Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery is an American
military cemetery established during the
American Civil War on the grounds of
Confederate General
Robert E. Lee's home,
Arlington House (also known as the Custis-Lee Mansion). It is directly across the
Potomac River from Washington, D.C., north of
the Pentagon. With nearly 300,000 graves, Arlington National Cemetery is the second-largest national cemetery in the United States.
Arlington House was named after the Custis family's homestead on
Virginia's Eastern Shore. It is associated with the families of
Washington, Custis, and Lee. Begun in 1802 and completed in 1817, it was
built by
George Washington Parke Custis. After his father died, young Custis was raised by his grandmother and her second husband, the first
US President George Washington, at
Mount Vernon.
Custis, a far-sighted agricultural pioneer, painter, playwright, and
orator, was interested in perpetuating the memory and principles of
George Washington. His house became a "treasury" of Washington
heirlooms.
In 1804, Custis married
Mary Lee Fitzhugh.
Their only child to survive infancy was Mary Anna Randolph Custis, born
in 1808. Young Robert E. Lee, whose mother was a cousin of Mrs. Custis,
frequently visited Arlington. Two years after graduating from
West Point,
Lieutenant Lee married Mary Custis at Arlington on June 30, 1831. For
30 years, Arlington House was home to the Lees. They spent much of their
married life traveling between
U.S. Army
duty stations and Arlington, where six of their seven children were
born. They shared this home with Mary's parents, the Custis family.
When George Washington Parke Custis died in 1857, he left the
Arlington estate to Mrs. Lee for her lifetime and afterward to the Lees'
eldest son,
George Washington Custis Lee.
The U.S. government confiscated Arlington House and 200 acres (81 ha)
of ground immediately from the wife of General Robert E. Lee during the
Civil War. The government designated the grounds as a military cemetery
on June 15, 1864, by
Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
In 1882, after many years in the lower courts, the matter of the
ownership of Arlington National Cemetery was brought before the
United States Supreme Court. The Court decided that the property rightfully belonged to the Lee family. The
United States Congress then appropriated the sum of $150,000 for the purchase of the property from the Lee family.
Veterans from all the nation's wars are buried in the cemetery, from the
American Revolution through the military actions in
Afghanistan and
Iraq. Pre-Civil War dead were re-interred after 1900.
The
Tomb of the Unknowns, also known as the
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, stands atop a hill overlooking Washington, DC. President
John F. Kennedy is buried in Arlington National Cemetery with
his wife and some of their children. His grave is marked with an "Eternal Flame." His brothers, Senators
Robert F. Kennedy and
Edward M. Kennedy, are also buried nearby.
William Howard Taft, who was also a
Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, is the only other
President buried at Arlington.
Other frequently visited sites near the cemetery are the
U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, commonly known as the "Iwo Jima Memorial", the
U.S. Air Force Memorial, the
Women in Military Service for America Memorial, the
Netherlands Carillon and the U.S. Army's
Fort Myer.
The Pentagon
The Pentagon in Arlington is the headquarters of the
United States Department of Defense. It was dedicated on January 15, 1943 and it is the world's largest office building. Although it is located in Arlington, the
United States Postal Service requires that "Washington, D.C." be used as the place name in mail addressed to the six
ZIP codes assigned to The Pentagon.
[96]
The building is
pentagon-shaped
in plan and houses about 23,000 military and civilian employees and
about 3,000 non-defense support personnel. It has five floors and each
floor has five ring corridors. The Pentagon's principal law enforcement
arm is the
United States Pentagon Police, the agency that protects the Pentagon and various other DoD jurisdictions throughout the National Capital Region.
Built during the early years of
World War II,
it is still thought of as one of the most efficient office buildings in
the world. It has 17.5 miles (28 km) of corridors, yet it takes only
seven minutes or so to walk between any two points in the building.
It was built from 680,000 short tons (620,000 t) of sand and gravel dredged from the nearby
Potomac River
that were processed into 435,000 cubic yards (330,000 m³) of concrete
and molded into the pentagon shape. Very little steel was used in its
design due to the needs of the war effort.
The open-air central plaza in the Pentagon is the world's largest
"no-salute, no-cover" area (where U.S. servicemembers need not wear hats
nor salute). The snack bar in the center is informally known as the
Ground Zero Cafe, a nickname originating during the
Cold War when the Pentagon was targeted by Soviet
nuclear missiles.
During World War II, the earliest portion of the
Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway
was built in Arlington in conjunction with the parking and traffic plan
for the Pentagon. This early freeway, opened in 1943, and completed to
Woodbridge, Virginia in 1952, is now part of
Interstate 395.
