Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs proposes in…

Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs proposes in 1864 that two hundred acres (eighty-one hectares) of the Robert E. Lee family property at Arlington be confiscated for a cemetery after Civil War casualties have overflowed hospitals and burial grounds near Washington.

The government acquires Arlington at a tax sale in 1864 for $26,800, equal to $398,237 today.

Mrs. Lee had not appeared in person but rather had sent an agent, attempting to pay the $92.07 in property taxes (equal to $1,368.12 today) assessed on the estate in a timely manner.

The government turned away her agent, refusing to accept the tendered payment. (In 1874, Custis Lee, heir under his grandfather's will passing the estate in trust to his mother, will sue the United States claiming ownership of Arlington. After the U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 in Lee's favor in United States v. Lee, deciding that Arlington had been confiscated without due process, Congress will return the estate to him. The next year, Custis Lee will sell it back to the government for $150,000 (equal to $3,174,545 today) at a signing ceremony with Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln.

George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of Martha Washington, had acquired the land that now is Arlington National Cemetery in 1802, and had begun construction of Arlington House.

The estate had passed to Custis' and his wife's (Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis) only surviving adult child, Mary Anna Custis Lee, who is married to Robert E. Lee.

When Fort Sumter had been forced to surrender at the beginning of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln had offered Lee, a West Point graduate and United States Army officer, command of the federal army.

Lee had demurred, waiting to see if his native Virginia would decide to secede.

When Virginia announced its decision, Lee had resigned his commission and took command of the armed forces of the Commonwealth of Virginia, eventually becoming commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.

He had quickly established himself as an able commander, defeating a series of Union generals.

Because of this decision and subsequent performance, Lee is regarded as disloyal by most Union officers.

The decision had been made to appropriate a portion of Arlington as a graveyard primarily for Union dead.

American military cemeteries developed from the duty of commanders on the frontier and in battle to care for their casualties.

Military burials were previously held at the United States Soldiers' National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., but it is quickly filling.