Mary Custis Lee, granddaughter of Martha Washington and wife of Robert E. Lee, exercised an intense faith that won her husband to Christ, overcame chronic illness, and survived the confiscation of her home.

Mrs. Lee’s Rose Garden is an intimate retelling of Arlington National Cemetery’s tragic beginnings, and sheds new light on this profound chapter in American history. Mrs. Lee’s Rose Garden is the intensely personal story of Arlington National Cemetery’s earliest history as seen through the lives of three people during the outbreak of the Civil War: Mary Ann Randolph Custis Lee, Robert E. Lee, and Montgomery C. Meigs. With all the majesty and pathos of a Greek tragedy, this story unfolds as the war's inevitable spiral of betrayal, tragedy, loss, and death begins, ultimately transforming the nation’s most famous country estate into its most sacred ground. In the years before the war, the Arlington estate sat like an American Acropolis towering above Washington. Mary Custis Lee was known as the Rose of Arlington, a brash, young, willful, and charming young woman, indulged by her famous father, George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of George Washington. Artistic, well read, and highly intelligent, she was an avid gardener who spent as much time as possible tending the numerous flowerbeds of the Arlington Mansion, along with her mother and her three daughters. Handsome and dashing, Robert E. Lee was easily the most promising soldier of his generation. But long before he was a field commander he was also a great success in the Army Corps of Engineers, having worked on major projects around the U.S. His friend, Montgomery C. Meigs, who had served under Robert, was a scion of Philadelphia society, and rose to become the engineer responsible for helping to complete the capital, and one of the most accomplished builders of his generation. When the time for war arose, Lee refused the opportunity to head the Union Army. He could not draw his sword against his own state, his own people, and instead accepted a commission in the Confederate Army, pitting himself against many of his old comrades. Thus began a series of events that would ultimately pit these three against each other.

A biography of the wife of General Robert E. Lee who lived near Washington, D.C., and was considered one of the best hostesses of her day.

A general’s wife and a slave girl forge a friendship that transcends race, culture, and the crucible of Civil War. Mary Anna Custis Lee is a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, wife of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and heiress to Virginia’s storied Arlington house and General Washington’s personal belongings. Born in bondage at Arlington, Selina Norris Gray learns to read and write in the schoolroom Mary and her mother keep for the slave children and eventually becomes Mary’s housekeeper and confidante. As Mary’s health declines, Selina becomes her personal maid, strengthening a bond that lasts until death parts them. Forced to flee Arlington at the start of the Civil War, Mary entrusts the keys to her beloved home to no one but Selina. When Union troops begin looting the house, it is Selina who confronts their commander and saves many of its historic treasures. In a story spanning crude slave quarters, sunny schoolrooms, stately wedding parlors, and cramped birthing rooms, novelist Dorothy Love amplifies the astonishing true-life account of an extraordinary alliance and casts fresh light on the tumultuous years leading up to and through the wrenching battle for a nation’s soul. A classic American tale, Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Gray is the first novel to chronicle this beautiful fifty-year friendship forged at the crossroads of America’s journey from enslavement to emancipation.

Mary Custis Lee, grandaughter of George Washington and wife of Robert E. Lee, exercised an intense faith that won her husband to Christ, overcame chronic illness, and survived the confiscation of the home she loved.

Based on Mrs. Lee's personal notebook and presented by her great-granddaughter, this charming book is a treasury of recipes, remedies, and household history. Both the original and modern versions of 70 recipes are included.