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On a hillside overlooking Washington, DC, sits one of the most sacred sites in the United States.
It is the final resting place of presidents, generals, and hundreds of thousands of Americans who served their country.
Yet, its origins are deeply intertwined with slavery, the Civil War, and a bitter legal dispute involving one of the most famous generals in American history.
Learn more about the history of Arlington National Cemetery on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Arlington National Cemetery did not start as a cemetery. Instead, it began as Arlington House. This historic mansion was built as a memorial to George Washington.
George Washington Parke Custis, Martha Washington’s grandson and George Washington’s step-grandson, inherited the Arlington estate in 1802. Between 1802 and 1818, he constructed Arlington House as both a family residence and a memorial to George Washington.
George Washington Parke Custis had a child named Mary Anna Randolph Custis, who married her childhood friend, someone you are probably familiar with, then U.S. Army Lieutenant Robert E. Lee.
Lee’s family estate at Arlington occupied one of the most strategically important locations overlooking Washington, D.C. Situated on Arlington Heights, directly across the Potomac River from the capital, the estate stood on elevated ground that commanded sweeping views of the city, including the Capitol and the White House.
In the event of war, artillery positioned on these heights could threaten Washington and its defenses, while troops occupying the area could potentially control important approaches to the capital from Virginia.
The location was particularly sensitive because Washington lay directly across the river from Virginia, a slaveholding state.
During his U.S. Army service, Lee resided at Arlington House alongside his wife, Mary, and their children. When the Civil War began in April 1861, Lee resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and assumed command of Virginia’s military units. He eventually rose to the rank of Confederate general and, in June 1862, took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Confederacy’s primary fighting force in the Eastern Theater.
In the early days of the Civil War, the Lee family abandoned Arlington House as Union forces prepared to secure the strategically important high ground overlooking Washington, D.C. Mary Lee was worried that the Union would reclaim the land, so she buried many family treasures on the estate and then fled to live with her sister.
On May 24, 1861, Union troops occupied the estate to prevent Confederate forces from using it to threaten the capital, and the property remained under Union control throughout the war.
On July 17, 1862, Congress authorized the president to purchase land for national cemeteries to bury soldiers who died in the service of the United States. The U.S. Army Quartermaster General was to oversee the project.
However, the land didn’t become a cemetery immediately. In 1863, the southern portion of the estate became a settlement for former slaves. Known as “Freedmen’s Village,” the U.S. government built rental homes that helped 1,100 to 3,000 freedmen. They also turned part of the estate into farmland. Those living there also received schooling and training. The program operated both during the Civil War and after it ended.
As the Civil War continued, enormous numbers of soldiers died. Military personnel who died near Washington, D.C., were buried in one of two places: the United States Soldier Cemetery in Washington, D.C., or Alexandria Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia. But by late 1863, both cemeteries were nearly full.
This problem worsened in May 1864 after the Union suffered heavy losses at the Battle of the Wilderness. In the first battle of Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign after taking over the Army of the Potomac, the Union suffered 2,246 fatalities.
The battle ended in a draw, but it was significant for the Union because, unlike previous commanders, Grant refused to retreat. Instead, he kept pressure on the Confederacy.
While a symbolic success, the Union still had to bury the fallen. Montgomery C. Meigs, then quartermaster general, ordered a review of eligible sites to establish a large new national military cemetery.
Arlington was an obvious choice for the new cemetery. The Army had occupied the estate since 1861, and the federal government had acquired it at a tax sale in January 1864. Its proximity to Washington’s military hospitals made it convenient for burials. Meigs also favored using the former Lee estate, believing that establishing a cemetery there would prevent the family from returning to the property after the war.
In a way, it was a symbolic slap in the face.
Despite Meigs technically not authorizing burials until the following month, the first army burial in Arlington Cemetery occurred on May 13, 1864, when William Henry Chrisman was interred.
Initially, Arlington National Cemetery segregated burials by both race and rank. This continued until July 26, 1948, when President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which ended those practices.
Burial at the cemetery was also originally not considered an honor. All service members could receive a proper burial, regardless of whether their families could afford it.
Shortly after the Civil War, residents of Freedmen’s Village were asked to leave as the land became part of a military reservation. The last residents left in 1900, after the government settled their debts.
The first official Decoration Day, later renamed Memorial Day, was held at Arlington National Cemetery on May 30, 1868, and honored military personnel who died in service.
In 1874, the federal government was sued over its claim to the Arlington Cemetery grounds. George Washington Custis Lee, Robert E. Lee’s eldest son, claimed that the seizure of the land during the Civil War was unjust.
The United States had imposed a $92 property tax on the estate. They argued that Mary Lee, the owner at the time, did not pay the tax, so they could seize the land.
However, Mary Lee did attempt to pay the tax. She sent an agent to pay on her behalf. The federal commissioners refused to accept the payment unless Mary Lee appeared in person. Because she could not do so due to the war, the government auctioned off the property, bringing it under Federal control.
As a result, Lee argued that the government seized the property unlawfully without paying just compensation. The 1877 suit sought to recover the property by arguing that the government violated the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause.
The government argued that the court lacked jurisdiction because it could not be sued without its consent.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided in Lee’s favor in 1882. United States v. Lee ruled that seizing the land was unlawful and that sovereign immunity did not shield government officers from being sued when they had to return wrongfully held property.
Instead of removing thousands of graves, the government negotiated a $150,000 settlement in 1883 to formally purchase the property. After the repurchase, Arlington continued as a national cemetery for military personnel. Veterans began to see a dignified burial at Arlington as desirable, which led to increased demand to be buried at the site.
This led to the cemetery’s first two expansions: one in 1893 and a second in 1897. The cemetery’s expansion was initially planned for the Civil War, but the Spanish-American War of 1898 fundamentally changed Arlington’s future.
Following the end of the Spanish-American War, the U.S. government wanted to repatriate those who were lost and rebury them in the United States at no cost to their families.
Many of the men were buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This pushed the number of graves past the original 200 acres designated, cementing Arlington as a cemetery for all service members regardless of conflict, not just those who served in the Civil War.
Over the following years, those who died in World War I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, as well as those who died of natural causes, were laid to rest in Arlington.
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy also prompted changes at Arlington. After the nation watched his state funeral on live television and his interment at Arlington, the honor of being buried there inspired more veterans to request their own burials. This contributed to a massive increase in burial demand.
Without changes, Arlington would’ve reached capacity by 1980. The cemetery had to implement several measures to preserve burial sites for future generations. One of these changes was providing above-ground columbariums, structures for storing urns.
Arlington has expanded multiple times since then. However, even with new spaces, the cemetery is projected to run out of space by 2041. However, extensive efforts are being made to ensure that won’t happen.
One of the most unique parts of Arlington National Cemetery is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was established in 1921 as the final resting place of an unidentified American service member killed during World War I. In 1958, unidentified service members from World War II and the Korean War were also interred there.
A Vietnam War Unknown was added in 1984, but DNA testing identified his remains in 1998, and they were subsequently reburied elsewhere. The now-empty Vietnam crypt honors Americans who remain missing from that conflict.
Through the ages, one of the most devastating consequences of warfare has been the number of unidentified dead. Historically, unidentified remains were buried in mass graves. Memorials like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier ensure that all service members, whether identified or not, are remembered.
Since 1926, soldiers have guarded the tomb. These guards were initially present only during daily hours, but later became a 24/7 presence. They prevent visitors from disrespecting the tomb and honor those entombed.
I’d like to end this episode by covering some of the different sections that make up the cemetery. The grounds are split into 70 sections, with some parts reserved for future expansion.
Section 60, which is located in the southeast portion of the cemetery, is reserved for those killed since 2001 in the War on Terror.
Section 21 has the graves of many nurses. This section includes the Spanish American War Nurses Memorial and the Nurses Memorial.
Section 16 was reserved for Confederate soldiers in the early 1900s as part of a push for reconciliation. It was considered a Gesture of Goodwill and a step toward uniting the nation’s memory. Over 400 Confederate soldiers, mainly prisoners of war, were moved to the site.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy also dedicated a Confederate memorial. Moses Ezekiel, a former Confederate, designed the memorial; he died in 1917 and was buried at the base of the monument.
In 2023, the Confederate Memorial was removed following a congressional mandate that criticized the monument for promoting the Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War. In July 2025, however, the Army announced an agreement with Virginia that would allow the bronze sculpture to be displayed again in Section 16, near Moses Ezekiel’s grave, along with an historical interpretation explaining its controversial legacy.
What began as the private estate of a family closely connected to George Washington became, through the upheaval of the Civil War, one of the most sacred places in the United States. Over the generations, Arlington National Cemetery has evolved from a practical solution to burying fallen soldiers into a national symbol of service, sacrifice, and remembrance.
Its grounds contain the graves of presidents, generals, ordinary soldiers, and Americans from nearly every major conflict in the nation’s history. Yet perhaps the most remarkable thing about Arlington is that a place once associated with the division of the United States has become a place where Americans come together to honor those who served it.