Meanwhile, Section 27 became the area for African American soldiers and freed people; more than 3, freed African Americans are buried in Section Initially, being buried at a national cemetery was not considered an honor, but it ensured that service members whose families could not afford to bring them home for a funeral were given a proper burial.
This tradition continues today , and is one reason why Arlington transformed from being one of many national cemeteries into the premier national military cemetery. The event was so popular that in , an amphitheater was constructed to hold the official ceremonies. Renamed the James Tanner Amphitheater , it reopened in after restoration. Beginning in the late s, high-ranking veterans began requesting burial in the Officers' Sections Sections 1, 2 and 3. In , the U.
Arlington National Cemetery consequently expanded to include Sections 21, 22 and In , Congress authorized a designated section for Confederate soldiers, at a time when the nation was trying to reconcile after the Civil War. The Confederate section Section 16 contains the graves of veterans and spouses. After World War I, more than 2, U. President William Howard Taft was buried at Arlington in , making him one of only two presidents buried here.
President John F. Kennedy became the second on November 25, By the s, to prevent the cemetery from running out of space, the U. An average of 25 burials are performed each day. Arlington National Cemetery covers acres of land.
More than three million tourists pass through the cemetery each year. There are about 8, trees at Arlington National Cemetery, in different varieties. Two state champion trees reside in the cemetery, signifying that they are the largest trees of their species in Virginia.
Each year for Memorial Day, a flag is placed by every tombstone, monument, and columbarium row in the cemetery.
Government had legally purchased the property at public auction in January , it emerged as a logical choice. The fact that the land had also been the plantation home of Robert E. Lee probably made it even more attractive to Meigs, who formally proposed Arlington as the site of the new cemetery in a letter to Secretary of War Stanton on June 15, The Republican press hailed the choice of Arlington.
On June 17, the National Republican reported:. The grounds are undulating, handsomely adorned, and in very respect admirably fitted for the sacred purpose to which they have been dedicated.
The people of the entire nation will one day, not very far distant, heartily thank the initiators of this movement….
This and the contraband establishment there are righteous uses of the estate of the rebel General Lee, and will never dishonor the spot made venerable by the occupation of Washington.
Army and leading the Confederate forces. However, the Quartermaster General was not convinced that the cemetery was necessarily permanent, fearing that the end of the War might allow the Lees to resume control over Arlington and potentially remove the graves on the property.
In hopes of preventing such from occurring, Meigs wanted to place graves as close to the mansion as possible. Doing so, he felt, would make the house uninhabitable. In his original proposal to Secretary Stanton, Meigs specified:. I have visited and inspected the grounds now used as a Cemetery upon the Arlington Estate.
I recommend that interments in this ground be discontinued and that the land surrounding the Arlington Mansion, now understood to be the property of the United States, be appropriated as a National Cemetery, to be properly enclosed, laid out, and carefully preserved for that purpose, and that the bodies recently interred by removed to the National Cemetery thus to be established.
The grounds about the Mansion are admirably adapted for such a use. At first, most of the burials were made some distance from the mansion. As Meigs recorded later, many of the officers quartered in the mansion were uncomfortable with the idea of living in the middle of a graveyard, "It was my intention to have begun the interments nearer the mansion, but opposition on the part of officers stationed at Arlington, some of whom used the mansion and who did not like to have the dead buried near them, caused the interments to be begun in the northeast corner of the grounds near Arlington road.
On discovering this on a visit I gave specific instructions to make the burials near the mansion. They were then driven off by the same influence to the western portion of the grounds. Meigs continued to push the issue and, after considerable effort, finally got his wish.
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