The Story of Arlington Cemetery

By Joe Warnke

Arlington was the name of General Robert E. Lee’s house. Mrs. Mary Custis Lee had inherited Arlington from her father, George Washington Parke Custis. He was the grandson of Martha Washington and the adopted son of George Washington. Because Mrs. Lee was a direct descendant of Martha Washington, she inherited all the belongings of General Washington that were in her father’s possession, in addition to Arlington itself.

After General Lee took command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, he and Mrs. Lee left Arlington on April 22, 1861. Arlington House was soon captured by U.S. forces, who built Fort Whipple (later renamed Fort Myer) on the property. Union General McClellan removed all the articles of Washington and used Arlington as a military headquarters.

In 1862, Mrs. Lee attempted to pay the U.S. federal government $92.07 in taxes on the Arlington estate by sending the money through someone else. Because she did not cross enemy lines to appear in person, U.S. federal government officially confiscated the property under the “Act for the Collection of Direct Taxes in the Insurrectionary Districts within the United States,” which was passed by Congress.

Back in 1837, Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, when he assisted Lieutenant Robert E. Lee (U.S. Army Corp of Engineers) in some engineering work on the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri, said of Lee, “He was a model of a soldier and the beau-ideal of a Christian.” [3] When the War Between the States, Lee remained loyal to his State, volunteering to serve Virginia. Meigs, however, stayed in the U.S. Army. With the dead increasing due to General Grant’s incredibly bloody campaigns of 1864, the U.S. Quartermaster General, none other than the now Major General Meigs, suggested Lee’s land as a burial site.

The first person buried on Lee’s land was U.S. Private William Christman, of Company G, 67th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Private Christman was not a battle causality. He never saw action. He died in a hospital near Washington, D.C. and was buried on May 13, 1864. It wasn’t until June 15, 1864 that U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton signed the order officially making the Arlington estate a cemetery. Private Christman was not only was buried in Lee’s yard, but in Mrs. Lee’s rose garden, right near the house’s back door. Meigs did this deliberately so Arlington House could never again be used as a residence. Meigs did this out of a great dislike of Lee, because Lee stayed loyal to his State upon the outbreak of the war. Ironically, Meigs was from Georgia.

More than 16,000 Union soldiers were buried at Arlington. Hundreds of Confederate POW’s, who died in Yankee custody after the end of the war, were buried at Arlington as well. Many of the Confederates were later removed and reinterred in their home states, leaving 409 still buried in Arlington. After the war, a freedmen’s village was started on the Arlington estate. When the cemetery eventually crowded the village out, the graves of 3,800 former slaves were left behind.

In the 1870’s, after the death of General and Mrs. Lee, Lee's son, George Washington Custis Lee, sued the U.S. federal government for ownership of the family estate on the basis of a pre-war will. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. federal government had trespassed and should restore the estate to its former condition, which would mean the removal of thousands of graves. George Lee agreed to sell the property to the U.S. federal government for $150,000, which was appropriated by Congress in 1883. The U.S. federal government never returned the belongings of General Washington that were taken during the war.

General and Mrs. Lee never returned to the plantation. They are both buried in Lexington, Va., in Washington and Lee University's Lee Chapel.

Thus, you have the genesis of Arlington National Cemetery, “the nation's most hallowed military burial ground.” It was established out of a long saga of taxes, seizure and thief, hostility and hatred, lawsuits and litigation, during the bloodiest, saddest, and darkest era in American history.

“Of the United States’ 114 national cemeteries, only Arlington is administered by the Department of the Army. All the rest fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Arlington contains the remains of 240,000 dead. It also contains several monuments, including the Tomb of the Unknowns and the Tomb of the Unknown Dead from the Civil War, the latter a granite tomb that holds the remains of 2,111 Civil War soldiers. There are also monuments honoring women in the military, the victims of the failed Iran rescue mission, the slain Kennedy brothers, the victims of the space shuttle Challenger mission, the Rough Riders, and the victims of the USS Maine (its mast was salvaged from Havana harbor and brought to Arlington).” [4]

Only two Confederate generals are buried in Arlington, General Joseph Wheeler and General Marcus Joseph Wright.

Sources:

1. Life and Letters of Gen. Robert Edward Lee, by Dr. J. W. Jones, 1906.

2. The Confederate Challenge, by John M. Hightower, 1992.

3. Robert E. Lee – The Christian, by William J. Johnson, 1993.

4. “Arlington National Cemetery: Dying to get in? Here's how.” MSN Slate article by Jack Shafer, December 13, 1997, < http://www.slate.com/id/1784/>

5. The Arlington National Cemetery Website, <http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/>

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