Hallowed Ground

The Tomb of the Unknowns is on a rise in front of the amphitheater, a 24-hour vigil is maintained by The Old Guard. The tomb contains the remains of three servicemen from World War I, II and the Korean Conflict.

Arlington National Cemetery was established during the Civil War on land that was owned by a descendant of Martha Washington.

Originally owned by the Custis family, the cemetery’s 612 acres on the Potomac River were part of the estate of John Parke Custis, Martha Washington’s son and George Washington’s adopted son.

In turn, John Park Custis’ son, George Washington Parke Custis, built a mansion on the property called Arlington House, later the Custis Lee Mansion, that became the home of Robert E. Lee. Lee married Mary Anna Custis Lee, who was the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis.

During the course of the Civil War, the estate was seized by the Union Army, which made it a headquarters. In 1864 Union Quartermaster General Maj. Gen. Montgomery Cunningham Meigs recommended that the estate be converted into a burial ground and Arlington National Cemetery was born.

Today, veterans from all the wars that the United States has fought in are buried in the cemetery, with those who died in military conflicts before the Civil War being re-interred at Arlington after 1900. The cemetery receives more than 4 million visitors a year.

More than 30 funerals are held at the cemetery every day and Arlington conducts more than 6,000 burials each year. There are more than 290,000 service members and their family members buried at the cemetery, making it the second largest national cemetery in the United States. Flags at the cemetery are flown at half-staff from 30 minutes before the first funeral of the day to 30 minutes after the last funeral of the day.

In 1921, an unknown American Soldier from World War I was buried in the cemetery. Eleven years later the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was opened to the public without ceremony. An unknown service member from World War II and Korea were interred in the tomb in 1958. An unknown service member from the Vietnam War was interred on May 28, 1984. DNA testing in 1998 later identified the Vietnam War service member as 1st Lt. Michael Blassie, an Air Force pilot from St. Louis, and his remains were removed.
Today, members of The Old Guard stand guard at the tomb 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Among the famous buried at the cemetery are Presidents John F. Kennedy and William Howard Taft, Supreme Court Justices Earl Warren and Thurgood Marshall, band leader Maj. Glenn Miller, 1st Lt. Audie Murphy, former boxing heavyweight champion of the world Sgt. Joe Louis and mystery writer Dashiell Hammett. There are also 3,800 fugitive and liberated slaves buried at the cemetery whose headstones are engraved with “civilian” or “citizen.”

Editor’s note: Information for this article was compiled by Julia LeDoux from several Web sites, including arlingtoncemetery.org, infoplease.com and arlingtoncemetery.net.