ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
HISTORY OF ARLINGTON
The land comprising the Arlington estate, 1,100 acres, was sold
by Gerard Alexander to John Parke Custis in December, 1778, for a
consideration of £11,000 Virginia currency. John Parke Custis never
lived at Arlington, and on his death in 1781 his son, George Washington
Parke Custis, inherited the Arlington estate. Mr. Custis lived at Mount
Vernon, however, until after the death of Martha Washington, which
occurred on May 22, 1802. He then took possession of the tract, changed
the name to Arlington, after an old family seat on the eastern shore of
Virginia. While he was building the mansion he lived in a small cottage
on the Potomac. The two wings were built first. The central portion
of the house, with its massive columns, is said to have been built
from plans drawn by George Hadfield, an English architect, who came to
this country with the intention of designing the new Capitol. The date
when the mansion was completed is uncertain, but Mrs. Robert E. Lee is
authority for the statement that it was completed just before the Civil
War. The family lived in the wings for many years.
In 1804 Mr. Custis married Mary Lee Fitzhugh, daughter of William
Fitzhugh, of Chatham, at Alexandria, Va. To this union four children
were born, but only one, Mary Ann Randolph Custis (born October 1,
1808), lived. On June 30, 1831, she became the wife of Lieut. Robert E.
Lee. Upon the death of her father, in 1857, title to the estate passed
to Mrs. Lee.
On May 24, 1861, Union troops occupied Arlington, and it soon became
an armed camp. Under an act of Congress passed June 17, 1862, certain
commissioners of the Government were appointed to levy and collect
taxes in Virginia and elsewhere; and if default in payment was made,
to sell the real estate upon which the taxes were levied. Prior to
January, 1864, the commissioners had adopted a rule by which payment of
taxes in the district where the Arlington property was located would
not be accepted unless tendered by the owner in person. Mrs. Lee could
not comply with this rule, so she sent a cousin, Mr. Fendall, to pay
the taxes. The money was refused, and he was informed that Mrs. Lee
must be present in person.
On January 11, 1864, there was due only the sum of $92.07 on the 1,100
acres of the Arlington estate, together with a 50 per cent penalty,
when the property was sold “according to law,” as stated in the tax
certificate. The United States acquired title to the property at public
auction by the payment of $26,000.
[Illustration: ARLINGTON MANSION--RECEPTION HALL]
Upon the death of Mrs. Lee, in 1873, her eldest son, George Washington
Custis Lee, according to the will of his grandfather, George Washington
Parke Custis, became entitled to the Arlington estate. He at once
took steps looking to the recovery of the property. After petitioning
Congress in vain, he began suit in ejectment in 1877 at Alexandria,
Va. In 1879 the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District
of Virginia decided he was entitled to the estate and that the United
States did not have lawful title. The Department of Justice carried
the case to the United States Supreme Court, which decided that the
property belonged to Mr. Lee. The United States was thus faced with
the question of whether to disinter the remains of thousands of
soldiers and sailors and vacate the property, part of which had become
a military post, or purchase the same. However, Mr. Lee was willing
to sell Arlington for $150,000. On March 3, 1883, the Forty-seventh
Congress appropriated the necessary money, and on March 31 Mr. Lee
executed a deed which conveyed the title to the United States. The
deed was recorded at the Alexandria County Courthouse on the 14th
day of May, 1883, just 22 years, less 10 days, from the day, May 24,
1861, when General Scott’s soldiers crossed the Potomac River and took
possession.
Mary Randolph, wife of David Meade Randolph, and a relative of the
Custis family, is the first person known to have been buried at
Arlington. In April, 1853, Mrs. Custis, wife of the owner of the
estate, George Washington Parke Custis, died and was laid to rest in a
little plot of ground beneath huge oaks not far from the mansion house.
The master of Arlington died on October 10, 1857, and was laid beside
his wife. To-day their graves may be seen, surmounted by simple marble
shafts, within an iron-fenced inclosure, where lilies-of-the-valley
cover the ground in profusion. The Quartermaster General’s Department
has recently erected a marker beside the grave of Mrs. Randolph, giving
a short history of her life.
ARLINGTON AS A NATIONAL CEMETERY
Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, Quartermaster Corps, United States Army, was
the first to suggest to President Lincoln that the estate be converted
into a military cemetery, and in 1864, by order of Secretary of War
Stanton, 200 acres were set apart and dedicated as a national cemetery
for the burial of Union soldiers and sailors. However, the first man to
be buried there was a Confederate soldier who died in the hospital May
13, 1864.
There are buried in Arlington a small number of those who fought in the
Revolutionary War and some who were in the War of 1812. Their remains
were removed to Arlington from an abandoned cemetery in 1892. Thousands
of men who died in the Civil War are buried there, with veterans of the
Spanish-American War and the Philippine campaign, and now the veterans
of the World War are steadily being added to the number.
[Illustration: ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY--MEMORIAL AMPHITHEATER]
In front of Arlington House is the tomb of Maj. Pierre Charles
L’Enfant, engineer, artist, and soldier, who, under the direction of
President Washington and Thomas Jefferson, designed the plans for the
city of Washington.
ARLINGTON MEMORIAL AMPHITHEATER
On May 5, 1868, Gen. John A. Logan, commander in chief of the Grand
Army of the Republic, issued the following general order (No. 11):
The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with
flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in
defense of their country, * * * posts and comrades will, in their own
way, arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as
circumstances may permit.
There has been an annual observance of this ceremony in all the
national cemeteries of the country since this order was promulgated.
For years a vine-covered pergola, erected by the Quartermaster’s
Department of the Army, was used for the Memorial Day exercises. When
it was found to be entirely inadequate to accommodate the increasing
number of people who attended the exercises, it was decided to erect
a suitable building which would serve not only as a memorial to our
soldiers and sailors but which would also provide an assembly place for
those attending such exercises as might be held in the cemetery grounds.
Accordingly, the first steps toward this end were taken in 1903, when
the necessity for such a building and the appropriateness of its
erection were first suggested by the commander of the Department of the
Potomac, Grand Army of the Republic. Preliminary sketches and plans
were prepared in 1905 and presented to Congress by the Secretary of
the Treasury, but no action was taken until 1908, when the Arlington
Memorial Amphitheater Commission was created, and an appropriation
of $5,000 to secure and present more detailed plans for the proposed
memorial was made. No further action was taken by Congress for five
years, when, by the act of March 3, 1913, the construction of a
memorial amphitheater and chapel, in accordance with plans prepared
by Carrere & Hastings, architects, of New York City, was authorized.
Ground was broken March 1, 1915, the corner stone was laid October 13,
1915, and the memorial was dedicated May 15, 1920.
[Illustration: THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER OF THE WORLD WAR]
The main feature of the structure consists of an open-air amphitheater,
elliptical in plan, with a seating capacity of about 4,000 persons.
Its diameter, north and south axis, is 200 feet, and 152 feet on its
east and west axis. It has a height of approximately 30 feet. The
amphitheater is inclosed by a marble colonnade with entrances at the
ends of the principal axis. The main entrance is from the east, and
this section contains a reception hall and stage on the main floor,
a museum room or “Valhalla” on the second floor, and a chapel in
the basement. Under the floor of the colonnade, crypts are provided
for the burial of distinguished soldiers, sailors, and marines. The
amphitheater, erected at a cost of $825,000 is built of white marble
from Vermont. Inscriptions commemorate the great wars of the United
States.
Immediately to the east of the main entrance is the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier, which was completed by the War Department in accordance with
plans that provide also for a great approach to the tomb and the
amphitheater.
TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER
At the time when the rites for the Unknown Soldier were solemnized,
on November 11, 1921, the time for preparation was so short that the
location of the tomb on the terrace in front of the amphitheater was
quickly decided upon. The casket was inclosed in what was designed
to be the base of a monument which was to be erected later. The
preliminary work was designed by Thomas Hastings, of the firm of
Carrere & Hastings, architects of the amphitheater.
Five years later, on July 3, 1926, Congress authorized the Secretary of
War to secure by competition designs for a monument to cost $50,000,
and provided that the accepted design should be subject to the approval
of the Arlington Amphitheater Commission (the Secretaries of War
and of the Navy), the American Battle Monuments Commission, and the
Commission of Fine Arts. A competition was held, in which there were
39 competitors, 5 of whom were selected to enter the final stage. The
final award was made to Thomas Hudson Jones, sculptor, and Lorimer
Rich, architect, of New York City.
The competitors generally based their designs on such a modification
of the terrace as would place the monument at the head of a flight
of steps, the approaches to which called for rearrangement of the
immediate foreground of the terrace. Congress accepted the winning
design, and a supplemental appropriation was made for carrying out the
design. The work of completing the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was
in charge of the Quartermaster General of the Army. The cost of the
memorial, constructed of Colorado Yule marble, was $400,000.
Within this marble sarcophagus rests the remains of the Unknown
Soldier, a hero of the World War. The Republic has bestowed upon him
its most cherished decoration for valor, the Congressional Medal of
Honor, and all the major nations associated with America in the Great
War have similarly honored his memory and the memory of the thousands
of his comrades who laid down their lives in that titanic struggle.
[Illustration: ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY--MAINE MONUMENT AND THE
MEMORIAL AMPHITHEATER]
[Illustration: TOMB OF L’ENFANT]
[Illustration: STATUE OF GEN. GEORGE WASHINGTON]