Robert E. Lee's wife suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and this became increasingly debilitating with advancing age. By 1861, she was using a wheelchair. Early in the War, Mrs. Lee and her daughters left Arlington House and she was staying at her son Rooney's plantation in New Kent County at White House when Union troops under General George B. McClellan took White House Landing as a supply base during the Peninsula Campaign in 1862, a failed attempt to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. General McClellan made arrangements for Mrs. Lee's safe passage through the Union lines, and she relocated to Richmond, where she resided at 707 E. Franklin Street (in a still-extant house) for the duration of the War.
