Transcripts For CSPAN3 Arlington House Tour 20161126 : compa

That enjoy and appreciate the National Park system and as we close out here happy centennial to the National Park service. A reminder this program will air tonight at 10 00 p. M. Eastern time once again in its entirety and youll see a full tour of arlington house just as if you were here yourself. Thanks for being with us. Each week american artifacts takes you to museums to reveal what artifacts reveal about American History. Next he leads a tour of arlington house. The 19th century mansion situated on the hill above president john f. Kennedys grave in Arlington National cemetery. Today it is the most visited historic home in the National Park Service System which is marking its centennial this year. Arlington house will close at the end of 2016 for a yearlong restoration made possible by a 12. 35 million gift. I am a park service ranger. I have been here many years. I sometimes joke i spent more time in this house than robert e. Lee did. Although it was his home for 30 years. Its perhaps the most unique place in the entire National Park service and perhaps in regards to Historic Houses one of the most in the entire country because what we have here is a place that truly represents the entire history of this country from its earliest founding with the original colonists that came in the early 1600s through the revolutionary period. Leaders of the American Revolution. Signers of the declaration of independent and representing in many ways one of the uglier aspects of American History and that is slavery. It played a crucial role in the American Civil War. Home of general robert e. Lee prior to the war during the period he was a u. S. Army officer for 32 years. He developed and became the great soldier that would lead him to become this extremely consequential man during the American Civil War but this is where the story takes a dramatic twist. This home is a National Memorial to honor robert e. Lee but hes a man that waged war against the United States government who lead an army against the United States government. That army is believed to have killed more u. S. Soldiers more than any single enemy army in this country. Yet here this house is a National Memorial to honor him. So it really rehe presents the way the country developed in its earliest years. How it divided and then how the nation somehow was able to come back together after that war because this home is a memorial to honor lee not for what he did during the war but what he did afterwards. When he became a leader in the south and promoting a reunion and reconciliation. Telling southerners it was their duty to restore peace and harmony to the nation and once again will they respect the authority of the National Government across here and waged a terrible war against. And thats their government again and it was their duty to respect that. And healing this country and three years after the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated. And Memorial Bridge and avenue were across the river to symb symbolize and what adds to the nature of the story is this house was originally built as a monument or a personal memorial to honor the memory of George Washington and the father of the country. Honored by washingtons step grandson George Washington and in many ways this house could be looked at is our first monument. For structure of any kind built to honor any man like that. This house had a fame all to itself apart from robert e. Lee and then lee married into that family and bail part of the washington family and so with the coming of the civil war happened and lee was put in a very painful and difficult place in which he had to choose sides president lincoln wanted him to command federal troops and he couldnt find a war against virginia. His home and family as he characterized it and so he was caught in this terrible dilemma and ultimately his massive impact and course of American History that would follow and would lead to the u. S. Government taking this home and plantation away from his family to punish him and creating Arlington National cemetery as a place to honor the dead and also a form of revenge or retribution against lee for that role he played as a confederate general. So what youre seeing here at arlington house is primarily the original instruction built between 1802 and 1818. We calculate 85 of the physical structure is intact but its been here for about 200 years and it requires a great deal of care and effort to maintain, restore, conserve it and its been more m years since a major restoration effort has been undertaken here. Theres going to be a lot of work done over the next year and a half to two years to bring this place back to its glory so at the end of this year the house will shutdown for proximately a year while this restoration work is done. So why dont we go inside the house and take a look. See how it is today. Give you an idea of what it is and the work well be doing and you can come see us 2018 and see how much the improvement has been made to the restoration of this great ranch. So follow me inside. So here we are in the main hallway after arlington house. The center hall was designed to impress. And wanted this house to be a memorial to George Washington. He had the house designed to be like a gallery to be very monumental. To impress to what he thought could be some of the most important people in the country and president s congress and senators will visit here to learn more about George Washington. The original architect of the mansion was george hatfield. And do design work on the nations capital. And one of the most prominent architects of the day and has a great history of architecture. And in the history of this country as well. Its not just because of the people that lived here and the events that took place here and the great meaning. Its somehow a work house and structure and takes on a meeting and people that live there and this house was built to be consequential. It has that history to it as well and robert e. Lee married into that in this parlor on june 30th, 1831 under the arch way where you can see the uniform and the dress on display. 24yearold lieutenant robert e. Lee of the u. S. Army married marianna randolph. The sweetheart of robert e. Lees as well as a great granddaughter of Martha Washington but this wasnt the only wedding that took place here in fact it wasnt the first wedding. The first wedding took place here ten years earlier when a woman named Mariah Carter married charles and what made that wedding important in the history of this place is that they were both enslaved here and mariah was believed to have been the daughter of the master and so she was an enslaved woman from some type of relationship that existed which George Washington fathered a child by one of the enslaved women here. And this is forcing us in many ways to reexamine how we interpret the history of arlington. Because here we have the story of slavery and this place represents the founding ideas of this country. This home built to honor George Washington to celebrate the values and believes of the father of the country. The house itself built by slaves but then you have the family as well. The family relationship and in essence he had two daughters. One was wife married robert e. Lee and one was enslaved. Both great granddaughters of Martha Washington so in that regard he is a representative of the first first family of the country that spent 55 years of his life promoting and celebrating that was in essence also representative of another aspect of the history of this country and the first family of this country was by racial and we recently reenacted that and representing both charles and miranda and that was the wedding of Selena Norris and thornton grey also enslaved. That was arranged and this wedding took place in this party and selena grey and her family would live in one of the two enslaved quarters that we maintain that exist and are going to be restored as part of this big project as well. We are in the process and by a year well begin this restoration project but all the furnishings have to be removed before we can do that work so you can see the boxes in place and preparation being made. And historically there were numerous portraits hanging in this project. And washington and other members of the family. However those are been removed but at the same time there are holes in our collection. And our new restoration project to this general donation will in fact allow us to inquire and reproduction ib colluding paintings so that we can represent the true appearance of this house and thereby be examples like this. This plaster on the wall. This plaster was is not just something we chose to leave exposed for no good reason. Actually what we discovered during a recent about 7 years ago restoration project where we stripped down paint down to the plaster and we repainted different rooms we found writing. We found grafiti and some of this writing is very faint on the walls but this we think even predates the civil war. Some of the graffiti is civil war related. Some predates the civil war and goes back to the earliest construction of the house and so its something that were leaving exposed because its he representative of that history and we wanted to be able to expose it and were not exactly sure what the writing says so its a mystery that is going to be left to us to solve in the future. This is the family dining room and at least one of a couple of rooms that were used as dining rooms in the mansion and what makes this room so significant is the large number of original furnishings that do exist including china that is on the dining room table t. Blue and white plates you see at the front, cincinnati china that belonged to George Washington and other china we believed belongs to Martha Washington. And George Washington when he moved here in 1802 brought with him as much of the washington family positions as he could possibly collect. Inheriting things from Martha Washington as well as purchasing things from estate sales. He gathered together his washington treasury and he built this house to house those items in and to exhibit them to the public. And you could have come and dined with them and eaten off of the same china that george and Martha Washington had eaten off of. Today we have a number of washington items still in our collection but the civil war threatened at and the beginning of the civil war as robert e. Lee left here and they were worried that union soldierers would take over and steal items from the house she removed most of what she considered to be the most precious washington family heirlooms including the bed George Washington died in and another of other pieces and later he family donated those things, many of those things to mt. Vernon, to washington and Lee University and and you can visit those places and also get a better understanding of what was here historically. The backhaul was his trophy hall. As a true gentleman of the day. His two favorite past times were horse racing and hunting but he was also a great artist. When i say a great artist, perhaps not a fine artist but a passionate artist. He devoted his life to creative pursuits. He wrote and produced musical plays and american themes and was a pioneer in the idea of american form of theater. And its his favorite subject by far and his step grandfather George Washington. And painting images of the American Revolution which well see in the others. So as we step through this doorway were stepping into a room called the white parlor. This is one of the last rooms of the house that was actually finished. It was largely decorated according to robert e. Lees tastes. He wrote letters to his wife in which he described how he wanted a room to be painted white. Both because he said it was such a dark house and would help brighten things but he also complained about the fact that the family was at that time a bit short on money. They were struggling a little bit financially and so he said it was also the cheapest color. So it was painted white and did brighten the house. He bought much of the red velvet furniture for the home up at westpoint when he was superintendent of the u. S. Military academy. He designed the marble mantles with oak leafs and a corns celebrating and honoring the forest and more than half of the estate with oak. Only 12 acres of it still exists. The rest swallowed up by the cemetery and some of it does still exist and is part of the robert eflt l robert e. Lee memorial to be preserved as long as nature itself be preserve it. We have robert e. Lee in the mansion and shows him as the young army officer. Its not the version that most people expect. Of course most people think of him as the great confederate general but what arlington house represents is his life before the civil war. His family. That he married his wife here. Six of his seven children were born here. This is the place he sacrificed. To side with virginia. To fight for a larger concept of what he considered to be his home and family and that was virginia but it kale with a very knowing sacrifice and while robert e. Lee would be in the minds of many during that war and the years to follow some what of a villain in history labeled a traitor to his country by the u. S. Govern m and still a controversial figure. Many during his lifetime including many officers and soldiers respected lee in large part because of that sacrifice he was willing to make. A congressman from miff mitch, his father served in union army during the war and fought against robert e. Lees army in virginia that first proposed the legislation and would dedicate this as a memorial to robert e. Lee. Such was the respect given to him even by many of his enemies. As we come into here this is the room. One of the oldest rooms in the house. Also one of the most significant. It was built in 1804 and it was in 1811 that robert e. Lee and his family first visited arlington. And his future wife was just 2. 5. So we like to think this might have been the room when they first met. As chish. As Young Children there is a story and Family Tradition that suggests they were childhood sweethearts growing up that as teenagers they became romantic but he suffered a number of tragedies in his early life. His father died when he was quite wrung. His mother died right after he graduated from westpoint. He didnt inherit wealth. He didnt inherit property so he had in many ways to take life seriously from a young age and devote himself to a career in the army so he went to westpoint and graduated second in his class and following that he turned his attention to her here and courted here and married her and became part of this family. This room then in many ways and symbolizes how he was connected to this place. Almost his entire life arlington meant something important to robert e. Lee and almost all of it revolved around the relationship he had. And they were both passionate artists. And the window over here to the left. And important revolutionary war scenes. All of these paintings done to represent washington as the great hero of the revolution. The indispensable man. You see hi on his white horse in front of the army. And within just a few feet of them. And at the battle of trenton. These paintings glorified washington and that was the purpose and it wasnt just to glorify washington. It was also to promote washington and his believes. His ideals and his values. When this country was first created years following the American Revolution it was completely designed between the followers of Thomas Jefferson that believed in limited National Government and states rights and the rights to leave the union and the right of an armed rebellion against the government and believed it was a union. When he started dating this house in 1902 the man that was president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson so some believe he built this house on this prominent hill, this fashion out front almost as a way of thumbing his nose at jefferson across the river. Well that may be something of an exaggeration and make a political statement and this is to represent the believes and ideals of George Washington and that included once again the idea that this nation would exist forever. But how ironic is it that that mans daughter would marry robert e. Lee and became the great confederate general and perhaps the man that kale closest than any other man in history to destroying the nation that was created in the American Revolution. It was just through that doorway that robert e. Lee made that choice and made that decision to side with virginia and leave the union. He was a u. S. Army officer getting 33 years. And he spent his entire adult life in the service of the United States army and he loved his country and also believed in preserving the union. And he cannot fight a war against home and family. And letter after letter af