I. History of Arlington The History of the Arlington House. The 1100 acre land was once owned by Mr. George Washington and his wife Martha Dandridge. Once George and his wife had died the land was passed down to his step grandson George Washington Parke Custis. He spent his whole life honoring Washington. He built the Arlington house as a memorial of our first president. Once Custis died the house and land got passed down to his only surviving child Mary Randolph. She grew up in the Arlington house, she married her childhood friend Robert E. Lee. He was a confederate general during the U.S. Civil War. During war Robert Lee had to make a tough decision to have his family pack up and leave the house they had lived in their whole life. His reason for doing this is because union …show more content…
With the Union forces occupying the land, Montgomery Meig evicted union soldiers from the Arlington house. With in doing that he was given a mission to find a place to bury the dead soldiers and he chose the Arlington house and land to be the final resting place for the fallen soldiers. Why was there a big need for a military cemetery. Well with the war there is going to be a ton of fallen soldiers and they needed a place to rest and be remembered for serving our country. When Montgomery made the final decision for this land to be used as a military cemetery, the first soldier laid to rest at Arlington was William Cristman. Once all of the drama with who was in charge of the land Lee’s son had a lawsuit against the government is because when Meig and his crew took over the land, the land was owned by the government. He wanted the land to be back in his family name. How many Civil war burials are there, there are approximately 16,000 civil war burials. Overall there about over 400,000