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General Robert E. Lee’s 200th birthday was celebrated January 19, 2007. Much has been written, both fact and fiction, about Gen. Lee, a man acknowledged by both friend and foe as the greatest American military leader of all times.
Little attention has been paid, however, to his devoted wife and mother of his children and the price she paid for her husband’s loyalty to his beloved state of Virginia.
Mary Custis Lee was the granddaughter of Martha Washington. Her father, George Washington Parke Custis grew up at Mount Vernon. He idolized General Washington, the first American President, and built the portico of his home at Arlington to honor General Washington, his paternal grandfather by marriage.
Mary Custis was married at Arlington House to Lieutenant Robert Edward Lee, an engineer in the United States Army who spent 4-years at West Point without receiving a single demerit, a record not equaled before or since.
Mary is described by John Perry, author of Mrs. Robert E. Lee: The Lady of Arlington, as “intellectual, patriotic, artistic, well-read, articulate, and admirable.”
Mary had always had the best of everything, living at Arlington House, overlooking the capitol. Now she would live in a military compound at Ft. Monroe, Virginia, and make do on a lieutenant’s pay.
Decades later, when the War Between the States came, Mary’s highly regarded husband had risen in the ranks and was offered command of the Union Army by President Lincoln. He declined, and chose instead to defend his native Virginia from attacks by Lincoln’s army.
The loss of the army’s best general resulted in deep bitterness toward the general on the part of the Lincoln administration. Unable to match Gen. Lee’s brilliance on the battlefield, the bitterness of the Lincoln administration was visited on the general’s wife.
The Custis family was forced from their home, and Arlington House and the surrounding 1,100 acres of prime property fell under Union occupation. The magnificent home and surrounding property was maliciously desecrated in every way imaginable. The lawn and Mary’s treasured rose garden were destroyed and deliberately used as burial space for Union soldiers as an insult to the Custis and Lee families.
In order to punish unrepentant Southerners, after the Southern states had left the Union, The Union Congress enacted a law entitled “An Act for the Collection of Direct Taxes in the Insurrectionary Districts within the United States.” When the new law went into effect, Mary Custis Lee, as owner of the Arlington estate, was assessed a special tax of $92.07, payable in Alexandria.
Mary was then mother of seven children and living in Richmond, capitol of the Confederate States of America, while her husband was leading the army of the Confederacy, defending the homeland.
It was a cold, damp, dreary winter and Mary was suffering from painful rheumatoid arthritis. She was not able to travel.
She sent her cousin, Phillip R. Fendall, to Alexandria to pay the $92.07 tax that had been assessed on her estate. By then, the total due, including penalties, was $138.10.
The tax commissioner refused the payment, claiming that the law required the owner to appear and pay in person. Federal officials knew of her physical condition and were very much aware that her husband was Commander-in-Chief of Confederate forces. In fact, they knew that few owners could appear in person and the Federal government would then have an excuse to confiscate their property for delinquent taxes.
On January 11, 1864, some 32 years after Mary Custis had married Robert Edward Lee at Arlington House, the property went on sale at the Alexandria Courthouse.
Arlington was the first property to be sold. The famous house and 1,100 acres of surrounding land overlooking the Potomac River and the city of Washington, were appraised at $34,100. It sold for $26,800. The highest bidder was the Government of Abraham Lincoln.
The deliberate desecration of the beautiful estate, including Mary’s rose garden is a matter of recorded history.
A British visitor during this time visited Arlington and recorded his observations:
“To see the home of Robert Lee sacked and made into a cemetery, and to fancy the thoughts that would fill that great heart ... were so strange to me, and in this strangeness so painful, that I doubt whether I ever had a sadder walk than that visit to the heights of Arlington.”
During recent years, General Lee’s American citizenship was restored and Arlington House was rededicated in his honor, however, the blatant abuse of Mary Custis Lee by the Lincoln administration remains an obscure shameful fact of American history.
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