George Washington’s mausoleum, built more than thirty years after his death, had already fallen into disrepair by the time George Virtue’s American Scenery was published in 1840. Lamenting the rapid pace of American life, commentator Nathaniel Parker Willis wrote, “The monuments are left unfinished on our battle-fields; the tombs of great men become indistinguishable before marked with a stone; and the sacred places where patriotism has dwelt, are… left to decay. It is difficult to visit Mount Vernon, and feel, from any mark of care or respect visible about it, that America owes anything to the sacred ashes it entombs.” Willis’s text helped stimulate interest in the site De Grailly depicted. On the eve of Civil War, the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union purchased Mount Vernon. The tomb’s restoration began the following year.