Chatham Manor

Chatham Manor is the Georgian-style home completed in 1771 by William Fitzhugh, after about 3 years of construction, on the Rappahannock River in Stafford County, Virginia, opposite Fredericksburg. It was for more than a century the center of a large, thriving plantation. Flanking the main house were dozens of supporting structures: slave quarters, a dairy, ice house, barns, stables. Down on the river were fish traps.

The 1280 acre estate included an orchard, mill, and a race track where Fitzhugh's horses vied with those of other planters for prize money. Fizhugh named the mansion after the British parliamentarian William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, who championed many of the opinions held by American colonists prior to the Revolutionary War.

In January 1805, the plantation was the site of a minor slave rebellion. A number of slaves overpowered and whipped their overseer and assistants. An armed posse of white men quickly gathered to capture the slaves. They killed one slave in the attack, and two died trying to escape. The posse deported two other slaves, likely to a slave colony in the Caribbean.

Slavery at Chatham
Fitzhugh owned upwards of 100 slaves, with anywhere from 60 to 90 being used at Chatham, depending on the season. Most worked as field hands or house servants, but he also employed skilled tradesmen such as millers, carpenters, and blacksmiths. Little physical evidence remains to show where slaves lived; until recently, most knowledge of slaves at Chatham was from written records.

In 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 overpowered and whipped their overseer and four others who 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. Her will provided that her slaves would have the choice of being freed and migrating to Liberia, with passage paid for, or of remaining as slaves with any of her (Coulter's) family members they might choose.

Chatham's new owner, J. Horace Lacy, took the will to court to challenge it and had it overturned. The court denied Coulter's slaves any chance of freedom by ruling that the 1857 Dred Scott decision by the U.S. Supreme Court had declared that slaves were property, and not persons with choice.

Ellen Mitchell was the enslaved laundress at "Chatham" who knew of and counted on Mrs. Coulter's promise of manumission. When Lacy's court case took her freedom away, Mitchell was irate and loudly proclaimed how unfair this denial was. To be rid of her (and the problem she represented), Lacy sold her to a slave trader, James Ayler, in Fredericksburg.

Ellen Mitchell continued to loudly protest the unfairness of her situation. Like Lacy, Ayler was unsure what to do with Mitchell and gave her a 90-day pass to leave Fredericksburg in early 1860 on a tour during which she attempted to raise money to buy her freedom. He sent her on her way with the understanding that she would return. She gave speeches in Washington City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, raising enough money to return to Fredericskburg and buy not only her freedom but that of her children, as well. Ayler was so impressed that he also freed Mitchell's mother. The Mitchell family moved to Cincinnati in the free (i.e. slavery-prohibited) state of Ohio. In the 1860 census, Ellen Mitchell was listed as running a laundry business. Today, some of her descendants still live in that area of Ohio.

Slavery at Chatham ended in 1865 as a result of the Civil War, upon the passage of the constitutional amendment abolishing the institution.

Recent research, led largely by National Park Service historians, has revealed a sketch made by a Unionist New Jersey soldier during the Civil War that showed other buildings at the Chatham site. Historians had previously thought that most slave dwellings were likely to be in the "rear", or the field-side area of the estate. This area had been cultivated since the slave days and in the 20th century new structures were built there.

The recently discovered sketch shows structures to the south side of the manor house, in an area across a ravine away from the central area of the property. Re-examination of old photographs shows the faint rooflines of structures in that area, which may indicate the location of heretofore unconfirmed slave dwellings. More of the slave-era story at Chatham may now be discovered.

Antebellum
Fitzhugh was a friend and colleague of George Washington, whose family's farm was just down the Rappahannock River from Chatham. Washington's diaries note that he was a frequent guest at Chatham. He and Fitzhugh 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 marry the first president's step-grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. Their daughter wed the future Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Evidence supports that Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe also visited at Chatham, making a veritable "Who's Who" of important Americans who stopped in to enjoy Fitzhugh's hospitality. (A letter was recently discovered among Jefferson's papers being catalogued at Princeton University; in that 1792 note, TJ writes, "...stopped at friend Fitzhugh's in Fredericksburg..." He appeared to have been traveling between the new Capital City in Philadelphia and Monticello.) William Henry Harrison stopped by Chatham in 1841 on his way to be inaugurated as President.

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 planter, 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 in with relatives across the river in the beleaguered city of Fredericksburg. For much of the next thirteen months, Chatham would be occupied by the Union army; they referred to it as the "Lacy House" in their orders and reports, as well as diaries and letters.

Northern officers initially used the mansion 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 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 gave Chatham the distinction of being one of three houses visited by both Lincoln and Washington (the other two are Mount Vernon and Berkeley Plantation on the James River east of Richmond.) While at Chatham, Lincoln went to Fredericksburg, walked its streets, and visited a New York regiment encamped on what would become known as "Marye's Heights" during the later battle.

Seven months after Lincoln's visit to Chatham, fighting erupted at Fredericksburg. 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 on hundreds of soldiers inside the house. Assisting them were volunteers, including the 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. Years later when three additional bodies were discovered, the remains were buried at Chatham, in 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. Occasionally the men would trade newspapers and other articles 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 for fuel, exposing the underlying plaster. Some of the soldiers' pencil graffiti is still visible, with additional scrawls being deciphered by Park Service staff.

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker served 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 was changed to restrict the medal to combat veterans, the US government asked her to return hers. She refused and died with the medal in her possession. Her family continued to petition for the full restoration of the honor. 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 crossroad known as Chancellorsville. At the same time, Union troops crossed the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg and drove a Confederate force off Marye's Heights, behind the town. Many of 1,000 casualties suffered by the Union army in that 1863 engagement were sent back to Chatham which again served as a hospital.

Postwar years
By the time the Civil War ended in 1865, Chatham was desolate and severely damaged. Blood stains spotted the floors, graffiti marred its bare plaster walls and sections of the interior wood paneling had been removed for firewood. In addition to the damaged house, the grounds had suffered. The surrounding forests had been cut down for fuel, the gardens and several of the outbuildings where damaged or destroyed, and the lawn had been used as a graveyard. In 1868 the Lacys returned to their home. Unable to maintain it properly, they moved to their house known as "Ellwood" and sold Chatham in 1872.

The property had a succession of owners until the 1920s, when Daniel and Helen Devore undertook its restoration (and made significant changes). They literally saved the house. During the restoration, they re-oriented the house away from the west front on the river, as it was no longer the main transportation route; they made the east entrance the main entrance, easily reached by the automobile. They also added a large, walled English-style garden designed by the noted landscape architect Ellen Biddle Shipman on the east side. Shipman completed re-making of the estate's grounds. As a result of the DeVores' efforts, Chatham regained its place among Virginia's finest homes.

Today the house and the 85 acre of surrounding grounds are open to the public. The last private owner, John Lee Pratt, purchased the larger Chatham estate from the Devores in 1931 for $150,000 cash and used the estate as a retirement home and working farm. Chatham's distinction as a destination of note continued during his ownership. Serving as one of President Roosevelt's "dollar-a-year" men, Pratt met and had as visitors Generals George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower.

Upon Pratt's death in 1975, his will bequeathed land for parks to Stafford County and Fredericksburg, as well as a large section to the region's YMCA. This also left the manor house and approximately 30 acre surrounding it to the National Park Service, which uses it as the headquarters facility for the Fredericksburg and 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 used as offices for administrative and maintenance facilities. Additional support for the site is provided by the Friends of Chatham Manor group formed in 2012 to emphasize the need to maintain the historic building and its grounds.