Chatham Manor

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Chatham Manor is the Georgian-style home built in 1768-71 by William Fitzhugh on the Rappahannock River in Stafford County, Virginia opposite Fredericksburg and was for many years the center of a large, thriving plantation. Flanking the main house were dozens of supporting structures: a dairy, ice house, barns, stables. Down on the river was a fish hatchery, while elsewhere on the 1,280 acre estate were an orchard, mill, and a race track, where Fitzhugh's horses vied with those of other planters for prize money. The house was named after British parliamentarian,William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham, who championed many of the opinions held by American colonists prior to the Revolutionary War.

1 Slavery at Chatham
2 Antebellum
3 The Civil War
4 Postwar years
5 Gallery
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Slavery at Chatham

Fizhugh owned upwards of one hundred slaves. Most worked as field hands or house servants, but he also employed skilled tradesmen such as millers, carpenters, and blacksmiths.

January 1805, a number of Fitzhugh's slaves rebelled after an overseer ordered slaves back to work at what they considered was too short an interval after the Christmas holidays. The slaves involved overpowered and whipped their overseer and four others who had tried to make them return to work. An armed posse put down the rebellion and punished those involved. One black man was executed, two died while trying to escape, and two others were deported, perhaps to a slave colony in the Caribbean.

A later owner of Chatham, Hannah Coulter, who acquired the plantation in the 1850s, tried to free her slaves through her will upon her death, a rare event for ante-bellum Virginia. She stated that, upon her death, her slaves would have the choice of being freed (and have their passage to Liberia paid for) or remaining as a slave for the new owner of Chatham. That new owner, J. Horace Lacy, took the will to court and had it overturned. The laws of the day, affirmed through the 1857 Dred Scott Decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, had declared that slaves were property -- without choice -- and not persons with choice. Thus, Chatham's slaves remained so. Naturally, the slave story at Chatham ended in 1865 with end of the Civil War and the passage of the Constitutional Amendment abolishing the institution.

[edit] Antebellum

Chatham's builder, Fitzhugh was a friend and colleague of George Washington whose family's farm was just down the Rappahannock River from Chatham. Washington's diaries affirm that he was a frequent guest at Chatham. They had served together in the House of Burgesses prior to the American Revolution, and they shared a love of farming and horses. Fitzhugh's daughter, Mary Lee, would later marry the first president's step-grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, whose daughter in turn wed the future Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Evidence supports that Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe were there, as well, beginning a veritable "Who's Who" of important Americans who stopped in to sample Fitzhugh's hosptality. His feasts were legendary and even included caviar from the sturgeon (in the Rappannock at the time and until the 1930s) he trapped in what essentially was a "caviar factory" on his river frontage.

Major Churchill Jones, a former officer in the Continental Army, purchased the plantation in 1806 for 20,000 dollars. His family would own the property for the next 66 years.

William Henry Harrison stopped by Chatham in 1841 on his way to be inaugurated as President.

[edit] The Civil War

The Civil War brought change and destruction to Chatham. At the time the house was owned by James Horace Lacy {1823-1906}, a former schoolteacher who had married Churchill Jones's niece. As a plantation owner and slaveholder, Lacy sympathized with the South, and at the age of 37 he left Chatham to serve the Confederacy as a staff officer. His wife and children remained at the house until the spring of 1862, when the arrival of Union troops forced them to abandon the building and move across the river. For much of the next thirteen months, Chatham would be occupied by the Union army who would refer to the manson as the "Lacy House" in their orders and reports as well as diaries and letters.

Northern officers initially utilized the building as a headquarters. In April 1862, General Irvin McDowell brought 30,000 men to Fredericksburg. From his Chatham headquarters, the general supervised the repair of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad and the construction of several bridges across the Rappahannock River. Once that work was complete, McDowell planned to march south and join forces with the Army of the Potomac outside of Richmond. President Abraham Lincoln journeyed to Fredericksburg to confer with McDowell about the movement, meeting with the general and his staff at Chatham. His visit gives Chatham the distinction of being just one of three houses visited by both Lincoln and Washington (the other two are Mount Vernon and Berkeley Plantation).

Seven months after Lincoln's visit, fighting erupted at Fredericksburg itself. In November 1862, General Ambrose E. Burnside brought the 120,000-man Army of the Potomac to Fredericksburg, using pontoon bridges, Burnside crossed the Rappahannock River below Chatham, seized Fredericksburg, and launched a series of bloody assaults against Lee's Confederates, who held the high ground behind the town. One of Burnside's top generals, Edwin Sumner, observed the battle from Chatham, while Union artillery batteries shelled the Confederates from adjacent bluffs.

Fredericksburg was a disastrous Union defeat. Burnside suffered 12,600 casualties in the battle, many of whom were brought back to Chatham for care. For several days army surgeons operated tirelessly on hundreds of soldiers inside the house. Assisting them were volunteers, including poet Walt Whitman and Clara Barton who later founded the American chapter of the International Red Cross.

Whitman came to Chatham searching for a brother who was wounded in the fighting. He was shocked by the carnage. Outside the house, at the foot of a tree, he noticed "a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, etc.-about a load for a one-horse cart. Several dead bodies lie near", he added, "each covered with its brown woolen blanket." In all, more than 130 Union soldiers died at Chatham and were buried on the grounds. After the war, their bodies were removed to the Fredericksburg National Cemetery. Three additional bodies were discovered years later. They remain at Chatham, their graves marked by granite stones lying flush to the ground.

In the winter following the battle, the Union army camped in Stafford County, behind Chatham. The Confederate army occupied Spotsylvania County, across the river. Opposing pickets patrolled the riverfront, keeping a wary eye on their foe and occasionally trading newspapers and other articles with them by means of miniature sailboats. When not on duty, Union pickets slept at Chatham, Dorothea Dix of the United States Sanitary Commission operated a soup kitchen in the house. As the winter progressed and firewood became scarce, some soldiers tore paneling from the walls.

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker has also been associated with serving the wounded at Chatham. Walker was awarded the Medal of Honor, the only woman from the Civil War to be so recognized for her meritorious service to the wounded during several battles. When the law for the Medal of Honor changed to restrict the medal to combat veterans, she refused to return the medal and died with it still in her possession. Her family continued to petition for its restoration and, in 1977, then President Jimmy Carter, signed the Congressional bill into law that restored Dr. Walker's medal.

Military activity resumed in the spring. In April, the new Union commander, General Joseph Hooker, led most of the army upriver, crossing behind Lee's troops. Other portions remained in Stafford County including John Gibbons' division at Chatham. The Confederates marched out to meet Hooker's main force and for a week fighting raged around a country cross-road known as Chancellorsville. At the same time, Union troops crossed the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg and drove a Confederate force off of Marye's Heights, behind the town. Many of 1,000 casualties suffered by the Union army in that engagement were sent back to Chatham.

[edit] Postwar years

By the time the Civil War ended in 1865, Chatham was desolate. Blood stains spotted the floors; graffiti marred its bare plaster walls. Outside the destruction was just as severe. The surrounding forests had been cut down for fuel; and the lawn had become a graveyard. Although the Lacy's returned to their home, they were unable to maintain it properly. They moved to another house they owned called "Ellwood"^[1] and sold Chatham in 1872. The property languished under a succession of owners until the 1920s when Daniel and Helen Devore undertook its restoration (and made significant changes). Their efforts can probably be credited with literally saving the house. In addition to the restoration, the DeVore's re-oriented the house away from the river / West front and made the East entrance the main entrance. They also added a large, walled English-style garden on the East and as a result of their efforts, Chatham has regained its place among Virginia's finest homes.

Today the house and 85 surrounding acres are open to the public thanks to the generosity of Chatham's last owner, industrialist John Lee Pratt. Mr. Pratt purchased Chatham from the Devores in 1931 for $150,000 cash. Chatham's distinction as a destination of note for important people continued during his ownership. Visitors whom Pratt met during his tenure as one of President Roosevelt's "Dollar-a-Year" men included Gen. George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower. Upon Pratt's death in 1975, he willed additional land for parks to Stafford County and Fredericksburg as well as a large section to the region's YMCA. He gave the manor house and approximately 30 surrounding acres to the National Park Service which uses it as the Headquarters facility for the Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania National Military Park. Five of the rooms are open as a museum facility and the grounds are open to the public; the remainder of the house and outbuildings are offices and support facilities.