Memorial Day will be coming
up soon and America will pause and remember all those brave men who gave their lives so that we
might remain free……right? No. Memorial Day will more than likely be celebrated with backyard
barbeques, lots of beer drinking and hot car races. Perhaps there will be little thought about
what this day really and truly means and that is sad. Well, more than sad, pathetic is a better
descriptive word. Without all those brave men and women who were willing to give their lives
for the freedoms that we enjoy…..well you can imagine the rest.
Here’s another sad story, at
least for a Southerner like me. It’s the true story of how the National Cemetery in Arlington,
Virginia got started and what it has become to this nation of patriots.
This cemetery is one of the
most sacred pieces of land in America. This is where the heroes of America’s wars are buried.
This is where the tomb of the Unknown Soldier is forever guarded by the best of the best
uniformed guards. It is the final resting place of presidents, where the eternal flame burns
over the assassinated body of beloved John F. Kennedy. Generals lie here, statesmen are buried
in this hallowed ground, leaders of the world, ordinary soldiers, generals, and privates all
share the honors accorded to those who have given their lives in service to their country.
But how did this cemetery
happen to be located here? For the answer, we take a mental trip back to that bloody war of
the 1860’s, the War Between the States, sometimes called the American Civil War although it was
not a Civil War at all, but a war of Southern states against Northern states for states’ rights
as set down in the United States Constitution.
The centerpiece of Arlington is the antebellum mansion known as the Custis-Lee Mansion.
Construction began on this historic house in 1802 by Martha Washington’s grandson, George
Washington Parke Custis.
In 1804 George Custis married
Mary Lee Fitzhugh and they lived at Arlington until their deaths in the 1850’s.
Their only child, Mary Anna Randolph Custis married Robert E. Lee, graduate of West Point,
in June 1831 and with her parents’ death, the property was passed to her.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Lee
enjoyed living at the 1100 acre estate overlooking our nation’s capitol but in April, 1861,
Virginia joined the Confederate States in their secession and Lee, being from Virginia,
chose to fight for Virginia and the South and left to take command of the Army of Northern
Virginia.
Mary Lee left the estate
in 1862 for safer quarters and once abandoned, the United States Army quickly occupied the
Lee mansion. When property taxes became due, a new law stated that they must be paid by the
owner in person and that being impossible with the war in play; the land was seized by the
United States Government for the tax delinquent sum of $92.07.
Even before the US
Government took control of the beautiful Custis-Lee Mansion, northern general Meigs had
begun burying the bodies of Union soldiers in Robert E. Lee’s front yard. He excavated
Mrs. Lee’s rose garden to bury the remains of 1,800 Union soldiers killed at the battle
of Bull Run in 1862 and by the time that the War Between the States came to an end, 11,000
Union soldiers were buried at Arlington.
The Lees were never
able to return to their home. Arlington is a sacred burial ground conceived out of spite
and planned so that the southern general would never reclaim his property. Today the Lee
Mansion is perfectly preserved but hardly remembered as the home of a devote Christian, a
man who freed his slaves before the war that divided a nation, a man whose loyalty to his
state meant that he would fight to defend it, a man who said of Texan soldiers, “The enemy
never saw their backs”.
Memorial Day was
initiated after the War Between the States by Southern women who walked among the graves
of men from both sides of the war and decorated their graves with flowers. That day was
named, Decoration Day and took place in April. The date was changed from April to May and
designated Memorial Day by the United States Government.
Whatever the date,
whatever the cause for which soldiers die, they deserve to be honorably remembered.
