rank, not lured by ambition or goaded powerful women’s associations in the United cemetery rose in stature as a national symbol pointedly displayed his Confederate rank above by necessity; but in simple obedience to duty as States. Its national membership ballooned from during the late 19th century as distinguished his Spanish-American War service. they understood it these men suffered all, sacri- nearly 20,000 in that year to more than 100,000 Union veterans were buried there, achieving the The Confederate section was later consecrated ficed all, dared all—and died.” At the monument’s by the beginning of World War I in 1917.4 title of “Union’s most hallowed ground” by the with its own monument, planned by the United dedication ceremony (held on former Confederate Lost Cause advocates benefited from the popu- time of the Spanish-American War.6 Daughters of the Confederacy beginning in 1906 President Jefferson Davis’s 106th birthday in June lar sense of sectional unity among white Ameri- In the early 20th century, white southerners and unveiled eight years later. Created by Rich- 1914), President and Staunton, Virginia, native cans that accompanied the Spanish-American established a firm beachhead for the Lost Cause on mond native and Confederate veteran Moses Eze- Woodrow Wilson declared “this chapter in the his- War. At a “peace jubilee” honoring the victory that hallowed ground. Ex-Confederate and Span- kiel, the Confederate Monument at Arlington is a tory of the United States closed and ended.”7 over Spain in late 1898, President (and former ish-American War veteran General “Fighting Joe” clear assertion of the Lost Cause on Union soil. In Despite Wilson’s pronouncements, however, Union major) William McKinley described being Wheeler was buried with full U.S. Army honors in bas relief, Confederate soldiers walk determinedly clashes over the meaning and memory of the war disturbed by the untended graves of Confederate section 1 of the cemetery in 1906, near the graves toward the lines of battle, showing their bravery in continued, and Arlington House became a focal dead near Fredericksburg. “Every soldier’s grave of famed Union heroes Philip Sheridan (whose the face of almost certain death. Beside them is a point of that struggle during the next decade. made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute Army of the Shenandoah dealt crushing blows to faithful black body servant, representing what Having successfully placed a monument to their to American valor,” the president declared. “The Confederate morale in 1864) and the “Drummer southerners perceived as the amicable partnership cause on the “Union’s most hallowed ground,” time has now come . . . when in the spirit of frater- Boy of Chickamauga” (later Major General) between masters and the enslaved before and concerned southern citizens and memorial groups nity we should share with you in the care of the Johnny Clem. The monument donated by Wheel- during the conflict. The monument is also draped directed their energies toward Arlington House, graves of Confederate soldiers.” Many white south- in the message of sacrifice for a noble and righ- which they saw first and foremost as Robert E. erners in the crowd reacted to this news with rau- teous cause, represented by a minister and his wife Lee’s mansion. Though there had been improve- cous applause. Two years later McKinley signed an saying goodbye to their schoolboy son and a young ments to the surrounding memorial landscape, order disinterring 264 Confederate dead from bride tying a sash to her husband who is dressed in Arlington House had suffered from a lack of mean- within Arlington National Cemetery and the Sol- full uniform—families sacrificing for the cause. ingful upkeep in the years following the Civil War. dier’s Home cemetery in Washington and concen- That cause for which the men met their ends is In 1874 an Appleton’s Journal of Literature, Science, trating them in their own Confederate section described in plain print: “Not for fame, not for and Art writer proclaimed that the dilapidated (modern day section 16) of Arlington at federal structure’s continued existence conjured the expense—a move championed by Confederate “presence of antagonisms” and recommended that veterans and memorial groups. In 1911 the Rich- it “disappear . . . there are some that will mourn it, mond Times-Dispatch (in its regularly published but its obliteration will serve to clear the air that is “Our Confederate Column”) reflected upon fed- now far too heavy.”8 eral efforts to care for the southern dead as having The house did not disappear, but neither did it “removed a great source of sectional bitterness immediately become a historic site. Instead its existing since the downfall of the Confederate upper floor served as the home of Arlington government.” In reality, however, congregating the Confederate dead in a separate section of Arlington National Cemetery reflected the persist- ing bitterness from the conflict. One historian of the period describes southerners as making “clear that they wished their fallen comrades to be treated with the same respect as Union soldiers, but they were not so reconstructed as to accept their graves being mingled indiscriminately with Yankees.”5 Lost Cause advocates sought to expand the Confederate presence at Arlington National Cem- etery. The national burial ground was founded in 1864 on the Custis-Lee plantation—which was seized by the Union at the beginning of the conflict for its strategic position relative to the capital—to accommodate the military dead overflowing estab- lished cemeteries in the city and nearby Alexan- Overwhelmed with casualties and out of spite for the turncoat dria. Union Quartermaster General Montgomery Robert E. Lee, Union Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs chose the site not only for its convenience, Meigs ordered the conversion of Lee’s estate into a Union The Confederate Monument by Moses Ezekiel was the second major statement of the Lost Cause view of the Civil War placed in Arlington Cemetery. Families but also out of personal spite for General Lee as the burial ground in 1864. Courtesy, Library of Congress attended the 1914 dedication. Courtesy, Library of Congress

24 WASHINGTON HISTORY Spring 2015 Confederate Island upon the Union’s “Most Hallowed Ground” 25 National Cemetery’s superintendent, while other Lee’s home. She decried the federal government’s rooms became storage and staging areas for the “shocking neglect of the Lee Mansion at Arling- gardeners who maintained the landscape’s placid ton,” comparing it unfavorably to the “fostering beauty. A potting shed was added to the grounds care” that the private Mount Vernon Ladies Asso- in the 1880s, reinforcing the house’s utilitarian ciation took in preserving George Washington’s role within the modern cemetery. The “grand old former home. “Whatever our opinions and tradi- house . . . empty and ungarnished; its bare floors tions may be . . . we all realize now that Robert E. echo mournfully to our footfalls; the hall door Lee was one of the greatest generals and one of the stands drearily open,” wrote British author Iza noblest men who ever lived,” Keyes wrote. “To Duffus Hardy after visiting in 1906. “We wander every American woman the abuse of his home from room to room through a desolate silence must seem a disgrace; to every Southern woman it only broken by our own steps.” She described must seem a sacrilege.”10 Arlington House as a memo- Keyes’s proposal attracted support immediately. rial marked by an absence of Shortly after her column appeared, the editors of commemoration: “a silent the Washington Herald expressed hope that a monument to the Lost Cause . restored Arlington House would become “a beau- . . more mournful than a tiful example of the old home of the Southern granite slab,” an emptiness gentleman and a memorial of the then owner, attributable to the fact that its who came from the civil war, with honor, dignity, master had never returned. and as an American of Americans.” The column The United States Commis- also galvanized southern memorial and women’s sion of Fine Arts, a federal groups, presenting them with an opportunity to agency founded in 1910 to flex their burgeoning political muscle and reclaim regulate the design of public another ancestral site for the Lost Cause. At the works in Washington and time, the United Daughters of the Confederacy elsewhere, similarly observed was a major player in the creation of Civil War in the 1920s that the house memory sites and experiencing the prime of its was “suffer[ing] from the popularity. Among many other monuments, the effects of time and neglect.”9 group founded or helped preserve the Lee Chapel In 1921 a decaying Lee in Lexington, Virginia; the Stone Mountain Con- mansion was unacceptable to federate Memorial in Georgia; and the Jefferson Arlington House, photographed as the battle over its interpretation heated up in the early 1920s. Courtesy, Library of Congress Frances Parkinson Keyes. The Davis Monument in Fairview, Kentucky, as state Virginia-born, 35-year-old col- heritage sites. They also sought to establish on the umnist for Good Housekeeping National Mall in Washington a so-called National and graves,” the column insisted. “The mansion convention in Birmingham, Alabama, in Novem- magazine, was married to New Mammy Monument, which would have com- should be as little as possible a part of or adjunct of ber 1922. She established an essay contest for Hampshire Senator Henry W. memorated the supposed loyalty of enslaved the cemetery.” The historical interpretation “should members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ Vir- Keyes. Well acquainted with women of the South during the Civil War, but this tell of the home for which soldiers died, and that ginia Division with a prize of $25 for the best work political culture in the federal effort stalled in Congress in the late 1920s.11 home preserved should show that they have not on “the restoration of this shrine beloved of all the capital, Frances Keyes wrote a In the September 1921 edition of the Confederate died in vain.” Shortly after the column appeared, South.” The United Daughters applauded Keyes’s regular column during the Veteran, a magazine jointly published by the major southern white preservationists attempted to get “sincere interest in the rehabilitation of Arling- 1920s and ’30s titled “Letters southern memorial groups including the United the house transferred from the federal government ton.”13 Noted Virginia journalist, historian, and from a Senator’s Wife.” Daughters of the Confederacy, Arlington House to the United Daughters for its restoration and later Lee biographer Douglas Southall Freeman Appealing to a female audi- was featured prominently. “The old mansion and interpretation. Though the request was denied, for heaped praise on the “magnetic woman” who, as ence with its ground-level its immediate grounds could be made the beauty the next decade they strived to create what was in a southerner married to a northern senator, was look into Washington’s social spot of America,” wrote the United Daughters’ reg- effect a separate Confederate island within Arling- uniquely positioned to “accomplish what many scene, her column promised, ular columnist, who recommended that their ton National Cemetery.12 Virginians have desired, but have not felt they “If you read them all you will members “interest [themselves] in learning what Frances Parkinson Keyes allied herself with the could urge.” Arlington House, Freeman wrote in know just what Washington is can be done at Arlington . . . and then help in the United Daughters to spearhead the movement to the Richmond News Leader, “is a desecrated shrine doing.” In summer 1921 she work.” This offer of assistance to the government restore the house to its historic grandeur and that many have thought should be allowed to fall The Evening Star reprinted this Baltimore Sun used her column to push for came with a distinct vision of what Arlington southern significance. Between 1921 and 1925, into ruins, if the North so elected, because it had editorial endorsing the proposed “Mammy the preservation of Arlington House should become. ”The building and, so far as she advocated on behalf of Arlington through the been seized and wrecked by Northern troops. If Monument” in December 1927. Courtesy, House and to argue that it possible, the immediate grounds should be local United Daughters chapter in Upperville, Vir- Mrs. Keyes’ exceptional position enables her to Library of Congress should be remembered as screened from any obtruding view of monuments ginia, and spoke at the organization’s national prevent this, surely she will have deserved the

26 WASHINGTON HISTORY Spring 2015 Confederate Island upon the Union’s “Most Hallowed Ground” 27 auxiliaries failed to achieve their fundamental vately owned tourist attraction and is listed in the War. Indeed, when either organization referred to goal: the transfer of the house’s control from the National Register of Historic Places.)18 the war or Lee at all in its correspondence over the federal government to an organization of southern With the federal government in charge of next decade, it was only to flag aspects of American ladies such as those who operated and protected Arlington House’s restoration, southern preserva- history that they wanted to avoid. Mount Vernon. Frustrated southern memorial tionists faced opposition as they continued to press Even before Congress passed the Arlington groups demanded the unconditional surrender of for their interpretation of the mansion’s history. House restoration bill, Moore expressed concern the house to the United Daughters. “It is the uni- Between the beginning of the restoration project in about the role of the United Daughters of the Con- versal desire of the people of the South that the 1925 and 1933, when operations were transferred federacy and other southern preservation groups control and possession of the home of General to the National Park Service, the Army Quarter- that sought to emphasize and celebrate the house’s Lee, together with the adjoining buildings . . . be master General’s office, led until 1926 by Major ties to Lee. ”[I]t has seemed to the Commission of placed in the care of the Daughters of the Confed- General William H. Hart, and the Commission of Fine Arts that no one organization should be per- eracy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans,” Fine Arts’ powerful chairman, Charles Moore, mitted to monopolize the work in which there is stated a May 1925 resolution adopted at the worked together to ensure that the house would widespread interest,” wrote Moore in a March annual reunion of the United Confederate Veter- not become a shrine to the Confederate cause. 1923 letter to Hart. Moore also argued that the his- ans in Dallas. But the idea provoked a passionate Instead both government agencies rooted Arling- torical narrative should emphasize the house’s response from many in the North, particularly ton’s story in the celebratory legacy of George early history rather than its connections to the Lee members of the Grand Army of the Republic, an Washington and the first 50 years of the American family: “the house itself and the grounds immedi- advocacy and memorial group for veterans of the Republic, thus downplaying and often ignoring ately surrounding it [should be restored] as . . . Union Army, which opposed the southerners’ entirely the house’s connection to Robert E. Lee. representative of the first fifty years of the Repub- attempt “to make the mansion a Confederate By focusing on the house solely as a domestic struc- lic of the United States.”19 This goal of focusing on shrine.” By 1925 the GAR was quite familiar with ture and makeshift monument, rather than a place Arlington House’s connections to Custis and southern efforts to engrave the Lost Cause on the where controversial historical events unfolded, Washington rather than Robert E. Lee is repeated American memorial landscape. As far back as Moore and Hart sought to sidestep what they saw extensively in numerous official reports and letters 1895, the group had warned about such Confeder- as the lingering sectional animosity of the Civil from the period of restoration, many of which ate encroachment: “We must not be asked to extended beyond Moore’s office. “It is a mistake in Frances Parkinson Keyes, seen here in 1925, championed the restoration of Arlington House as a monument to Robert E. Lee. countenance or palliate the gigantic crime they history and in good taste to undertake to empha- Courtesy, Beauregard-Keyes Museum, New Orleans committed in seeking the destruction of the Union, size [Arlington] as the home of Gen. Robert E. or to allow attempts to distort the facts of history to Lee,” wrote the Commission in a 1926 report. go unrebuked.”16 The GAR’s opposition helped “The Lee shrine is at Lexington, where he and his thanks of patriots. The thanks of Virginia already keep Arlington House in the hands of the United are hers.”14 States government. Moreover with the U.S. Army Keyes made good on her promise to have handling logistics and the Commission of Fine Arts Arlington House restored. Using her husband’s in charge of interpretation, the United Daughters connections in Congress as well as her own social were denied any input on the project. Their pas- network, she helped push legislation to restore the sionate advocacy had backfired, provoking an house “to the condition of its occupancy by the Lee anti-Lost Cause public fervor that defeated their family.” The bill was co-sponsored by two close campaign and stymied their aim of controlling the friends of Henry W. Keyes: Representatives R. Wal- historical interpretation of Arlington House.17 ton Moore of Virginia and Louis Cramton of Mich- The southerners also lost a key ally. Frances igan. Cramton, a prominent member of the House Parkinson Keyes, who had ignited the movement Appropriations Committee, was the son of a Union to restore Arlington House back in 1921, began veteran who had fought against Lee. On January extensive foreign travels on behalf of her husband 21, 1925, the House and Senate unanimously in 1924, and she stayed away from Washington for passed Joint Resolution 264 authorizing the resto- much of the remainder of the 1920s. Though she ration of Arlington at government expense. The had once proclaimed that the Arlington House bill exalted Lee’s “manly attributes of precept and cause “seemed made to order for me,” she was example,” calling them “compelling factors in effectively absent once federal restoration money cementing the American people in bonds of patri- was appropriated. (Keyes eventually returned to otic devotion and action . . . thus consummating the Confederate restoration cause; between 1945 the hope of a reunited country.” President Calvin and her death in 1970 at age 84, she bought and Coolidge signed the bill into law on March 4.15 restored the New Orleans home of Confederate The bill was an important triumph, but the General P.G.T. Beauregard. The Beauregard-Keyes Maj. Gen. William H. Hart, left, and Charles Moore, right, prevented southern preservationists from creating a shrine to Robert E. United Daughters and its supporting southern House, as it is now known, is a popular and pri- Lee at Arlington House. Courtesy, Library of Congress; Commission of Fine Arts

28 WASHINGTON HISTORY Spring 2015 Confederate Island upon the Union’s “Most Hallowed Ground” 29 the Lee Victorian mantels had been removed in favor of a pair of reproduction Colonial period mantels manufactured in London, although the Lee mantels eventually returned. 22 Despite Moore’s and the Commission’s com- plaints about the slow pace of the restoration, the Army largely cooperated, including making efforts to minimize Lee’s presence in Arlington House. A 1930 letter from Quartermaster General Benjamin F. Cheatham (whose father was a Confederate gen- eral in the Civil War’s Western Theater) to a private citizen described a joint committee composed of both members of the Commission and of the Quar- termaster’s Office. This committee “decided to have nothing in the mansion of a later date than 1830, unless it had some actual association with the Cus- tis and Lee families.” The choice of 1830 as the cut- off is revealing, as it is the year before Robert E. Lee got married at Arlington and began residing there.23 Robert E. Lee’s tomb, Washington & Lee University, Lexington, Virginia. Lee served as While Moore and Army personnel quibbled about Washington College’s president from 1865 until his death in 1870, after which the school was renamed to include him. Photograph by Carol Highsmith, courtesy, Library of Congress practical details, they were lockstep in their resis- tance to presenting Robert E. Lee’s life or its sec- tional and national context in the house. progenitors and descendants are buried, and Arlington House’s approved, nationalistic story, where their memory is honored.”20 emphasizing the family of George and Martha Despite Charles Moore’s disdain, mantles designed by Robert E. Lee were eventually returned to Arlington House’s parlor and can As part of the interpretation of the house, the Washington, thus came to represent the “manners, be seen there today. Over the mantle is a portrait of Lee as a young man and, to the right, one of his sister Catherine Mildred Lee Childe. The bust is Marquis de Lafayette. Photograph by Carol Highsmith, Courtesy, Library of Congress choice of furnishings also came into play as the customs, and taste of the first half century of the Commission instructed the quartermaster general Republic.” By giving what they saw as “the fantas- to approve only pieces that could be proven to tic, the bizarre, [and] the unusual . . . no place at ballooned to 482. Most of these Confederate addi- and congressmen spearheaded a bill in the House have been found in the house when the Lee fam- Arlington,” the officials intended to present “his- tions after 1901 are attributable to a 1912 federal of Representatives to erect an equestrian statue of ily lived there. “No furniture [or reproductions of torical knowledge and a due regard for sentiment— law that stipulated that “hereafter persons dying in Lee close to Arlington House at a cost of $50,000 period furniture were] are to be accepted unless of without sentimentality.” Unfortunately, as seen with the District of Columbia or in the immediate vicin- (similar to the monument to Union General the Colonial period.”21 Notably much of the furni- the case of Jane Gerard and many other visitors to ity thereof who have served in the Confederate Philip Kearny that has stood over his remains in ture that was known to have ties to the Lee family Arlington in this period, interpreters could only Armies during the Civil War may be buried in the Arlington since 1912). A House committee report had already been recovered and would have been talk about architecture and furniture for so long. Confederate section of the Arlington National argued that “it would seem entirely fitting to invaluable had the Lees been an acceptable topic. Visitors eventually wanted to hear about the his- Cemetery.” Wade H. Hunt, a farmer from Front express [the good will between North and South] But on one occasion Moore directly intervened to tory in which the house participated, and it was on Royal, Virginia, brought what he saw as the issue by erecting in that cemetery a statue of General insist on the removal of a pair of Victorian fireplace this subject that the Commission and the Army of Arlington House’s occupation to Roosevelt’s Lee.” The committee quoted former Presidents mantels Robert E. Lee had installed in the build- were eager to avoid ruffling feathers. As Quarter- attention in a letter written shortly after the presi- McKinley and Roosevelt on sectionalism and Lee. ing’s White Parlor after returning from service as master General L.H. Bash recommended to his dent took office. “I am writeing to you, in regard to Theodore Roosevelt, they noted, said that “Gen- the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy interpreters after the Gerard letter appeared in the Lee old Home At Arlington which was taken from eral Lee is without a doubt the greatest of all the in 1855. “The mantels are bad in themselves, were Richmond Times-Dispatch, “The employees that act as him by the government during the heat of passion great captains that the English-speaking peoples not part of the original house, and are a conspicu- guides should be taught a prescribed formula of of war. Now as the hatred of war is over, I think have brought forth,” and “not a single survivor ous blot on the otherwise excellent work of resto- explanation and should be extremely careful not to the Wrong done should be writed. The said build- of the Grand Army of the Republic has opposed ration,” Moore wrote. “The Commission advises offend the susceptibilities of people from any partic- ing [should] be turned over to the Daughters of this resolution.” Franklin Roosevelt, for his part, an immediate change in the mantels, however ular part of the country.” Bash did not specify how Confederacy.” But Hunt spent the rest of his letter supplied soft support for Lee in a speech unveil- simple, that will preserve the old lines of the fire- this formula of explanation would be expressed.24 praising the president’s farm policy and requesting ing a Robert E. Lee Memorial Statue in Dallas, places.” When the Lee mantels remained in place Southern interest in controlling Arlington assistance from the federal government, under- Texas in 1936: “Robert E. Lee [is] one of our two years later, Moore again wrote the Quarter- House declined but did not disappear after Arling- scoring how, in the midst of the Great Depression, greatest American Christians and one of our master’s Office, “Every time the Committee of ton House was transferred by order of President economic concerns outweighed battles over the greatest American gentlemen.” Despite this Fine Arts inspects the Arlington Mansion they Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the National Park historical interpretation of the Civil War.25 apparent unanimity of purpose, the effort stalled have been disturbed by the retention of the man- Service in 1933. Meanwhile the 264 original 1901 By 1937 a sense of subdued reconciliation had on the House floor and died altogether after fail- tels” in the White Parlor. By the beginning of 1932, Confederate interments in Arlington’s section 16 made some progress. That year southern citizens ing to come up for a vote.26

30 WASHINGTON HISTORY Spring 2015 Confederate Island upon the Union’s “Most Hallowed Ground” 31 developments, for the better and worse. Notes Charles Moore, whose presence proved instrumental to omitting Lee from the 1. Jane C. Gerard, letter to Richmond Times-Dispatch, Sept. 19, 15. Committee on the Library, U.S. House of Representatives, house’s prevailing narrative, resigned 1931, in Mary Nelligan Papers, folder 161, Arlington 69th Cong., “Restoration of Lee Mansion in Arlington House Archives, Arlington, VA. National Cemetery (H. Rpt. 941),” Congressional Record his chairmanship of the Commission of 2. Ibid. (Washington: GPO, 1926) session vol. 4, 1; “Women of Fine Arts in 1937 and died five years 3. Cassandra Good, “George Washington Parke Custis,” Digi- South Move to Restore Famed Lee House,” Washington later. Soon after Murray Nelligan, one tal Encyclopedia of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Post, July 31, 1921, 2; “Plan to Restore Home of Gen. Lee,” http://www.mountvernon.org/research-collections/digi- Washington Post, Aug. 7, 1921, 7. of the first professionally trained histo- tal-encyclopedia/article/george-washington-parke-custis/ 16. Journal of the Twenty-Eighth Encampment of the Department of rians employed by the National Park (accessed Nov. 15, 2014). Massachusetts Grand Army of the Republic, Springfield, Mass., Service, wrote a social history of both 4. See Caroline Janney, Burying the Dead But Not the Past: February 13–14, 1895 (Boston: E.B. Stillings and Co., Ladies Memorial Associations and the Lost Cause (Chapel Hill: 1895), 53. the Custis and Lee families at Arlington University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Karen Cox, Dix- 17. Resolution Adopted at the 35th Annual Reunion of the from the 18th century to their depar- ie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the United Confederate Veterans, May 19, 1925, in Nelligan ture at the beginning of the Civil War. Preservation of Confederate Culture (Gainesville: University of Papers, folder 157, Arlington House Archives; “G.A.R. Florida Press, 2003); and Gaines Foster, Ghosts of the Confed- Fight on New Coins,” New York Times, May 19, 1925, 23. Nelligan’s research and publications eracy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New 18. “U.D.C. Notes—Virginia,” Confederate Veteran 32, no. 12 helped clarify the changes made by Lee South, 1865–1913 (New York: Oxford University Press, (Dec. 1924): 32; Quoted in Keyes, All Flags Flying, 181; after Custis’s death, information that 1988) and William Blair, Cities of the Dead: Contesting the Ibid., 182, emphasis in original; Beauregard-Keyes House, Memory of the Civil War in the South, 1865–1914 (Chapel Hill: http://www.bkhouse.org (accessed May 2, 2012). Charles was lacking during the Army-Commis- University of North Carolina Press, 2004). Moore to Mrs. Henry W. Keyes, Aug. 5, 1921, in Records sion of Fine Arts restoration in the late 5. Blair, Cities of the Dead, 182; “Confederates Who Sleep at Concerning the Custis-Lee Mansion House and Grounds, 1920s. This research also made clear the Arlington,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 25, 1911, A3; Records of the Commission of Fine Arts, RG 66, National Michelle Krowl, “In the Spirit of Fraternity: The United Archives. fundamental connections among the States Government and the Burial of Confederate Dead at 19. Moore to Quartermaster Gen. William H. Hart, Mar. 13, stories of Lee, the Civil War, and Arling- Arlington National Cemetery, 1864–1914,” Virginia Maga- 1923, in Nelligan Papers, folder 156, Arlington House ton House. As a consequence, Joint zine of History and Biography 111, no. 2 (2003): 165–166. Archives. 6. See Krowl, “In the Spirit of Fraternity,” 151–186; Robert 20. Commission of Fine Arts, Tenth Report, July 1, 1921– Arlington House looms over Section 45 of the National Cemetery in 2009 as a tour bus drives past. Resolution 62, which reasserted the Poole, On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National December 31, 1925 (Washington: GPO, 1926) 63–64;. Courtesy, Wikimedia Commons 1925 legislation and designated Arling- Cemetery (New York: Walker and Co., 2009), and Anthony 21. See Assistant Quartermaster Gen. L.H. Bash to Charles ton House as a permanent memorial to Gaughan, The Last Battle of the Civil War: United States versus Moore, Apr. 12, 1929, in Nelligan Papers, folder 158, part Lee, 1861–1883 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University 1, and Moore to Quartermaster Gen. B.F. Cheatham, Nov. Lee, stated that the memorialization of him before Press, 2011). 14, 1928, in Nelligan Papers, folder 157, and Brig. Gen. The Arlington House controversy shows the that time was insufficient given his intimate con- 7. Karen Cox, “The Confederate Monument at Arlington,” in William E. Horton to Cheatham, Apr. 24, 1929, in Nelligan nections to the structure. 27 Cynthia Mills and Paula Simpson, eds., Monuments to the Papers, Folder 158, part 1, Arlington House Archives. endurance of sectional differences several decades Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscape of Southern Memory 22. Entry 1891, Box 68, File 600.3, Records of the Quarter- after their supposed resolution during the Span- The 1955 bill to rededicate the site as the “Rob- (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003) 158–160; master General, RG 92, National Archives. ish-American War and generations after the Civil ert E. Lee Memorial” noted that ”the desire and see also Blair, Cities of the Dead, 171–208. 23. Louis Cramton to Charles Moore, Jan. 29, 1929, in Nelli- hope of Robert E. Lee for peace and unity within 8. “Arlington,” Appleton’s Journal of Literature Science and Art gan Papers, folder 158 part 1, and B.F. Cheatham to Mrs. War’s conclusion. White southerners certainly (Nov. 14, 1874): vol. 12, 295. Mark M. Henderson, Jan. 16, 1930, in Nelligan Papers, partook in the nationalistic fervor that followed our Nation has come to pass in the years since his 9. Iza Hardy, “Arlington,” Historic Buildings of America as folder 160, Arlington House Archives. the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War in death, and the United States of America now Seen and Described by Famous Writers, Nelligan Papers, 24. Commission of Fine Arts, Eleventh Report, 125; Ibid., 128, stands united and firm, indivisible, and unshak- folder 146, Arlington House Archives; Commission of Fine emphasis added; Brig. Gen. L.H. Bash to Col. Charles Mor- 1898, but that moment was brief compared to the Arts, Eleventh Report, January 1, 1926–June 30, 1929 (Wash- timer, Sept. 21, 1931, in Nelligan Papers, folder 161, ongoing campaign to right one of the injustices of able.” Yet shadows of sectionalism, bitterness, and ington: GPO, 1930) 127.. Arlington House Archives. the previous war: unfair seizure by the federal racial strife remained. The bill was introduced not 10. Frances Parkinson Keyes, “Letters from a Senator’s Wife,” 25. Wade H. Hunt to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, long after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision Good Housekeeping Magazine (Aug. 1921): 37–38 and 134– Aug. 17, 1933, in Nelligan Papers, folder 162, Arlington government of Robert E. Lee’s family home. The 135. House Archives. strategy of Lost Cause commemoration and estate in Brown v. Board of Education outlawing segregated 11. See James Loewen, Lies Across America: What Our Historic 26. “Statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee—Report No. 1143,” House repossession pursued by southern memorial schools. The bill’s sponsor, Republican Representa- Sites Get Wrong (New York: The New Press, 1999) 123–126, of Representatives Reports, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., vol. 2, tive Joel Broyhill of Virginia, vociferously opposed 200–206, 220–227, and 302–305. 81; Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Remarks at the Unveiling of groups at Arlington House backfired in the face of 12. “U.D.C. Notes—The Lee Mansion,” Confederate Veteran 29, the Robert E. Lee Memorial Statue, Dallas, Texas,” June federal efforts to impose a sanitized narrative of racial integration and was one of only two Repub- no. 9 (Sept. 1921): 350–351. 12, 1936. Preserved online by Gerhard Peters and John T. the house’s history—one that was free of the very licans to sign the Southern Manifesto denouncing 13. See “Sons of Confederate Veterans—Confederation News Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www. the Court’s decision. His effort to emphasize the and Notes,” Confederate Veteran 29, no. 9 (Sept. 1921): 356 presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15303 (accessed Jan. 31, conflict that remained at the core of the continu- and “U.D.C. Notes—Virginia,” Confederate Veteran 32, no. 2015). ing national debate about the war. Confederate connection to Arlington House can be 12 (Dec. 1924): 32. See also “May Purchase Historic Sites: 27. Bash to Mortimer, Sept. 21, 1931. For illustrations of However, Jane Gerard’s outraged 1931 letter seen as part of the campaign of “massive resis- Movement Started to Restore R.E. Lee’s Mansion At Arlington House before 1955 and omission of Lee, see Ran- tance” to the growing civil rights movement, the Arlington,” Columbia Evening Missourian, Sept. 8, 1921, 5. dle Bond Truett, Lee Mansion: Arlington, Virginia (New York; indicates that federal efforts to avoid conflict 14. Quoted in Frances Parkinson Keyes, All Flags Flying: Remi- Hastings House Publishers, 1943). failed—at least for her as she visited the house on latest salvo in a long-running battle over how to niscences of Frances Parkinson Keyes (New York: McGraw- that fine late summer day. The desire to avoid the remember the Confederacy. Such issues continue Hill, 1972) 183. legacy of sectional discord set interpretation at to resonate as Americans struggle with personal Arlington House on a course from which it would and public memories of their nation’s Civil War. not divert until 1955, when it was rededicated as the “Custis-Lee Mansion” and the “Robert E. Lee Michael Chornesky is an independent scholar and sea- Memorial.” This change was the result of many sonal interpretive ranger for the National Park Service.

32 WASHINGTON HISTORY Spring 2015 Confederate Island upon the Union’s “Most Hallowed Ground” 33