On Hallowed Ground

by Robert M Poole

  I am indebted to Geoffrey C. Ward and Ernest B. Furgurson, faithful friends who read the manuscript and saved me from numerous mistakes and many embarrassments. Any flaws remaining are mine alone.

  George Gibson, publishing director of Bloomsbury/Walker, understood the book’s appeal from our first conversation and patiently prodded me forward. He never wavered in his support or enthusiasm. Sincere thanks to him and to his colleagues Jacqueline Johnson, Margaret Maloney, Jeremy Wang-Iverson, Peter Miller, and Mike O’Connor.

  Finally, my greatest debt, thanks, and love to my wife, Suzie, who has heard enough Arlington stories for a lifetime but pretends to be hearing each one for the first time.

  APPENDIX I

  ARLINGTON CHRONOLOGY

  JUNE 30, 1831 Mary Anna Custis marries Robert E. Lee at Arlington House.

  APRIL 12, 1861 Confederates fire on Fort Sumter, precipitating the Civil War.

  APRIL 17, 1861 Virginia convention votes to secede from the Union.

  APRIL 18, 1861 Francis P. Blair Sr. offers Lee command of Union forces in the field.

  APRIL 20–23, 1861 Robert E. Lee resigns from the Union Army, leaves Arlington, and accepts command of Virginia’s military forces.

  MAY 15, 1861 Mary Custis Lee leaves Arlington, leaving the keys to the mansion with Selina Gray a trusted slave and housekeeper.

  MAY 24, 1861 Some 14,000 Federal troops cross the river to Virginia, taking control of Alexandria, bridge crossings, and the Lees’ Arlington estate.

  JUNE 1861 Virginia joins the Confederacy, which transfers its capital from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia. Lee is given the rank of brigadier general and named as chief military advisor to Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

  JULY 21, 1861The first major battle of the Civil War takes place at Manassas, Virginia, where the Federals suffer 2,700 casualties, the Confederates 2,000. Because of the disappointing Union showing, Gen. George Mc-Clellan replaces Gen. Irvin McDowell as commander of the Army of the Potomac.

  JANUARY 2, 1862 Secretary of War Simon Cameron assigns Union officers responsibility of feeding and clothing slaves on the Arlington estate.

  APRIL 16, 1862 Congress emancipates all slaves in the District of Columbia. Primitive camps are established for freedmen in Washington.

  MAY 31, 1862 When Gen. Joseph E. Johnston is wounded in the Peninsula Campaign, Robert E. Lee takes command of Confederate forces in Virginia.

  JUNE 7, 1862 Congress passes an act to collect taxes from the “Insurrectionary Districts of the United States.” Under the new law, the value of Arlington is assessed at $26,810. When Mrs. Lee fails to pay the tax of $92.07 in person, the property is purchased by the federal government at a tax sale.

  JULY 17, 1862 War deaths mount at an unexpected pace, leaving the government poorly prepared to bury its fighting men. Congress creates a national cemetery system to accommodate “the soldiers who shall die in the service of the country.” New cemeteries are established in Alexandria and the District of Columbia.

  JULY 1862 During the bruising Peninsula Campaign below Richmond, Union Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield asks his bugler Oliver Wilcox Norton to change the standard lights out call, which results in a new tune, called Taps.

  SEPTEMBER 17, 1862 McClellan batters Lee’s forces at the Battle of Antietam, which costs the Federals 12,000 deaths and the Confederates a proportionate number. Five days after Antietam, President Lincoln announces a general Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in Confederate states. The new order is scheduled to take effect in January 1863.

  JANUARY 1863 The Emancipation Proclamation brings a flood of black refugees to Washington, D.C., overwhelming the freedmen’s camps established for them.

  MAY 5, 1863 Lt. Col. Elias M. Greene proposes a new Freedman’s Village at Arlington to accommodate former slaves. Formally dedicated in December, the village grows to a population of 1,500, reinforcing the federal presence at Arlington.

  MAY 4, 1864 Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, determined to end the war, crosses the Rapidan River of Virginia to face Robert E. Lee in forty days of almost continuous fighting. Their bloody exchange creates more than 80,000 casualties. When cemeteries in the capital run out of space, the Union quartermaster, Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, begins unofficially burying war casualties on Lee’s Arlington estate

  MAY 13, 1864 Pvt. William Henry Christman of the 67th Pennsylvania Infantry is the first soldier buried at Arlington, on the edge of the property near a small cemetery for slaves. With cemeteries overflowing and deaths mounting, Edwin M. Stanton, secretary of war, asks Meigs to recommend new national burial sites.

  JUNE 15, 1864 Meigs proposes that 200 acres at Arlington should be taken for a national military cemetery. Stanton approves and Meigs orders burials around Lee’s mansion to prevent the family’s return to Arlington.

  APRIL 9, 1865 Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House.

  FEBRUARY 1866 Robert E. Lee returns to Washington to testify before Congress but avoids visiting Arlington. He consults lawyers about reclaiming the property.

  APRIL 1866Meigs orders a huge pit dug in Mrs. Lee’s garden and fills it with the remains of 2,111 unknown Civil War dead.

  1868 Gen. John Alexander Logan, commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, designates May 30, 1868, as “Decoration Day” to honor the Union war dead. It is, in effect, the first Memorial Day.

  DECEMBER 25, 1868 President Andrew Johnson declares amnesty for all former Confederates.

  1870 Robert E. Lee dies. Mrs. Lee immediately petitions the Senate to disinter thousands of those buried at Arlington and return the property to her. Her appeal is soundly defeated.

  JUNE 1873 Mary Custis Lee returns to visit Arlington for the last time. She dies five months later.

  1873 Congress approves a free white marble marker for each service member buried at Arlington.

  1874 The Old Amphitheater, a bowl encircled by wooden colonnades, is dedicated at Arlington, where it is used for gatherings of veterans’ groups.

  1877 After unsuccessfully petitioning Congress to restore Arlington to his family, George Washington Custis Lee, Robert E. Lee’s eldest son, goes to court to have Arlington returned to his family.

  DECEMBER 4, 1882 The Supreme Court, holding that Arlington was seized illegally during the Civil War, rules in Custis Lee’s favor. He sells the property to the government for $150,000, its fair market value.

  DECEMBER 7, 1887 Residents of Freedman’s Village are ordered to leave Arlington, where they have been living since the Civil War.

  1888 Congress declares Memorial Day a national holiday.

  1889 The cemetery annexes 142 adjoining acres, bringing the total acreage to 342.

  1892 Montgomery C. Meigs is buried near the Lee mansion, where he is surrounded by the graves of family members and by prominent Union officers.

  1892 The first Revolutionary War casualties are brought to Arlington National Cemetery, signaling a change in status for Arlington. It is becoming an important symbol for the nation.

  1897 The cemetery annexes 56 acres, bringing Arlington’s total to almost 400.

  1898 The U.S.S. Maine explodes and sinks in Havana Harbor, killing 260 and precipitating the Spanish-American War.

  1899 More than 160 of the dead from the Maine explosion are buried at Arlington under a mast salvaged from the ship.

  1900 The last of the freedmen are turned out of Arlington. Their lands, scattered over 400 acres, are turned over to the Agriculture Department, which establishes an experimental farm.

  1900 In the spirit of conciliation marking a new century, Congress approves a new Confederate Section at Arlington, where almost 500 Rebel soldiers are reburied from Washington.

  1903 Arlington is up to 300 funerals a year. Burials total 19,000.

  1905 Fourteen unknowns from the War of 1812 are reburied at Arlington; most are thought to be marines.

  JANUARY 1906 Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler, a Confederate cavalry officer who later led Union troops in
the Spanish-American War, is buried among Union officers at Arlington.

  SEPTEMBER 1908 Lt. Thomas Selfridge ushers in the age of military aviation at Fort Myer, flying in a demonstration flight with Orville Wright. Selfridge dies when the plane crashes. The nation’s first casualty of powered flight, he is buried at Arlington.

  1909 Pierre Charles L’Enfant, veteran of the Revolutionary War and architect of Washington’s original city plan, is exhumed and buried just in front of the Lee mansion, with a fine view of the capital he designed.

  NOVEMBER 12, 1912 A cornerstone is laid for the new Confederate Memorial, where former enemies come together for a ceremony of reunion.

  AUGUST 1914 World War I begins.

  NOVEMBER 11, 1918The Armistice ends World War I, which claims the lives of 116,516 Americans.

  1920 Arctic explorer Rear Adm. Robert E. Peary is buried. The new Memorial Amphitheater, an imposing white marble bowl built to the south of the Lee mansion, is dedicated.

  DECEMBER 21, 1920Rep. Hamilton Fish, an Army officer who saw action in the war, introduces legislation to bring an unknown American soldier for burial in the United States.

  NOVEMBER 11, 1921 With President Warren G. Harding officiating, the Unknown Soldier of World War I is buried under the plaza of the new Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington. The grave becomes a symbolic focus for the cemetery.

  1924 Congress authorizes the transfer of 400 acres from the Agriculture Department’s Experimental Farm to the Army, which holds the land for possible use at Arlington and Fort Myer.

  1925 Congress authorizes the restoration of Arlington House, in part to recognize Robert E. Lee’s role in reunifying the country after the Civil War.

  1926 Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the president and a former secretary of war, is buried at Arlington.

  1929 James Parks, former Arlington slave, is buried in special ceremonies at the national cemetery.

  1930 William Howard Taft becomes the first president to be buried at Arlington.

  JANUARY 16, 1932 Memorial Bridge, connecting the Lincoln Memorial with Arlington National Cemetery, is dedicated by President Herbert Hoover. The bridge, intended to link North and South symbolically, also unifies the city’s landscape design.

  1933 The National Park Service takes jurisdiction of the Arlington mansion and more than 20 acres of land surrounding it.

  1937 The Tomb of the Unknown is placed under round-the-clock guard.

  1939 Adolf Hitler invades Poland, triggering World War II.

  1940 With war raging in Europe, plans advance for a massive new War Department building—the Pentagon—at Arlington. President Franklin Roosevelt moves the building to a less objectionable site after Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes and others complain that the plans would spoil views from the Lee mansion. Burials reach 49,927 before the United States enters World War II.

  DECEMBER 7, 1941 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into war.

  1941 President Roosevelt gives Ignace Paderewski, the musician and Polish statesman, temporary burial at Arlington, in a crypt under the U.S.S. Maine Memorial.

  1948 Gen. John J. Pershing is buried among the simple graves of men he commanded in World War I. His gravestone, a plain government-issue marker, sets an example for other officers at Arlington.

  1948 President Harry S. Truman orders integration of the Army, which leads to desegregation of burial plots at Arlington.

  1950 The total number of Arlington burials passes 70,000.

  JANUARY 2, 1951 Lt. Gen. Walton H. “Johnnie” Walker, killed in a jeep accident in the Korean conflict, is promoted to four-star rank and given a prominent burial at Arlington. His prompt return to the United States leads to a new policy of “concurrent return,” by which service members are sent home for burial during wartime.

  1955 The Arlington mansion is designated as a national memorial to Gen. Robert E. Lee. The superintendent of Arlington, John C. Metzler Sr., orders the first trenching machines for digging graves at Arlington.

  MAY 30, 1958Unknowns from World War II and the Korean conflict are buried on the amphitheater plaza, with President Dwight D. Eisenhower officiating.

  1959 Gen. George C. Marshall, five-star general, secretary of state, secretary of defense, and Nobel Prize laureate, is buried at Arlington. Interments reach 100,000 this year.

  1961 One of the first to die in a nuclear accident in the United States, Spec. 4 Richard Leroy McKinley is buried at Arlington. His casket is lined with lead and sealed in concrete.

  NOVEMBER 22, 1963 President John F. Kennedy is killed. His burial at Arlington, nationally televised, is the first for a sitting present at the cemetery. After his death, visits to Arlington jump to 7 million a year. Requests for burial at Arlington also increase, necessitating a tightening of burial restrictions.

  1966 Arlington plans to annex 200 acres from the South Post of Fort Myer, which will bring the cemetery’s total acreage to more than 600 by the late 1970s.

  1967 President Kennedy and two of his children are moved a few feet downhill to a permanent burial site, which becomes one of Arlington’s key attractions.

  1968 Robert F. Kennedy is buried next to his brother.

  1970 Arlington is closed to car and truck traffic.

  1971 Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier from World War II, is buried near the Memorial Amphitheater.

  1976 For Bicentennial ceremonies, the tombstones of Congressional Medal of Honor winners are given gold lettering. Emperor Hirohito of Japan, Queen Elizabeth of Britain, and King Juan Carlos of Spain visit Arlington for the occasion.

  1977 Francis Gary Powers dies in a helicopter crash. The former CIA agent, captured when his U-2 plane is shot down over the Soviet Union, is buried at Arlington.

  1980 With demand for burial space growing, the first of nine columbaria for cremated remains is established on the cemetery’s southeastern corner. When completed, the columbarium will have space for some 45,000 remains. Robert E. Lee’s citizenship is restored in ceremonies at his old home.

  1980 Associate Justice William O. Douglas is buried near former Chief Justice Earl Warren. They are later joined on a hillside by Justices Harry Blackman and Potter Stewart.

  1980 Three aviators from the aborted Iranian hostage rescue mission are buried. President Jimmy Carter attends.

  1981 Omar N. Bradley, last of World War II’s five-star generals, is buried at Arlington.

  1981 Joe Louis, the heavyweight boxing champion, is buried. His funeral costs are paid for by Max Schmeling, whom Louis defeated in a closely watched title bout in 1938.

  OCTOBER 23, 1983 Two hundred twenty marines and sailors are killed in a terrorist bombing in Beirut. Nineteen marines and two sailors are buried at Arlington.

  MAY 28, 1984 The Unknown serviceman from the Vietnam conflict is buried.

  1986 Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, father of the nuclear navy, is buried.

  1986 Dick Scobee and Michael Smith, two casualties of the space shuttle Challenger explosion, are buried. The number of total burials at Arlington reaches 200,000.

  1988 Matthew Henson, the black explorer who accompanied Robert Peary on two decades of Arctic travel, is reburied near his old associate.

  1988 John Mitchell is buried. The former commander of JFK’s PT boat unit and two-time Purple Heart recipient is also a former attorney imprisoned for conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the Watergate scandal.

  1992 Ignace Jan Paderewski finally goes home fifty one years after his “temporary” burial at Arlington.

  1993 Civil rights pioneer and Associate Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is buried. Burials reach 230,000 this year.

  1994 Jacqueline Onassis is buried next to her husband and children.

  1995 Cpl. Heather Johnson becomes the first female sentinel to guard the Tomb of the Unknowns.

  1998 The Tomb of the Unknown from Vietnam is opened and the remains examined. DNA testing identifies Lt. Michael Blassie, an Air Force officer missing since being shot do
wn over Vietnam on May 11, 1972.

  SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 On the same day terrorists strike the World Trade Center in New York, hijackers crash American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, killing 189 people. Sixty-four, most of them uniformed service members killed in the attack, are buried at Arlington, near the crash site.

  DECEMBER 2001Johnny “Mike” Spann, a CIA officer, is buried at Arlington. He is the first casualty of fighting in Afghanistan.

  2001 Members of the “Greatest Generation” from World War II die at the rate of 1,500 a day, increasing demand for new burial space at Arlington.

  APRIL 10, 2003Army Capt. Russell B. Rippetoe, the first Iraq War casualty to be interred at Arlington, is buried. The number of interments and inurnments approaches 300,000.