The Gordon - Lee Mansion

James Gordon first lived in an old Cherokee log house in the Fort Field and, after seven years of work, completed a splendid mansion there in 1847. He later partnered with James Lee to establish Lee and Gordon's Mills, and Lee married Gordon's daughter Elizabeth. Above Crawfish Springs, one of the first Confederate units that became Company D. in the 1st Georgia Infantry Regiment was organized, and James Clark Gordon, James Gordon's son, was elected its captain and accepted command while standing on a large rock that still remains near the drive to the house. After James Gordon's health failed and he died in the winter of 1863, Elizabeth Lee returned with her children to be with her mother. On the morning of September 16, 1863, Federal General William S. Rosecrans took over the Gordon mansion as his headquarters, forcing Sarah Gordon, the fifty-seven-year-old widow of James Gordon, her daughter, and the grandchildren into one of the brick slave houses; when the battle began, Rosecrans moved north to the Widow Glenn House. During the fighting, four-year-old Gordon Lee, the son of James and Elizabeth Lee, stayed at the house with his mother and grandmother and became a favorite with the federal soldiers there, later joking that he had been in the Union lines at the beginning of the Battle of Chickamauga and in the Confederate lines at the end because he stayed where he was when the Confederates advanced. In later life, Gordon Lee became a congressman, added the large columns to the front of the mansion, helped make plans on these grounds that led to the creation of the Chickamauga Chattanooga National Military Park, joined John T. Wilder in establishing local coke ovens to serve the Durham Mines on Lookout Mountain, and helped form the Crawfish Springs Land Company, which sold the lots that became the City of Chickamauga. After the last family members, two elderly women, died in the house, the local school system took ownership; the city considered demolishing it, but Dr. Frank Green bought and completely restored it in 1975, sold it to the City of Chickamauga in 2007, and the house and grounds, together with the restored Gordon Lee Mills, now form a centerpiece of local historic tourism.

Chickamauga, Georgia · United States