On Monday, October 18, 2010, we once again took the Metro into town. It was another beautiful day in the Nation's Capital. Our objective today was Arlington National Cemetery.
Arlington is the best known of more than one hundred national cemeteries in the United States. Arlington's green slopes shelter veterans from every was that has involved the nation. Over 320,000 servicemen and their family members rest on the 624 acres of Virginia land across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial. About 27 burials are conducted every weekday. (I was privileged to attend a cemetery at Arlington for an Uncle of Angela's. He had been a Col. in the Army and was buried with full military honors. It was a very moving occasion! An honor guard accompanies the American flag-draped coffin drawn by matched horses. A band plays solemn marches while muffled drums beat the slow cadence for the procession. He was also accorded the riderless horse with the boots turned backwards to show his high military rank. Before the remains are lowered, a squad fires three rifle volleys and a bugler blows the long notes of "Taps". Finally the guard folds the flag and presents it to the next of kin.)We went to see the changing of the guard at the
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. To our surprise they were also having a special ceremony of a wreath laying by the Military of Columbia. It was quiet impressive with the different branches of the Military Service there along with the band. There were secret service men all over the place (they are the ones in the black suits and sunglasses!)After the wreath ceremony was over there was the changing of the guard. That, as always is a very moving ceremony to observe. Here a sentinel of the Third U.S. Infantry maintains the vigil around the clock, 365 days a year in all types of weather. The sentinel paces 21 steps down the mat before the tomb, pauses 21 seconds, and returns. The changing of the guard takes place every hour (or half-hour from April through September). "Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God" reads the inscription on the sarcophagus of the World War I soldier entombed here in 1921. Joining their comrade, unknown servicemen from World War II and Korea, lie in crypts beneath slabs with the terrace paving. There had been a serviceman from the Vietnam war, however his remains have been identified through DNA and has since been moved to his hometown. There will probably be nor more unknown soldiers with the testing that we now have available.
We also stopped by the grave of John F. Kennedy
. Cape Cod stones frame the eternal flame, where the words "with history the final judge " are quoted from his inaugural address.High up on a hill overlooking the cemetery is the Arlington House, which is now known as the Robert E. Lee Memorial. Before Arlington was a cemetery, it was home to Robert E. Lee who called Arlington House home from three decades. Today it is a memorial to Lee and to his efforts to heal a nation torn apart by civil war. The house had been owned by George Washington Parke Custis. Curtis, grandson of Martha Dandridge Custis was raised from infancy by Martha and her second husband, George Washington. He grew to revere Washington as a father and military hero. In 1804 he married Mary Lee Fitzhugh. In 1831 their only surviving child, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, married Lt. Robert E. Lee, a childhood playmate and distant cousin. Mary and Robert Lee had seven children. Lee was the son of an old Virginia family and Revolutionary War hero Henry Lee. Lee had attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. After serving as superintendent of West Point, Lee transferred to the cavalry in 1855. He learned of his father-in-laws death in 1857 and returned home to Arlington.
When Lee learned of Virginia's secession on April 19, 1861, he spend a long night agonizing over his future and that of his family. He deplored the ides a secession but realized he could not "raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home." He resigned from the U.S. Army and sided with Virginia.
With the coming of the civil war, Arlington House ceased to be a home to the Custis and Lee families. Lee left for Richmond in April 1861 and accepted command of Virginia's forces. Mrs. Lee left in May as Union troops prepared to occupy Arlington Heights in defense of the capital. In 1864 the government took possession of the estate when Mrs. Lee couldn't appear in person to pay property taxes. For reasons both practical and symbolic, the army then established a military cemetery on the grounds and began interring the rapidly mounting dead. Burials had in fact begun at Arlington before the ink was even blotted on the proposal for the cemetery. By war's end, 16,000 graves filled the spaces close to the house. Heir to the property, Custis Lee, sued the government for disputing his claim to ownership. After the Supreme Court ruled in Lee's favor Congress paid him $150,00 for title to the land.
The National Park Service acquired Arlington in 1933 and continued the restoration of the house and grounds, which Congress designated the Custis Lee Mansion. In 1972 it was redesignated Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial.
In recognition of this site's enduring national significance, Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River was aligned to visually connect the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House. Completed in 1932, the bridge is a powerful symbol of a divided nation once again made whole.
In all the times that I have been to Washington and Arlington I never had heard this story. I was quite impressed with what I have learned about our Nation's Capital.
That is all for today,
Candy and John
