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Re: [OM] a new web page!

Subject: Re: [OM] a new web page!
From: "John A. Lind" <jlind@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 20:51:57 +0000
Dirk,
Some marvelous images.  Freedom is never free.

For the benefit of those who visited Dirk's page, or the cemetery in person, some history about the site is in order.

Arlington National Cemetery is one of two national cemeteries administered directly by the United States Army, as part of the Military District of Washington (DC). All the others in the U.S. fall under the jurisdiction of the Veterans Administration.

The original mansion was built by George Washington Parke Custis, the son of John Parke Custis. John Parke Custis was the son of Martha Washington by her first husband and grew up a ward (adopted) of George Washington. Thus the mansion was originally called Mount Washington, and was intended to be a living memorial to George Washington. The name was changed to Arlington, the name of the ancestral Custis estated in the Virginia tidewater area.

The daughter and only child of George Washington Parke Custis, Mary Anna, married Robert E. Lee. Contrary to popular belief, Robert E. Lee never owned the estate, it always remained in the care of his wife with inheritance (under terms of the will) that would pass directly to Lee's son, George Washington Custis Lee, upon her death.

During the War for Union, Arlington was occupied by Union troops and a number of fortifications were built on the estate. The most dramatic event and founding of the military cemetery occurred on June 15th, 1864 when Brigadier General Meigs appropriated the house and grounds to bury about 1,800 Union war dead from the Battle of Bull Run. It was done as a direct insult to Robert E. Lee (who commanded the Army of Virginia for the Confederacy), and was intended to make the mansion forever uninhabitable by Lee (who wants a huge cemetery in their front yard). That it didn't belong to Robert E. Lee seemed to have gotten missed by Meigs.

Following the war, the estate remained in government hands, and Mary Anna never attempted recovery of it. However, in 1870, Custis Lee (the heir to Mary Anna) filed a suit for "ejectment" claiming the lands had been illegally confiscated during the war. This dragged on and escalated until a U.S. Supreme Court 5-4 decision in 1882 restored ownership to Custis Lee (the land was confiscated without "due process of law"). In 1883, Congress purchased the estate from Custis Lee for $150,000. Freedman's Village, one of the other things built there after its confiscation, was removed, but the cemetery remained.

And that is how Arlington National Cemetery came to be. The estate has its roots in the descendents of George Washington and its creation as _The_ National Cemetery in the War for Union.

-- John


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