Arlington National Cemetery
What are the requirements to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery?
Who is the most famous person buried at Arlington National Cemetery?
What is the oldest grave at Arlington National Cemetery?
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Arlington National Cemetery, U.S. national burial ground established in Arlington county, Virginia, on the Potomac River directly opposite Washington, D.C. The cemetery is located on the antebellum plantation once belonging to the family of Robert E Lee. Arlington was created in 1864, and it currently occupies 639 acres (259 hectares). More than 400,000 people are buried at Arlington, the vast majority of which are service members. The cemetery is overseen by the Department of the Army.
The central feature is Arlington House (known as Custis-Lee Mansion until 1972), a mansion that was constructed in 1802 in a Classical Revival style and modeled after the Theseum in Athens, Greece. The house, which is situated along the prominent ridges overlooking Washington, is operated by the National Park Service and serves as a memorial to Robert E. Lee. It is the only federally funded memorial to honor an individual who took up arms against the United States government.
Key Facts- Arlington is on land once owned by Robert E. Lee’s wife, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, who inherited the property from her father, George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of George Washington, the first U.S. president.
- The estate was later seized by the U.S. government in a tax dispute during the Civil War. After the war Lee’s eldest son sued to reclaim the estate. In 1882 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Rather than disinter those buried at Arlington, however, Congress bought the land for $150,000.
- On May 13, 1864, the first soldier was buried in Arlington: William Henry Christman, a private in the in the 67th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry who had contracted measles.
- The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was created in 1921 to house an unidentified soldier killed in World War I. His body had been exhumed from an American cemetery in France. In the ensuing years the Tomb came to include unknown combatants from World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
- DNA testing during the 1990s revealed that the Tomb’s Vietnam unknown was in fact First Lt. Michael J. Blassie, whose remains were subsequently removed.
- The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is guarded by soldiers 24 hours a day. The changing of the guard is an elaborate ceremony that occurs every hour or half hour, depending on the day.
- By the early 21st century, more than 400,000 people were buried at Arlington. Up to 40 funerals take place weekly.
- The most-visited graves are those belonging to Pres. John F. Kennedy and first lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
History and lawsuit
In 1831 Lee married George Washington Parke Custis’s only daughter, Mary Ann Randolph Custis, who inherited the Arlington estate upon her father’s death in 1857. On April 22, 1861, at the onset of the American Civil War, Lee left Arlington to join the army of the Confederacy. The area was quickly occupied by federal troops, who converted the Lee mansion into an army headquarters and used its stables for cavalry units operating in northern Virginia. Two forts (McPherson and Whipple) were hastily constructed on the grounds as part of a defensive perimeter around the nation’s capital. In 1862 the government enacted legislation to collect property taxes (which property owners were required to pay in person) on lands held by the Confederacy. Although Lee’s wife paid the $92.07 tax, the government seized the property because Lee failed to deliver the tax himself. Freedman’s Village, a community for more than 1,000 freed enslaved people, was constructed on part of the property in 1863 and continued to operate until 1890, when the land was rededicated as a military installation. More than 3,800 former enslaved people are buried in the cemetery.
On June 15, 1864, Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs authorized the creation of a national cemetery on 200 acres (81 hectares) surrounding Arlington House to accommodate “the bodies of all soldiers dying in the Hospitals of the vicinity of Washington and Alexandria.” However, ownership of the land remained in dispute, and, after the Civil War, Lee’s eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, sued the federal government for confiscating the plantation. In 1882 the U.S. Supreme Court declared (5–4) that the federal government was a trespasser. Rather than disinter the more than 16,000 people buried at Arlington, however, the U.S. Congress purchased the land the following year for $150,000.
Burials and eligibility
The first soldier buried (May 13, 1864) on the Lee plantation was William Henry Christman, a private in the 67th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry who had contracted measles. The next day the first battlefield casualty was interred at Arlington, William Blatt of the 49th Pennsylvania Infantry. He died from injuries received during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. By the end of 1864 more than 7,000 soldiers had been interred. The cemetery subsequently became the burial ground for casualties from all U.S. wars since the American Revolution (the war dead prior to the Civil War were reinterred after 1900).
Of all the U.S. national burial grounds, Arlington National Cemetery has the most strict requirements for in-ground burials. A service member who dies during active duty (not during training) qualifies. If a veteran, the service member must have had an honorable discharge. In addition, the veteran must be have been entitled to receive retirement pay or was the recipient of the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross (Air Force or Navy), Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, or Purple Heart. In-ground burials are also approved for prisoners of war who died on or after November 30, 1993. Spouses and dependents may also be eligible. In addition, people who have served the United States in another notable capacity can be considered. For instance, Pres. William Howard Taft was buried in Arlington, though he never served in the military.
Prominent soldiers and civilians buried at Arlington include General John J. Pershing, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, General George C. Marshall, William Jennings Bryan, General Jimmy Doolittle, Major Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, Robert Todd Lincoln, astronauts Dick Scobee and Michael Smith, President John F. Kennedy, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Robert F. Kennedy.
Tomb of the Unknown and other memorials
The cemetery also houses the Tomb of the Unknowns, also known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which was established in 1921 as the burial place for the Unknown Soldier of World War I. In 1932 a seven-piece Colorado-Yule marble sarcophagus, constructed at a cost of $48,000, was positioned above the Unknown Soldier’s grave. Unknown soldiers from World War II and the Korean War were likewise interred there in 1958. The Unknown Soldier from the Vietnam War was buried there with full military honors on Memorial Day in 1984, but in 1998 further investigation, including DNA testing, led to his identification as U.S. Air Force First Lieutenant Michael Joseph Blassie. His remains were returned to his family, and this crypt remains empty. Because of advances in medical and other identification techniques, no further interments in the tomb were anticipated.
The inscription in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier reads: “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.”
Located near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is the Memorial Amphitheater, which was built through the efforts of the Grand Army of the Republic (an organization of Civil War veterans from the Union forces) as a gathering place for Memorial Day services. The holiday had originated at Arlington in 1868. The structure was dedicated on May 15, 1920, and since then every U.S. president has visited the amphitheater during his tenure. The roofless, white marble structure, which encloses a natural amphitheater, is copied from both the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens and the Roman theater in Orange, France. The Fields of the Dead, with their seemingly endless lines of plain stones, follow a pattern adopted in 1872 for use in all national cemeteries. The Women in Military Service Memorial is located at the gateway to the cemetery, and the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial (the Iwo Jima flag-raising statue) is also nearby.
Arlington remains an active military cemetery, with thousands of funerals and remembrance ceremonies each year. More than 400,000 people have been buried on the grounds.