Arlington National Cemetery was officially established on this day in 1864, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The land had originally been purchased by John Parke Custis, the son of First Lady Martha Washington and her first husband. Custis’ son inherited the property in 1802 and built a mansion on the hills, establishing a working plantation there. His daughter then inherited the land in 1857, over two decades after she married her husband, one Robert E. Lee. Four years later, he would move them south to lead the military of the Confederacy during the Civil War. That’s right: The land purchased by a prestigious family related to the first president of the nation fell into the hands of a key leader of a blood-soaked attempt to cleave the nation in two. Ironically, that’s how the property ended up in the Union government’s hands.
The estate was high ground, and it was right next to the nation’s capital. It was an obvious place to station artillery, which from that vantage point could target anyone attacking any federal building in the city. While it was a strategic decision, it certainly didn’t hurt that it took away the home of a Confederate figurehead. Several forts were built on the land, and a “Freedman’s Village,” a refugee camp for freed and escaped enslaved African Americans, was stood up.
While the war wasn’t finished by June 1864, federal cemeteries were running out of space for new burials. The estate provided a new, vast space to bury the war dead. It’s persisted as a symbol of national sacrifice since then, having been expanded to three times its original size. The plots remained racially segregated through 1948 until President Harry Truman desegregated the military. Today, around 430,000 veterans, whose service spans every national war fought by the United States, and their dependents are buried at the cemetery. Just two presidents’ graves are located there, William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy.
