R.E. Lee Camp Hall

Here follows an excerpt from the City of Alexandria website:

Prince Street Hospital
Prince Street Hospital was a private residence before the war. In 1884 became the hall of the Robert E. Lee Camp of Confederate Veterans, and it is now a museum.

History of the Prince Street Hospital
806 Prince Street

This was originally a private residence, built in the 1850s by Rev. James T. Johnston who was the rector of St. Paul’s Church. Johnson, like many other Alexandrians, moved to Richmond during the war. From March, 1862, to Sept. 20, 1862, this hospital was a branch of the General Hospital (Mansion House). It then became a branch of the 2nd Division General Hospital (Alexandria), together with the Fowle house on the opposite sides of Prince St. (Source: Civil War DC Website from National Archives data.)

An article in the Alexandria Gazette, May 20, 1864 (reprinted in The Alexandria Chronicle), described the Prince Street Hospital and a nearby garden used by the soldiers:

The house is commodious, and, for a confiscated dwelling, is very fine.... Almost opposite this Prince-street Hospital lies a mansion and garden, which, if we understood our informant right, belongs to a relative of the late owner of the Johnston House. The garden is a beautiful and spacious garden, affording a delightful place of repose to those who have tasted the dangers and distress of the battlefields and have experienced all the unutterable pangs that even under the most favorable circumstances beset hospital life.
“The U.S. Hospitals in Alexandria.” Alexandria Chronicle, The Alexandria Historical Society, Spring 1995, pp. 23-24.

In 1884, the building became the hall of the Robert E. Lee Camp of Confederate Veterans, and it is now the Robert E. Lee Camp Hall Museum.

Location and the Site Today
The hospital, at 806 Prince Street, is now the Robert E. Lee Camp Hall Museum, operated by the Mary Custis Lee – 17th Virginia Regiment Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.


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Here follows an excerpt from the City of Alexandria website:

R.E. Lee Camp Hall
Alexandria Times, January 13, 2010

The R.E. Lee Camp Hall at 806 Prince St., a classic Greek Revival with Italianate influences, was built as a residence in 1852. During the Civil War, Union troops seized it and converted it to a hospital. On July 20, 1864, a soldier being treated there fell out of a third floor window and suffered fatal injuries when he struck the iron railing below.

Several years after the war, it became the hall of R.E. Lee Camp Confederate Veterans, established in 1884 and named in honor of Robert E. Lee. Lee, born January 19, 1807, at Stratford Hall, had grown up in Alexandria and studied under teacher Benjamin Hallowell before going to West Point. Lee wrote fondly of Alexandria in 1870, “There is no community to which my affections more strongly cling than that of Alexandria, composed of my earliest and oldest friends, my kind school fellows and faithful neighbors.”

Among those friends and neighbors were men who had served in the 17th Virginia Regiment and founded the R.E. Lee Camp. The R.E. Lee Camp acquired the home at 806 Prince Street as their hall in 1903, and on Confederate Memorial Day in 1906, they posed in front of it for this photo.

Today the Mary Custis Lee-17th Virginia Regiment Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy owns and operates the R.E. Lee Camp Hall museum there. The museum is open to the public on selected days and holds many artifacts connected to Lee and his family. Collection items include his campaign chair, a wooden director’s-style chair presented to the Camp by his son George Washington Custis Lee, a cobalt blue finger bowl from Arlington House once confiscated by the federal government and placed in the National Museum before being returned to Lee’s son and a set of stirrups donated by Lee’s daughter Mary Custis Lee with her letter stating J.E.B. Stuart had given them to her.

Out of the Attic” is published each week in the Alexandria Times newspaper. The column began in September 2007 as “Marking Time” and explored Alexandria’s history through collection items, historical images and architectural representations. Within the first year, it evolved into “Out of the Attic” and featured historical photographs of Alexandria.

These articles appear with the permission of the Alexandria Times and were authored by Amy Bertsch, former Public Information Officer, and Lance Mallamo, Director, on behalf of the Office of Historic Alexandria.