When, in 1865, General Lee was urged to prolong the conflict by guerilla warfare, he said: "No, that would not do. It must be remembered that we are Christian people. We have fought the fight as long and as well as we know how. We have been defeated. For us as a Christian people there is but one course to pursue. We must accept the situation. These men must go home and plant a crop, and we must proceed to build up our country on a new basis." But he could not return to Arlington. The government had taken possession of the estate for a National Cemetery. For a time he lived in obscurity on a little farm. Then he became President of Washington College, later Washington and Lee University. With his family he lived on the campus at Lexington, Virginia, and there he died, October 12, 1870. In the meantime the National Cemetery at Arlington was becoming a pilgrimage point for patriotic Americans. The slopes of the beautiful lawn were covered with graves. The stately white mansion, with its eight great pillars and its walls of stucco seemed a fitting background for the ranks of little white tombstones. For years the title to the property was in dispute. In 1864 the United States bought it for $26,800, when it was sold at auction for delinquent taxes. In 1882 the Supreme Court decided that G. W. C. Lee, son of General Lee, was entitled to the property, and the following year the government paid him $150,000 for eleven hundred acres, including the mansion. [Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH, ALEXANDRIA, VA. Photo by H. P. Cook See page 249] LIV CHRIST CHURCH, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA WHERE WASHINGTON HAD A PEW "AT THE UPPER PART OF THE CHURCH" George Washington was chosen one of the vestrymen of Fairfax parish in 1764, when this was formed by the division of Truro parish, although he was already a vestryman in Pohick Church at Truro. The records of the new parish show that in 1766 it was decided to build Christ Church at Alexandria, and a second church at the Falls of the Potomac instead of the old church there. The members of the parish were asked to pay thirty-one thousand pounds of tobacco for the purpose of construction. James Wren, the architect of Christ Church, is said to have been a descendant of Sir Christopher Wren. While the building was well designed, no one ever thought of it as a masterpiece. But it has answered the purposes of the worshipper for more than a century and a half, and it promises to last at least a hundred and fifty years more. The original contract called for the expenditure of L600. Colonel John Carlisle, who was bondsman for the contractor, James Parsons, in 1772, agreed to complete the building on payment of L220 additional, since Parsons failed to fulfil his agreement. The church was built of brick, and was sixty by fifty feet long. The work was carefully done, but the structure was ready for the vestry to take possession early in 1773.