Lee Hall, completed in 1859 for Warwick County landowner Richard d. Lee, became an important Confederate headquarters during the Peninsula Campaign's Warwick-Yorktown Siege. Lee had gained prominence through Edmund Ruffin's ideas of scientific farming, which revived tobacco-depleted soil and gave him the means to build the Italianate mansion. When John Bankhead Magruder came to the Peninsula in May 1861, R.D. Lee showed him the Warwick River and how it could serve as the Confederate main line of defense. Magruder then used Lee Hall as one of his headquarters buildings during his year-long command of the self-styled Army of the Peninsula. From March through May 1862, Confederate troops occupied the site, and during the siege Gen. Joseph E. Johnston also used Lee Hall as a temporary headquarters, visiting on April 12 to inspect Magruder's fortifications and again on April 17 after returning from a conference in Richmond. On that second visit, Johnston approved John Randolph Bryan's aerial observations of the Federal siege lines, and a hot air balloon was sent up in front of the mansion to test the idea. After taking command on the Peninsula, Johnston reorganized the Confederate command structure, effectively reducing Magruder from army commander to divisional commander of the Confederate right wing from Dam No. 1 to Mulberry Island, while three other generals outranked him. Back at his re-established headquarters at Lee Hall, Magruder sulked and criticized the design and armament of the defenses he had earlier developed.
