Situated there in the wooded hills of Northern Virginia, across from Washington, D. C., is Arlington National Cemetery. Visitors often wonder what makes up the air of tranquility, so simple and yet sublime. Is it the pleasant setting—the wooded, gently rolling slopes overlooking the wide, placid Potomac River, and then the vista beyond—the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the dome of the capitol? Or is it the realization that in a sense the history of our young nation is represented there in the renowned names on those monuments—a president, chief justices, senators and congressmen, seamen and admirals, privates and generals? Their names and deeds reflect the beginning of our nation, tell of the wars that were fought to maintain its integrity, its survival, and its ever-increasing stature.
More than 60,000 veterans are buried in those hills: men who have served in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and a few foreign nationals who were on our side of the fight at the time.
From Washington a visitor crosses the Potomac River over the Memorial Bridge, then continues for a half mile to the massive granite pillars and walls that form the Memorial Entrance to Arlington Cemetery.
Bearing right through Schley Gate one travels up the winding drive, with squirrels scampering in the trees alongside, to Lee Mansion. Here you learn of the early history of Arlington Cemetery. It goes back to 1669 when a grant of 6,000 acres, embracing the now 408 acres of the cemetery, was made by Sir William Berkeley, royal governor of Virginia, to Robert Howsen, a ship’s captain, as a reward for transporting settlers to Virginia.
The property soon thereafter was traded to John Alexander. In 1779 some 1,100 acres were bought by George Washington’s stepson, John Parke Custis. On the death of the latter, his son, George Washington Parke Custis, inherited the estate and in 1802 began the construction of Arlington House, now known as Lee Mansion.
The immortal families of the Washingtons and the Lees became joined on June 30, 1831, when Robert E. Lee, then a lieutenant of the U. S. Army, married the Custis daughter, Mary. The eldest son of this union was named George Washington Custis Lee.
The Lee family lived at Arlington until 1861 when Robert E. Lee resigned from the Army to become commander-in-chief of the Confederate forces. Mrs. Lee left on May 20, 1861, to join the General in Richmond, and shortly thereafter the estate was occupied by the Northern forces.
During the Civil War the property was sold for taxes. But later, title having been reestablished to the Lees by the Supreme Court, the U. S. Government in 1883 bought the land from George Washington Custis Lee, then the heir.
An imposing two-story colonial house with massive columns in front, the Lee Mansion is now a national shrine, looked after by the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior. The house is furnished just as when the Lees occupied it. George Washington Parke Custis and his wife, Mary, rest in a family plot not far from the Lee Mansion.
Just west of the mansion is the one-story colonial type building in which the administrative offices of the cemetery are housed. The affairs of the cemetery are administered by the Quartermaster’s Department of the Army. The present officer-in-charge is Colonel Raymond J. Williamson; the civilian superintendent, Mr. Robert A. Spence; and the engineer, Mr. W. P. Lynn.
Directly in front of the mansion, near the flag pole, is the grave of Major Pierre L’Enfant, French engineer and soldier. It was he, who under the direction of George Washington, made the plan for the layout of the capital city.
Dead heroes of all our wars are buried in Arlington. Oddly enough grave No. 1 is occupied by a veteran named John War. The remains of a few veterans of the Revolutionary War and of the War of 1812 were brought from other places and re-interred here.
Traces of the Civil War are marked near Lee Mansion by the graves of General Phil Sheridan and of Admiral David D. Porter, and by the Monument to the Unknown Dead of the Civil War. The remains of 2,111 unidentified Civil War soldiers, brought from far flung battle fields, are reposited under that monument. Near the road is the monument of General Philip Kearny, New Jersey hero, who lost his arm at Churubusco, Mexico, in 1847, during the war with Mexico, and his life at Chantilly, Virginia, in 1862, during the Civil War.
From the Lee Mansion, to view the cemetery in further historical sequence, a visitor would take the road, flanked by trees and graves, past the Connecticut Monument to the west gate at Fort Myer. This is the historic Army post whose personnel take so reverent a part in the military funerals, many of which begin at the chapel near the gate.
Still inside the wall, the visitor continues through the well kept grounds to Jackson Circle where stands the magnificent bronze monument erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Surrounded by the headstones of nearly five hundred graves of Confederate veterans as well as some of their wives, the inscription on the base of the monument attests the simple creed of soldier dead everywhere:
Not for fame or reward,
Not for place or rank,
Not lured by ambition or goaded by necessity, But in simple obedience to duty,
As they understood it,
These men suffered all,
Sacrificed all,
Dared all—-and died.
Randolph Harrison McKim.
Leaving Jackson Circle one soon enters the area symbolical of the Spanish American War. Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders are memorialized by a rough hewn granite monument, in contrast with the nearby slender spire of the Colonial Dames. Not far off is the monument to the nurses who served during the war with Spain. In the nurses’ section is also a distinguished marble figure of a nurse known as “The Spirit of Nursing.” Sculptured by Lt. (jg) Frances Rich of the Waves, it is a tribute to the nurses of World War II. General “Fighting Joe” Wheeler, who served in the Confederate Army and later in the U. S. Army in the Spanish American War, also rests in Arlington.
The visitor may continue to an adjacent area to the resting place of the Naval heroes of the U.S.S. Maine, the destruction of which, in Havana harbor in 1898, set off the Spanish American War. The mainmast of the ship is set on a marble base representing a turret, on the sides of which are etched the names of the officers and men who died in the disaster.
The great naval leaders at the battle of Santiago, Admirals Sampson and Schley, are buried in Arlington, as is Rear Admiral Hobson. Hobson received the Medal of Honor for attempting with a few men to bottle the Spanish fleet in Santiago harbor by sinking the dismantled collier Merrimac in the harbor channel.
Of that period also is Colonel Rowan, who was immortalized by Elbert Hubbard in his inspirational “Message to Garcia.” Other monuments in the southern area are those of General Leonard Wood, Jane A. Delano, Robert G. Ingersoll, and the Argonne Cross. Also here is Major Walter Reed, the Army surgeon whose headstone attests his great service: “He gave to man control over that dreadful scourge, yellow fever.”
Here too is Warrant Officer Floyd Bennett, U. S. naval aviator, who was co-pilot for Admiral Byrd in the first flight over the North Pole on February 19, 1927. Bennett also received a Medal of Honor “For distinguishing himself conspicuously by courage and intrepidity at the risk of his life.”
Still further south and facing the Navy Annex building on the crest of the hill is a small half-circle of evergreen trees. These trees shield the grave of Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary who, traveling by dog sledge, discovered the North Pole in 1909. The fine monument there was erected by the National Geographic Society.
Not far away is the Coast Guard remembrance, a pyramid, to their dead of the First World War. Specifically it cites the officers and crew of the cutter Tampa, sunk by enemy submarine in Bristol Channel, September 26, 1918, when all on board were lost, and also members of the cutter Seneca, lost in “bravely endeavoring as volunteers to salvage the torpedoed British steamer Wellington in the Bay of Biscay, September 17, 1918.”
Near here is buried Admiral Waesche, Commandant of the Coast Guard during World War II. And nearby is the gravestone of William Jennings Bryan, silver-tongued statesman of the early 1900’s.
Below the hill is the section currently in use for the burial of officers. To the northward is MacArthur Circle, near which is the grave of Colonel Charles Young, noted colored Army officer. Beyond is the colonnaded amphitheater whose focal point in front is the tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the First World War. The body was returned from France to the United States in 1921 on board the Olympia, flagship of Admiral Dewey at the Battle of Manila Bay. The Unknown Soldier was interred in Arlington on November 11, 1921, and the new tomb was unveiled on April 9, 1932.
Among those who took part in the burial consecration of the Unknown Soldier in 1921 were Secretary of War John Weeks; Sergeant Edward F. Younger, who in France selected the Unknown Soldier to come to America; and Sergeant Frank Witchie, the bugler who blew taps at the Arlington ceremony. All three have now taken their places figuratively alongside the Unknown Soldier.
Secretary Weeks is buried down the hill in front of the Lee Mansion, in a section devoted to the Naval Academy class of 1881. Other notables buried there are Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose father wrote “Old Ironsides,'” and General George Barnett, Commandant of the Marine Corps during World War I.
Near-by is the brown marble shaft which marks the grave of William Howard Taft, twenty-sixth president of the United States and later chief justice of the Supreme Court. A few paces away is the brown sarcophagus of Robert Todd Lincoln, son of President Abraham Lincoln, and not far distant is the monument of Admiral Cary Grayson, personal physician to President Wilson and one time national chairman of the Red Cross.
Back a hundred yards or so, and more directly in front of the Lee Mansion, is a section whose dead bespeak both wars: William Gibbs McAdoo; and side by side, Frank Knox, World War II Secretary of the Navy, and Dwight Davis, Secretary of War, 1925— 1929; Field Marshall John Dill of the British Army; Henry L. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy; Admiral Marc Mitscher, Vice Admiral Vickery, and General Roy Geiger of the Marines.
Last Fall the first group of twenty of World War II dead was returned from overseas and buried at a mass ceremony. President Truman paid homage, as did representatives from all branches of the Services, made up of all ranks, races, and creeds.
The first group was from the Pacific Area and they since have been joined by groups from the European theater. You will find there, side by side, temporary white wooden markers which read “Aloysius Terry, U.S.N.,” and “William E. Brown, U.S.A.”
This new section for the dead of World War II is located in the little plain below the amphitheater. As the section was opened a few months ago, a new road paralleling the wall was named for General Patton. The General’s widow took part in the dedication. Speaking of the sixty thousand dead of Arlington, she said, “All are enshrined in a cloud of glory.”
As one returns to the Memorial Gate to leave he agrees: “Yes, all are enshrined in glory . . . there among the wooded, gently rolling slopes.” Arlington is tranquil, simple, and sublime.
Enlisting as a private in the Marine Corps in July, 1917, Major Phillips has been continuously on active service ever since. His foreign service has included duty in Guam, Nicaragua, the Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Saipan, Japan, and China. At present he is the Marine Corps Allotment Officer, Marine Corps Headquarters, Washington, D. C. He is a member of the Columbia Historical Society.