owned by washington's grandson, george washington custis. in many ways this has to be looked at as our nation's first washington monument, the first memorial built to honor any president. the first structure of any kind built to honor a man like that. this house had a fame to itself apart from robert e. lee. lee married into the family, became part of the washington family. when the coming of the civil war happened and lee was put in a very painful and difficult place to which he had to choose sides, president lincoln wanted him to commit federal troops. it was offered to him. he could not fight a war against virginia, his native state. his home and family, as he characterized it. he was caught in this terrible dilemma. ultimately his choice would have a massive impact on the course of the civil war in american history that would follow. it would also lead to the u.s. government taking this home, this plantation away from his family to punish him and creating arlington national cemetery as both a place to honor the dead, but also a form of r

the back hall was george washington custis' hunting home. as a true gentleman of the day his two favorite pastimes were , horse racing and hunting. but he was also a great artist. when i say a great artist, perhaps not a fine artist, but a passionate artist. he devoted his life to creative pursuits. he wrote and produced musical plays with american themes and was a pioneer in the idea of creating an american form of theater. but he was a painter and an amateur. he loved to paint. he painted images of hunts and hounds chasing game. but his favorite subject by far was his stepgrandfather george washington. and painting great images of the american revolution which we will see in one of the other rooms. as we step through this doorway , we are stepping into a room called the white parlor. this was one of the last rooms of the house that was actually finished. it was largely decorated according to robert e. lee's tastes. in fact he wrote letters to his , wife in the mid-1850's in which he described how he wanted the room to be painted white. bot

and mary custis, his future wife, was just 2 1/2. so we like to think this might have been the room they first met as children, as young children. there is a story and family tradition that suggests they were childhood sweethearts growing up. that as teenagers they became romantic, but he suffered a number of tragedies in his early life. his father died when he was quite young, his mother died right after he graduated from west point. he didn't inherit wealth. he didn't inherit property, and so he had in many ways to take life very seriously from a young age and devote himself to a career in the army. and so he went to west point, graduated second in his class, but following that, he turned his attention once again to ms. mary custis here at arlington and courted her and married her and became a part of this family. now, this room then in many ways, perhaps, is the best room that symbolizes how he was connected to this place, almost his entire life, arlington meant something important to robert e. lee. and almost all of it revolved a

mary custis, his future wife, was 2 1/2.o we like to think that this might have been the room when they first met. as children, as young children. there is a story and family tradition that suggest they were childhood sweethearts growing up. that as teenagers, they became romantic. but he suffered a number of tragedies in his early life. his father died when he was quite young. his mother died right after he graduated from west point. he didn't inherit wealth, property. and so he had in many ways to take life very seriously from a young age. and devote himself to a career in the army. and so he went to west point, graduated second in his class. but following that, he turned his attention once again to miss mary custis at arlington and courted her and married her and became a part of this family. now this room then in many ways perhaps is the best room that symbolizes how he was connected to this place. almost his entire life. arlington meant something important to robert e. lee. almost all of it revolved around the relations

george washington parke custis innocence -- in essence had two daughters. one was white. was enslaved. both great granddaughters of martha washington. onwhat's the entire program american history tv sunday at 6 p.m. eastern, only on c-span3. isamerican history tv featuring natural and historic sites throughout the country visited by our c-span cities tour staff. this is american history tv, only on c-span3. >> so, we are at promontory summit, utah. i am walking you over to where the transcontinental railroad was completed. this spot right here marked by tie, is within inches of where the original ceremony was held. included on this is a plaque that lists the dignitaries from this company. the big are all marked there. four another thing that you can see at the site is a connection with resources that would have been available to the two companies building the railroad. we have tried to make it as authentic as possible. if you look to the west, you will see precut ties. they had sawmills and brought them down from the mountain. whereas the union pacific, coming from the ea

and they were basically kicked off the land and it became part of, it was returned to the custis estate and became part of arlington national cemetery so now where friedmans village stood before is now part of arlington national cemetery. now one of the things i have discovered since i gave that talk, one of the churches that was on friedmans village was called the old l. church and i was doing one of these talks about friedmans village and i had this lady come up to me afterwards and say you know my church has that bill. that l. move from freedman's village into alexander counties of that church, so some of the people who lived in freedman's village they moved across the potomac and down and they are still in these areas. i hear from them every now and then when i'm giving talks about washington history. someone says you know my great great grandfather lived in freedman's village so the people that are still here but there is no trace of the city left in irvington national cemetery. c-span: you told us in the book he started thinking about this in 2008 and he say in the book you showed

she's no longer in custy. also i thencident reportne young man sd to the police that the hels victim said thim, were going to kill me. in deland, fox 13 news. >>> all right. let's get back to this area now. love it or hate it the trop is iconic in its o ght. that's for sure. no that theay are sppg arou f a >>e'reifferent by design.ike t that's why ourt ballpark needs to be just ke us. >> well, the rays just debuted a newwebsi ballparkreimagined.com. that's whereou can go on and share ideas. they can't lea until 2018 shths the deadline for a master plan is set for the end of september. to look around and, of course, we're not sure what's going to happen. i know they've been doing focus groups and talking to seasoned ticket holders and people that are serious rays fans. now they'll ask the public what they think. i think that's good. >> it's very exciting. a day at the ballpark is hard to beat, wut r but at the right one with an exciting venue, that makes it even better. >> with air-conditioning in florida, righ

. >> the custis lee mansion was known as until it was changed after your visit to arlington house, the robert e. lee memorial. >> next up is jean in wyoming. >> caller: hello. please go ahead. hello. >> we're listening. what's your question? >> caller: i have a couple of questions. the one question is, why do you not -- why do you not advertise more often about your events and stuff coming along? >> okay. you have another question? >> caller: yes. the other question is, i am actually a volunteer from for the laramie. i was there -- >> you know what? we're getting feedback on your call. we will take your first one. why doesn't the park service advertise more frequently? >> hopefully, we're doing a better job of doing that. it's difficult for us to take out time on media to be able to put things out there. we do our best. we rely -- not exclusively but a lot on social media, try to get people to love the park -- a lot of the sites have facebook pages or twitter accounts. we do -- we work with our local media. we certainly have, i would say, around the centennial, done a huge push both in

jackie custis when he dies of typhoid. an estate inventory was done there. i could balance that against the washington collection to make sure what was his, because he lived here at one point own what was his stepfather's. and then i had the inventory that was done in 1799, that's also a good one. and then to get further at this, to use as a guide, i had the auction catalogs from when the washington library went up for sale around the time of the civil war when the family -- when the descendants went bankrupt. because when those books went for auction, anything to do with washington was worth money. but anything with his signature, his handwriting was worth that much more. and people even then were pretty good at picking out the fakes. the fake book plates, and so it was in everybody's interest to make sure that this was right and so the auction catalog shows which specific volumes had signatures in them, which had marginal notes in them, which had other people's signatures in them, any sort of other notes that may have come with the book if the book was giv

george washington parke custis innocence -- in essence had two daughters. one was white.as enslaved. both great granddaughters of martha washington. onwhat's the entire program american history tv sunday at 6 p.m. eastern, only on c-span3. >> american history tv