Turtledove
Register
Advertisement
Arlington National Cemetery 2012-1-

Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington County, Virginia, is a U.S. military cemetery, established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, formerly the estate of the family of Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Custis, a descendant of Martha Washington. The cemetery is situated directly across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. and near The Pentagon. The cemetery is also the resting place for two U.S. Presidents - William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy.

Arlington National Cemetery in The Guns of the South[]

Arlington had been occupied by Union forces during the Second American Revolution, and Union war dead were buried there. After the war ended in a Confederate victory, Robert E. Lee and his wife Mary returned to the plantation. There they found that the many buried bodies had impoverished the soil somewhat, but they were unwilling to desecrate the graves.

Arlington National Cemetery in "Lee at the Alamo"[]

When Robert E. Lee chose to remain loyal to the Union during the secessionist conflict, he found himself exiled from his family estate, Arlington, which now lay in the hostile self-proclaimed "nation" of the Confederate States. President Lincoln offered to pension Lee onto a new farm, to replace the lost Arlington, should Lee decide to retire from military life.

Arlington National Cemetery in Joe Steele[]

In March 1953, Arlington National Cemetery became the resting place of Joe Steele, the 32nd President of the United States.[1]

Arlington National Cemetery in Southern Victory[]

Arlington was a plantation in Virginia that was once home to Robert E. Lee. After the Great War, when the border between the United States and the Confederate States was redrawn, Arlington passed from Virginia to the U.S. state of West Virginia. It was allowed to lie in ruins until former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt died in 1924. He had indicated he had wished his state funeral be held in Washington rather than Philadelphia and that he be buried on the former Lee estate as a final revenge on the Confederates. Socialist President Upton Sinclair carried out Roosevelt's request in every particular.[2] Roosevelt's rival, General George Armstrong Custer was also buried there upon his death in 1930.[3] Confederate politician Jake Featherston was incensed by the insult of having two Yankee conquerors buried at the Lee home.

See also[]

References[]

  1. Joe Steele, pgs. 414-415, HC.
  2. The Center Cannot Hold, pgs. 35-38, HC.
  3. Ibid, pg. 289.
Advertisement