Longwood Mansion, Natchez, Mississippi
In the Mississippi city of Natchez, deep among forest trees dripping with Spanish moss, stands an unfinished “Oriental Villa” known as Longwood. Planned in 1859 for cotton-nabob Dr. Haller Nutt by Philadelphia’s fashionable architect, Samuel Sloan, this eight-sided castle was begun in 1860. Work halted abruptly in 1861, when the Confederate bugles echoed across the South. The Pennsylvanian artisans, busy on the Arabian palace, heeded Mr. Lincoln’s call-to-arms and immediately dropped saws and hammers, heading North to pick up rifles and bayonets, never to return.
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