Arlington House Restored

For years after the war, the Mansion stood an empty shell—an office for the superintendent of the cemetery and a place for his tools. By act of Congress, approved March 4, 1925, the Secretary of War was empowered to undertake the restoration of Arlington House to the condition in which it existed prior to the War Between the States and to procure for it, when possible, furniture known to have been in the Mansion, replicas of that furniture, or other pieces of a style suitable to the first half of the nineteenth century. Some of the historical originals have been returned, and for those that could not be obtained similar period pieces and a few copies have been substituted. In 1933 Arlington House was transferred from the War Department to the Department of the Interior.