Some time after the war, General Lee’s son brought suit for the recovery of the property and won it, the Supreme Court holding that the tax commissioners ought to have accepted the tender made them; but Mr. Lee compromised with the Government, conveying to it his interest for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Since then the house has been put into excellent repair, and the land about it suitably enclosed and improved. On the upper edge of the estate has been established the military post known as Fort Myer, where cavalry-training is carried to a high point, weather observations are made, and a wireless telegraph station exchanges despatches with the Eiffel tower in Paris. Some of the land down by the river has been made over into an experimental farm under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture.
Happily, the Cemetery has been kept free from tawdry memorials and inconsequential ornament, and enveloped in an atmosphere of dignity well fitting its sacred character. Its most impressive tomb is that dedicated to the Unknown Dead, which contains the remains of more than two thousand soldiers found on various battlefields but never identified. “Their names and deaths,” says the inscription, “are recorded in the archives of their country, and its grateful citizens honor them as their noble army of martyrs.” Not far away is a fine amphitheater with a carpet of turf and a canopy of trellised vines, where memorial exercises are held annually on Decoration Day, the President almost always taking part. There is also a Temple of Fame, bearing the names of Washington and Lincoln, with those of the military leaders who particularly distinguished themselves in the Civil War. An extension has recently been made in the grounds devoted to sepulture, where the most conspicuous monument is that which commemorates the tragedy of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor. The base is built to represent a gun-turret on the deck of a man-of-war; on this are inscribed the names of the victims, while from the center of the turret rises a mast with a fighting-top. A larger and more ambitious amphitheater, also, has been laid out in the extension.
From Arlington we can go, by the same road that Washington trod on his trips, to Alexandria, a town which fairly reeks with associations, from the colonial names of some of its streets—King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Duke, Duchess, Royal—to its remnants of cobblestone pavement laid by the Hessian prisoners in the Revolution. Here is the old Carlyle mansion, where General Braddock had his headquarters before starting on his ill-fated expedition against the French and Indians. In its blue drawing-room Washington, as a young surveyor ambitious to serve his king, received the first rudiments of his military education; and at the foot of yonder staircase one evening stood the same Washington, expectant, while pretty Sally Fairfax tripped lightly down to join him and be led through the opening cotillion at her coming-out ball.
This must have been a splendid mansion in its time, with a terraced garden descending to the river-bank, and a fountain in the midst of the flower-beds. It was built on the ruins of a fort used by the early settlers against the Indians; the living-rooms of the fort became the cellar of the mansion, and the fort proper the plaza, upon which the main hallway opens. You enter the house now through a cozy little tea-room established by a group of young ladies of Alexandria; and it may be your good fortune to be shown about the premises by one of them who is herself a member of the historic Carlyle and Fairfax families and familiar with all their ancestral tales.
A prominent site in town is covered by Christ Church, where Washington worshiped, and where you can see the square family pew for which he paid the record price, thirty-six pounds and ten shillings. The church stands in a large, old-fashioned yard, sprinkled with the gravestones of men and women of local renown. Hither, on Sundays, drove the ladies from Mount Vernon, seven miles away, in a chariot with a mahogany body, green Venetian blinds, and pictured panels, drawn by four horses. The General did not take kindly to the coach for himself, but rode beside it on his favorite saddle-horse, followed at a respectful distance by Bishop, his colored body-servant, in scarlet livery. After service he would linger in the churchyard, chatting with his friends, till Bishop reminded him of the flight of time by bringing up his horse and holding the stirrup for him to mount.
A spirited historical controversy has been waged over the question of Washington’s attitude toward religion. The weight of evidence favors the idea that, though not bound by dogma, he had a broad faith in the philosophy of Christianity, always knelt with the rest of the congregation and joined in the responses, and occasionally remained for the communion. He certainly encouraged his slaves to believe in the efficacy of prayer; for once, when a long-continued drought threatened to ruin his crops, he called his farm-hands together on Sunday morning and bade them put up their united supplication for rain. They did so, and to their great delight the flood-gates of heaven suddenly opened and deluged the earth; but the Washington family were caught in the storm on their way home from church, and could not make shelter soon enough to save Mrs. Washington’s best gown from serious damage or the General from being soaked to the skin.
In his younger days, Washington was fond of dancing, and used to come into town to attend assemblies at Clagett’s Tavern. The assembly-hall was up-stairs. It was afterward divided into three rooms, one of which, having fallen into the hands of persons who respect its pedigree, has been pretty well preserved. In the old times it had at one end a gallery for the musicians, accessible only by a ladder, which was removed as soon as they were all in their places. This arrangement was designed to compel them to stay at their work till released, and to drink only what was passed up to them with the approval of the floor-committee.
Across the corridor from the old assembly-hall was a chamber that later became interesting through its occupancy by an unknown woman who came to the tavern one morning in 1816, plainly in ill health. She was accompanied by a few servants, with whom she conversed only in French, and neither she nor they could be drawn into any communication with other persons, except what was necessary to engage accommodations and order meals. On the fourth day of her stay, there appeared on the scene a strange man, who from various indications was assumed to be her husband. An hour after his arrival she died in his arms. He buried her in St. Paul’s cemetery on the outskirts of the town, planting a willow-tree over her grave, and raising at its head a stone inscribed to the memory simply of “A Female Stranger,” with this stanza from Pope’s “Unfortunate Lady”:
“How loved, how honored once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot.
A heap of dust alone remains of thee,
’Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be.”
And the Female Stranger remains a mystery to this day, though many efforts have been made to discover her identity. A local suspicion that she was Theodosia Allston, the daughter of Aaron Burr, seems to be discredited by the fact that Theodosia’s disappearance occurred in 1812, and that her husband was dead long before the Stranger came to Clagett’s Tavern.