White House (plantation) - American Civil War Years

American Civil War Years

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, and Virginia joined the newly formed Confederate States of America, Robert E. Lee, who had most recently been Superintendent of the USMA at West Point was offered the command of all Union forces by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, but resigned his commission in favor of serving his home state of Virginia. All three of his sons joined him in military service for the Confederacy.

Robert E. Lee's wife suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and this became increasingly debilitating with advancing age. By 1861, she was using a wheelchair. Early in the War, Mrs. Lee and her daughters left Arlington House and she was staying at her son Rooney's plantation in New Kent County at White House when Union troops under General George B. McClellan took White House Landing as a supply base during the Peninsula Campaign in 1862, a failed attempt to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. General McClellan made arrangements for Mrs. Lee's safe passage through the Union lines, and she relocated to Richmond, where she resided at 707 E. Franklin Street (in a still-extant house) for the duration of the War.

During the Peninsula Campaign, Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York City's Central Park among his many accomplishments, served as Executive Secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a precursor to the Red Cross in Washington D.C. which tended to the Union wounded during the Civil War. Olmsted headed the medical effort for the sick and wounded at White House Landing until McClellan abandoned it as he retreated with his troops during the Seven Days Battles and shifted his base to Harrison's Landing on the James River. The manor house of White House Plantation was burned by retreating Union troops.