How Arlington National Cemetery Came to Be
The fight over Robert E. Lee’s beloved home—seized by the U.S. government during the Civil War—went on for decades
By Robert M. Poole
November 2009
23661301.1K
One afternoon in May 1861, a young Union Army officer went rushing into the mansion that commanded the hills across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. “You must pack up all you value immediately and send it off in the morning,†Lt. Orton Williams told Mary Custis Lee, wife of Robert E. Lee, who was away mobilizing Virginia’s military forces as the country hurtled toward the bloodiest war in its history.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-arlington-national-cemetery-came-to-be-145147007/#7LgGL8cDBSwlHWfz.99
