Shirley Plantation '11

We also visited the Shirley's Plantation near Richmond... it is the oldest plantation in Virginia. It was established in 1613, was the birthplace of the Confederate President & General Robert E Lee, and has been in the same family for eleven generations. It was a very interesting tour. Most of the other southern plantations were destroyed by Sherman during the Civil War. Seeing this one intact, made me realize how much of our cultural roots we lost in that war.

Shirley Plantation

  As the story goes, the husband / owner of the plantation was off fighting for the Confederacy when the Union troops arrived at the plantation.  They were in bad shape after a particularly bloody battle.  The Plantations matriarch told her servants and slaves that they had a moral obligation to help the wounded no matter what side they represented then proceeded to cook food for and administer medical attention to the injured.   When this was reported to the Union General McClellan, he issued a document declaring the Shirley plantation property and its inhabitants were not to be harmed.  A less mentioned motive might have been that McClellan was a gentle soul by nature.  He had been childhood friends with and had gone through military training with Robert E Lee, and out of courtesy would have spared his childhood home..

 Lee, by the way, no longer lived at Shirley Plantation during the Civil War..  When he married G Washington’s step great granddaughter, he had moved into his wife’s plantation in Arlington VA.  When the Civil War got too close, he and his family moved inland to a second home in the Shenandoah Valley.  When the Union soldiers took Lee’s Plantation at Arlington, they were not disposed to treat it kindly.  They turned the property into a cemetery for the Union dead… This is how the land became the Arlington National Cemetery, where the USA buries all of our fallen troops and Presidents even today.