Beschreibung:

LEE, ROBERT E. Autograph Manuscript Signed ("R.E. Lee") as co-executor, being Lee's "true copy" of the last will and testament for his father-in-law George Washington Parke Custis 4 PP, 271 x 215, bifolium, ink on thin paper, [Arlington], March 26, 1855, docketed to final leaf by Lee, "Last Will and Testament of George Washington Parke Custis | Made & executed the 26th of March, 1855 | 26 March 1855 | A True Copy R.E. Lee, Col. USA," some dampstaining, repairs at the folds, framed flat in double-sided frame. Provenance: by descent; The Collection of John G. Petrasch. AN IMPORTANT DOCUMENT OF AMERICAN HISTORY: ROBERT E. LEE'S AUTOGRAPH "TRUE COPY" OF HIS FATHER-IN-LAW GEORGE WASHINGTON PARKE CUSTIS'S 1855 LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT DISPENSING THE LANDS THAT WOULD BECOME ARLINGTON CEMETERY. When George Washington Parke Custis turned 21, he inherited a large swath of land in what is now Arlington, VA from his father, John Parke "Jacky" Custis, who had died of "camp fever" at Yorktown in 1781. Custis was raised by his grandmother and (step)grandfather, George and Martha Washington, at Mount Vernon and in the Presidential quarters. After George's death in 1799, and again upon Martha Washington passing in 1802, Custis was left another large sum, and he soon took over his father's lands near Arlington (which he called Mount Washington). Almost immediately, he began construction on Arlington House, intended as a shrine to the grandfather who had raised him, George Washington. When Custis's only surviving daughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, married at Arlington House, it was to a young soldier named Robert E. Lee. Lee and Mary moved into Arlington House in the 1850s and Custis's last will and testament was signed in 1855, with this "true copy" being made entirely in Lee's hand as executor of the estate. During the Civil War, as Union forces advanced, Arlington House was abandoned. By 1864, with Lee behind enemy Confederate lines and unable to pay the taxes "in person" as required, the land and its buildings were sold to the United States government for about $20,000. With the numbers of war dead mounting and cemeteries filling up throughout the South, Quartermaster General Cornelius Meigs commandeered Arlington House and began burying soldiers near the house beginning on May 13, 1863, believing it would deter the Lees from returning after the war. Soon the lush grounds of Arlington House became an expansive cemetery for the military dead, continuing through 1866. After the war, the Lees made no attempt to return to the grounds; Mary Lee made a visit after her husband's death in 1870, but could not force herself to enter. After her death in 1873, their son George Washington Custis Lee sued the Federal Government for restoration of the lands, and after a nearly 10-year court case, heavily based on Custis's will, the Supreme Court of the United States awarded Arlington House to Custis Lee once more. Almost immediately, he sold it back to the United States government in 1883, providing the groundwork for the official establishment of the Arlington National Cemetery in 1925. An important document of American history, it's narrative runs from the earliest days of the American Revolution and George Washington through the Civil War and Reconstruction, tracing the development and creation of Arlington Cemetery, a national monument.