Postbellum Years
Rooney Lee lost his wife and children during the War, and was captured and held as a prisoner-of-war in New York after the Battle of Brandy Station. Following the War, Rooney Lee returned to White House Plantation. In 1867, he married again. With his second wife, Mary Tab Bolling Lee, he had several children. Nearby, his younger brother Rob lived at Romancoke Plantation across the river in King William County.
After his mother died in 1873, Rooney inherited the Ravensworth Estate, the old Fitzhugh family property (near present-day Springfield) in Fairfax County with 563 acres (2.28 km2) of land. In 1874, he moved there from White House Plantation.
Rooney Lee was elected to the Virginia Senate in 1875, serving until 1878. He was then elected as a Democrat to the US House of Representatives in 1887. He served in the House until his death at Ravensworth in 1891. He is interred in the Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia with his parents and siblings.
Read more about this topic: White House (plantation)
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“I’m right here to tell you, mister. There ain’t nobody gonna push me off my land. My grandpa took up this land seventy years ago. My pa was born here. We was all born on it. And some of us was killed on it. And some of us died on it. That’s what makes it ourn. Bein’ born on it. And workin’ on it. And dyin’ on it. And not no piece of paper with writin’ on it.”
—Nunnally Johnson (1897–1977)