150 Year-Old Graffiti

Graffiti taggers have existed from the time of cave dwellers forward, but I must admit I was surprised to find these initials etched into George Washington's tomb at Mount Vernon.  Still, upon reflection, it seemed fitting that as northern soldiers straggled back home at the end of the Civil War, they stopped to leave their mark and pay their respects to the one who had brought the Union into existence.  In a way, it was almost as if these soldiers were saying to Washington, "Hey, George!  We kept the Union together for you."

Washington's Tomb at Mount Vernon

Tim and I rode our bikes down to Mount Vernon again today to take a tour, describing Mount Vernon during the Civil War years.  We learned much we had not known, including the fact that if it hadn't been for the ladies of America, Mount Vernon would not have been preserved.

Sculpture of Jack, George, Martha & Patsy Washington

Despite his nickname as the Father of Our Nation, George Washington had no children of his own.  Instead, he married a young widow, Martha Dandridge Custis, and became step-father to her two young children, Jack and Patsy.  George and Martha outlived her both children who died before the Revolutionary War ended.


Upon his death in 1799 and Martha's death three years later, George's will divided his Mount Vernon plantation among several brothers, cousins and nephews.  Washington's family, however, found living there more of a curse than a boon, for they had to play host to the hordes of travelers who wanted to visit the home of our first president.  The house changed hands five times within the Washington family before John Augustine Washington III, George's great-grandnephew, became its owner in 1829. 

Later, when John Washington found that he could not make a profit out of the plantation's depleted lands, he tried to give Mount Vernon away.  First, he pitched the plantation to the U.S. government and when they turned it down, he made a trip to Richmond to ask the Virginia legislature to take on its care, but once again lawmakers were not interested.  That's when Miss Ann Pamela Cunningham entered its story.

"If the men of America are allowing the home and burial place of its most respected hero to go to ruin, why can’t the women of America band together to save it?"

-- Ann Pamela Cunningham

With those words, the Mount Vernon Ladies Association was born.  Miss Ann Pamela Cunningham had suffered a fall in her youth while riding horseback that turned her into a lifelong invalid. Yet, when her mother returned home to South Carolina after visiting Ann Pamela in Philadelphia and described the shabbiness of George Washington's home as seen on her Potomac River boat trip south, Miss Cunningham made it her mission to see the mansion restored. She wrote letters to the country's newspapers, urging American women to contribute funds to purchase the home so it could be preserved for future generations.  Donations began to pour into her coiffers, but before she could pay John Washington off, the Civil War interferred.

"If Abraham Lincoln had ordered any of his many commanding generals to lead the Army of the Potomac in a straight line from the District of Columbia to the Confederate capital of Richmond," wrote Ernest B. Furgurson in his introduction to Dorothy Troth Muir's book, Mount Vernon: The Civil War Years,  "his troops would have had to march directly across George Washington's plantation at Mount Vernon. Between April 1861 and April 1865, the Union army did everything but that."

One of the first decisions Ann Pamela Cunningham made was to hire Sarah C. Tracy to act as her secretary.  Miss Tracy moved into Mount Vernon to begin refurbishing it, even before the final payments were made to John Washington.  Miss Tracy's job was not an easy one, especially when the first battles of the Civil War began to rage all around Mount Vernon's boundaries.  As caretaker, she must have heard the boom of nearby cannons and worried how soon soldiers from either side would arrive to seize Mount Vernon's commanding location upon the Potomac River.  At one point Miss Tracy wrote Miss Cunningham, "I have found the troubles of today so absorbing as to annihilate those of yesterday, and those of tomorrow too far off to command attention." 
 
Yet, both the Union and Confederate soldiers treated Mount Vernon as an almost sacred place. Neither army ever set foot upon its premises during the war.  Still, Miss Tracy found travel difficult.  When General George B. McClellan assumed command of federal troops, he would not honor the pass, given to her by General Winfield Scott.  So, Miss Tracy made a trip to Washington to plead her case directly to President Abraham Lincoln.  The president received Miss Tracy at the White House and immediately ordered General McClellan to allow her right of passage. 

Meanwhile, the donations given to purchase Mount Vernon had been deposited in Burke & Herbert's Bank in Alexandria.  When Alexandria was taken by federal troops, an order to confiscate this money was issued and a Northern officer arrived at the bank, only to be told that the money was no longer there.  Mr. Burke had secretly taken the funds home and placed them underneath a floorboard in the hallway.  Acting upon his suspicions, the officer, along with a small detachment of soldiers, soon arrived at the Burke home, but despite their numerous treads upon that floorboard during their search, the hiding place remained safe.

The next day Miss Tracy made a routine trip to Alexandria to sell farm produce and eggs.  She stopped at the Burke home to pay a call and learned of the previous day's search.  Taking her egg basket, she removed its eggs to lay the money in the bottom, covered it with a cloth, replaced the eggs on top and left the Burkes to drive through the federally-occupied streets of Alexandria and on to the city of Washington.  There she drove directly to Riggs' bank, rented a safety deposit box and left the funds there for the duration of the war. 

Sadly, John Washington had joined General Robert E. Lee's staff and was killed in battle near Cheat Mountain, Virginia in the fall of 1861.  He never received the final payment for Mount Vernon which was dispursed to his heirs after the war.

Despite Miss Tracy's trials, Mount Vernon itself was an island of neutrality in the midst of the bloody Civil War.  Undoubtedly, this ground remained neutral due to the deep respect men from both sides of that conflict held for the Father of Our Nation, George Washington. 

J. L. (Joshua Lawrence) Chamberlain's name inscribed on Washington's tomb.

However, that respect did not refrain them from tagging Washington's grave.