Lee had just reached colonel’s rank when the Civil War broke out. He was opposed to secession, but, faithful to the traditions of State sovereignty in which he had been trained, decided that it was his duty to sacrifice all other ties and follow the fortunes of Virginia. After a painful interview with General Scott, who strove vainly to shake his resolution, he wrote, in the library across the hall from the drawing-room, his resignation of his commission in the United States army. Then, accompanied by his family, he set out for the South, never to return. In a few days the Federal troops took possession of the estate as important to the protection of Washington. Here McClellan worked out his plans for the reorganization of the Union army following the Bull Run disaster. A few years afterward, there being no one at hand to pay the war-tax laid on the land, it was sold under the hammer, and the Government bid it in. Before the sale had been definitely ordered, a Northern relative of the Lees came forward with an offer to pay the levy and costs, but the tax commissioners declined the tender on the ground that the delinquent taxpayer had not made it in person. Meanwhile, the house had been turned into a military hospital, and the patients who died there were buried close by. When it became necessary to have a soldiers’ burial-ground near Washington, Quartermaster-general Meigs was permitted to lay off two hundred acres of the estate for the purpose. This was the beginning of the National Cemetery of to-day, where about eighteen thousand soldiers and sailors have found a last resting-place. 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.