It started as a humble family farm.  Later it was purchased by the adopted son of George Washington, a man named John Parke Custis, who, upon his death, passed the estate down to his son who, in turn, called it Arlington.

Little did they know that these rolling hills, overlooking the new nations capitol would one day become the home of a young army lieutenant from Virginia named Robert E. Lee.

Little did they know that this very land would become center stage of a Civil War that would nearly destroy the very nation that Washington had fought to build. 

Little did they know that this ground would one day become a national treasure.

It has been said that the history of America is written on the stones at Arlington National Cemetery.  Each in the endless sea of white granite headstones represents “a past to be remembered, a story to be told” (Reveal Bigler Headstone) – nearly 300,000 stories in all.

Some are stories of great triumph and discovery. Others reveal the struggles of an imperfect nation.

Some reflect moments of great progress and American ingenuity – while still others bring us back to times of tragedy and sadness – a tangible reminder of the cost of freedom.

Arlington is the home of thousands of ordinary men and women who, through their dedication and commitment, made extraordinary contributions to our nation and the cause of freedom around the world. They understood to their very core that freedom has a price, and they paid that price.

Arlington is the final home of explorers and medical pioneers, of civil rights activists and astronauts, of authors and artists, of Presidents and even a few scoundrels.

Arlington is the home of the greatest among us, and the least among us – a looking glass through which we see the story of America and judge for ourselves how we’re living up to the ideals for which so many sacrificed so much.

Whoever visits Arlington is awed by their surroundings – something cries out to them from the fields that this is a place to rest, a place to think, a place to ponder.  It has been said that Arlington is “the heart of the Republic”.

Arlington National Cemetery is a piece of “living” history. But, to the casual observer or to the many school age children that visit Arlington as one stop on a field trip to the nation’s capital, the real significance is often lost. At most they visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, the Kennedy gravesites, or perhaps the monuments of a few notable Americans - with all else lost in the maze of non-descript white markers.

But to those of any age who take the time to really explore this national treasure – to those who choose “the paths less traveled” and weave their way through the magnolia trees and the endless hills and valleys of Arlington – an enchanting “journey of a lifetime” awaits.

As the Union dead accumulated in the final days of the Civil War, a man by the name of Montgomery Meigs, the Union Quartermaster General, was directed to find a place to bury the bodies.  Meigs looked across the Potomac and could think of no more fitting a location to honor the Union dead than the very estate of Robert E. Lee - the man he considered a traitor responsible for the brutality of the Civil War. 

The first soldier to be buried at Arlington turned out to be anything but a great Union war hero. In March of 1864, a 21-year-old, 5’7” sandy haired William Christman enlisted as a Private in the 67th Pennsylvania Volunteers.  Less than 2 months later, having spent most of his brief service sick in a Washington hospital, Christman died leaving only quote, “a shirt, a pair of pants, and a hat.” 

Little did he know that he would be the first military burial at what was to become Arlington National Cemetery.

Montgomery Meigs, however, was disappointed that Christman’s grave was so far from Lee’s estate – that the intended insult to Lee was not strong enough.  To make sure Lee’s house could never be used as a home again, Meigs personally supervised the burial of 26 additional Union soldiers surrounding Mrs. Lee’s prized Rose Garden – within steps of the mansion’s front door. 

Those original graves remain in that very location today.

Meigs ultimately buried more than 16,000 federal soldiers at Arlington – more than 400 of them in a field just below Lee’s mansion.  It’s called the “Field of the Dead” and it remains today a grim reminder of war.

In 1866, a vault containing over 2100 unknown soldiers discovered in and around Bull Run, was capped with a granite sarcophagus that honors them as a “noble army of martyrs.”

But the bitterness and resentment of the Civil War lasted long after the last shot was fired.  The wounds were deep, and it would take yet another war to bring us back together as one nation again.

It wasn’t until 1898 and the often overlooked Spanish American War that the wounds began to heal.

“Remember the Maine” is almost a forgotten call today, but in the years after the USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor in February 1898, it was a rallying cry that sparked a unprecedented unity throughout the United States, finally bringing the North and South together in a groundswell of patriotism.

 

Today, the mast of the USS Maine is still on display at Arlington, and the 260 men lost on that ship are buried in its shadow.

Amidst this new spirit of unity, in 1900, Congress authorized for the first time the placement of a permanent memorial to Confederate Soldiers of the Civil War on the grounds of Arlington.

The monument was sculpted by Moses Ezekiel – an artist and sculptor who actually fought for the Confederacy, and ultimately moved to Europe to study music under the famed composer Franz Liszt.  Upon his death in 1917, Ezekiel was buried at Arlington at the base of the Memorial many believe to be his finest work.

Whereas the cemetery itself was born largely as an insult directed at the confederacy, it would now become a tremendous source of healing for the nation. 

The words inscribed on the Confederate Memorial are timeless, and uniquely American:

            “Not for fame or reward.  Not for place or for rank.  Not lured by ambition, or goaded by necessity.  But in simple obedience to duty as they understood it.  These men suffered all, sacrificed all, dared all – and died.”

The Confederate Memorial stands today as it did then a memorial to a nation capable of forgiveness - a people willing to pay the price to fix what is wrong, then move forward together to build a better country.

And when the memorial was dedicated on June 4, 1914, the ceremony was filled with veterans from both sides of the Civil War.  President Woodrow Wilson intoned, “This chapter in the history of the United States is now closed and ended.”