Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1866-09-13

Yours, Respectfully,
j. s. KELLER.
Arlington and it's 2roprietors.
The Washington lntelzigencer of October
1864, has the following description and
narrative:
A visit to the Arlington Mansion and
surrounding estate, few days since, filled
Us with oppressive and melancholy reaec.
tions Four years ago Robert E. Lee, then
lieutenant colonel of cavalry in the Union
army, and now commander in chief of the
rebel army, was with his family in the hap,
py possession of that magnificent iuheri.
tance More than one half of the estate,
consisting of thousand acres, was covered
with splendid forest of oak and other tim
Der, and the rich and productive fields
adorned with the hand of culture. To-day
what a change. The venerable ancestral
mansion erected by the honored son, by
adoption, of the Father of his Country, and
for half a century his cultivated and delight.
full home, is now in the centre of vast
cemetery of those who have fallen in the
service of their country
Two hundred and fifty acres of this estate
surrounding the mansion, have been perma.
nently appropriated for burial purposes by
the government, inclosed by a substantial
and handsome fence. Nearly five thousand
soldiers have already been there buried,
and the number is daily growing larger
In 1858, Mrs. Custis, the mother of Mrs.
General Lee, died in the Arlington Man.
sion, and was buried in q sequestered and
delightful grove near the mansion and in
1857, Mr.. Custis died, and his remains
were deposited by her side, vast oonoourse
of persons of every rank testifying their
reverence for the departed by their presence
at the obsequies.
That sequestered grove. thus selected by
its owner as the last resting place for him
self and bis, has been in the tempest of the
times invaded, the forest has been trans.
formed into field of the dead, and the two
marble columns marking the remains of
George Washington Park Custis and Mary
Lee Fitzhugh, his wife, now rise in the
midst of more than four thousand patriot
soldiers graves. Nearly the whole of the
timber and wood has been swept from the
entire estate and used for war purposes
The Freedmen's Village is established upon
one portion of the land thus cleared, and it
is all being put under cultivation by con.
traband negro labor
Mr. Custis inherited this estate from bis
father, who was the SOD of Mrs. Gen. Wash
ington by former husband Soon after
his mother died in 1902, he then about
twenty-five years Of age, came here from
Mount Vernon, and with bis young and ac.
complished wife took up their residence in
the Arlington Mansion, which be had just
then erected, and which evermore was their
beautiful and cultivated home. The fruits
of this union were four daughters, all of
whom died in infancy, except Mary Custis,
the wife of General Robert E. Lee Mr..
Custis' father, John Parke CuatiS, was an
aii-de.camp to Washington, and died of
camp fever in 1881, contracted at the siege
of Yorktown, at the age of twenty-seVen
years He had married at nineteen years
of age, Eleanor Calvert, of Mount Airy,
Maryland, descendant of the second Lord
Baltimore, when but fifteen years of age,
and at twenty.three she was thus made
widow with four children. General Wash.
ington FASTENED to Ethan, Maryland,
where the husband was sick, only to see
him in bis dying moments. This was the
only surviving child Of Mrs. Washington,
the daughter having died some years before.
He was deeply affected, and, weeping, said
to the mother: 81 adopt the young chill
dren as my own" These were Eleanor
Gusts, then two and half years of age,
who died at seventeen, of consumption, and
George Washington Parke Gusts, then six
months old.
General Robert Edmond Lee is the son
of General Henry Lee, of Revolutionary
memory, and known as slight Horse Har-
ry," whose mother was the beautiful Miss
Grimes, General Washington's first love,
and whom he celebrated as "the low-land
beauty" General Harry Lee was twice
married. By the first marriage he bad two
children, Henry Gan officer in the war of
1879 and Lucy. By the second wife---a
Miss Carter, of Shirley-he had five chill.
dren, two daughters, Anne and Mildred,
and three sons. The SONS were Charles
Carter, Robert Edmond (the generaD and
Sidney Smith, the last named an officer in
our navy, and now in the rebel navy.
General Robert E. Lee was born in 1908.
and is, consequently, 6fty-seven years Of
age. He graduated second in bis class, in
1929, (Judge Charles Mason, Of this city,
and formerly Commissioner Of Patents,
standing first in that CLASSY, and was assign.
ed to the Engineer Corps as second lieuten'
ant in 1885 Assistant Astronomer, fixing
the boundary between Ohio and Michigan;
in 1886 promoted first lieutenant; captain
in 1888; chief engineer under Scott, in
Mexico, and greatly distinguished, being