p the duties of life and
citizenship anew. He had made himself famous as a soldier; he now began
in earnest to cultivate the arts of peace. It was no easy task, for the
era of reconstruction immediately succeeded the war, and only those who
were actually under its ban can realize the burdens and hardships it
entailed upon an unfortunate people emerging from a disastrous
conflict.

He rebuilt and reestablished his home at the White House plantation. He
was married November 27, 1867, to Miss Mary Tabb, daughter of Hon.
George W. Bolling, of Petersburg. In 1874 the family removed to
Ravensworth, in Fairfax County.

At both these places he cultivated his broad acres and interested
himself in all matters relating to agricultural progress and
development. He advanced and promoted these interests as president of
the Virginia State Agricultural Society. He represented his county for a
term in the State senate, but declined a reelection, and returned to his
plantation and the enjoyment of home life. After a few years of quiet he
was called, in 1886, to a new field of activity by neighbors and
political friends, who desired his services at the national capital, and
he became the Representative from the Alexandria district in the
Fiftieth Congress, and he was in his third term, when, on the 15th day
of October, 1891, the hand of death removed him from his career of
usefulness. For weeks his strong constitution and vigorous frame had
resisted disease in his Ravensworth home. All that kindness and skill
could suggest was done in his behalf, but skill and kindness were of no
avail, and he bade adieu to home and family, companions and associates,
earthly duties and surroundings, and entered upon his eternal rest. His
mortal life was closed.

I well remember a day spent in his company nearly four years ago, and
its occurrences gave me an opportunity to witness the regard in which he
was held by those among whom he had lived and to whom he was best known.
It was on Decoration Day, in a section of country where he had seen
service as a soldier, not far from where he had lived in his early
childhood. He was the orator of the occasion. Many of his old
companions in arms and members of their families were among his
audience, and they listened eagerly as he made appropriate reference to
the departed comrades who slept under the little hillocks near by them,
bright and fragrant with the flowers of early summer, which the loving
hands of w