ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY occupies a beautiful site of 4o8ac. in Virginia on the banks of the Potomac, directly opposite Washington, District of Columbia. The central feature of the cemetery is the mansion, built in 1802 of stuccoed brick on the estate of r,looac. by George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of George Washington. The land was part of the original tract of 6,000ac. granted by Sir William Berkeley on October 21, 1669, as a reward of services, to Robert Howsen, who subsequently sold it for six hogsheads of tobacco. The Lee mansion, as it is now called, is said to have been modelled after the temple of Theseus in Athens. The great portico, with its eight massive white columns, is a striking landmark, visible from the city across the river (for illustration see Vol. 22, facing p. 788). The view from the house, which stands on the brow of the hill goof t. above the Potomac, has been famous for more than a century. Many famous Americans and foreigners, among them Lafayette, have been entertained at the Lee mansion. In the drawing room, where visitors now register their names, Mary Ann Custis in 1831 married Robert E. Lee, then a lieutenant in the United States Army, afterwards commander-in-chief of the Con federate Army. When on April 22, 1861, Lee left Arlington to take command of the Virginia troops, Federal soldiers took possession almost immediately, converting the mansion into a headquarters and the grounds into a camp. Later a hospital was established there and in 1864, other burial-grounds proving insufficient, Arling ton became a military cemetery by order of the Secretary of War. The first soldier to be buried there was a Confederate who had died in the hospital. For years the title of the property was in dispute, but in 1883 the United States Government paid to the son of Gen. Lee $15o,000 for the property. Soldier dead from every war in which the United States has participated, including a few officers of the Revolution, are buried there—numbering in all more than 25,00o. Under a granite sarcophagus lie the bones of 2,000 unknown soldiers, gathered after the Civil War from the field of Bull Run and the route to the Rappahannock.
The best known memorial in the cemetery is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which consists of a solid block of marble, on which is inscribed a tribute to all the unidentified American dead of the World War. Near at hand stands the memorial amphithea tre erected, through the efforts of the Grand Army of the Republic in memory of departed heroes, as a fitting place of assembly f or the thousands who attend Memorial Day services in their honour. It was dedicated on May 15, 1920. The roofless, white marble structure, with its eastern facade overlooking the Potomac river and Washington encloses a natural amphitheatre. Copied after both the theatre of Dionysus at Athens and the Roman theatre at Orange, France, the proportions and distances convey the charm of an old Greek ruin. Crypts where especially distinguished sol diers, sailors and marines may be buried are placed under the colonnade, while within the entrance is a reception hall, a chapel and a museum. Covering an area of 34,00o sq.ft. and providing seating capacity for 5,000 people in the tiers of white marble benches within the theatre proper, the theatre can accommodate several thousand more in its colonnades and on its stage.
But the eyes of visitors—who may enter Arlington daily between sunrise and sunset—turn repeatedly to the Fields of Dead, with their endless lines of plain stones, of the pattern adopted in 1872 for use in all the National Cemeteries.
(J. T. F.)