Arlington: The Odd Founding of America’s Military Cemetery

By Rick Chromey | November 20, 2024 |

Arlington National Cemetery has been burying American soldiers since the Civil War.

Due to the high casualty rate of the Civil War, Union fatalities quickly populated established military cemeteries in Washington, D.C. and Alexandria, VA.

According to the most reliable records, over 360,000 Union soldiers were killed, nearly a third more than the Confederates, in the Civil War. But it was the 2,246 casualties in the Battle of the Wilderness (May 5-7, 1864) that created the need for more burial space Lincoln’s Army.

Montgomery C. Meigs

A Union Quartermaster General named Montgomery C. Meigs was tasked to find that new resting place. Several eligible locations were evaluated, but one in particular caught Meigs’s eye.

It was a plot of land with plenty of acreage and amazing views just outside Washington, D.C.

The Virginia land also featured a majestic mansion that once was the home of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. In the early part of the war, Lee’s wife Mary still lived there, but eventually fled their beloved home on May 14, 1861 when Union troops got too close. Ten days later, Union soldiers occupied the house as a command center.

Quartermaster General Meigs knew the property was Lee’s. He also nursed a grudge against him.

Montgomery C. Meigs wasn’t born a Yankee, but he was as close as you can get. Meigs was born in Georgia., but at one-year old, his father moved the family to Philadelphia for work. Meigs grew up a wealthy and well-connected Northerner. At 15, Meigs went to the University of Penn to study French, German, Latin, art, literature and poetry. He then attended West Point to serve in the U.S. Army, graduating fifth in his class (1836).

One of his early commissions was under the command of Lt. Robert E. Lee on the Mississippi River.

As the Union’s Quartermaster General, Col. Meigs’s reputation was “efficient, hard-driving, and scrupulously honest.” A political peer commented that he was:

“one of the ablest graduates of the Military Academy, was kept from the command of troops by the inestimably important services he performed as Quartermaster General. Perhaps in the military history of the world there never was so large an amount of money disbursed upon the order of a single man … The aggregate sum could not have been less during the war than fifteen hundred million dollars, accurately vouched and accounted for to the last cent.“

But the ever loyal Unionist Meigs also carried a deep hatred for the Confederacy. He especially detested Robert E. Lee.

Consequently, Col. Meigs relished the opportunity to acquire and use Lee’s estate for a Union graveyard.

The Union Quartermaster General purposely buried dead Union soldiers within feet of the Confederate general’s Virginia mansion. He even gave one Union soldier his final resting spot in Mary Lee’s beloved rose garden.

By the end of the war, Lee’s estate was a hallowed and unusable ground. Meigs made sure the Confederate general had no Virginia home to which to return.

To make things more complicated, the U.S. government claimed ownership rights to the land.

The Feds stated they paid $26,000 for the foreclosed property in a tax auction. It wasn’t true. After the war, the Lee estate sued for wrongful confiscation of the land…and won. A 1882 Supreme Court victory (5-4) returned the estate—now a growing cemetery for deceased soldiers—to Lee’s family. Naturally, by this time, the Lee family had no choice but to sell it back to the U.S. government (for $150,000).

Robert E. Lee’s former home had a moniker, that became the name of the cemetery: ARLINGTON.

Twenty-one states have an “Arlington” inside their border. Besides Virginia, the most famous is Arlington, TX where 365,438 people live and the home of baseball’s Texas Rangers.

The first soldier interred at Arlington National Cemetery was William Henry Christman on May 13,1864.

Ironically he didn’t die heroically in battle nor experience combat. Rather Christman died within weeks of enlistment due to measles. He was 21 years old but was still given an unauthorized burial at Arlington.

Today, over 400,000 military dead rest in this place, our national cemetery.