The Portland daily press., 1895-06-01
TWELVE PAGES.

tbs, the son, by her first marriage OF
Martha cambridge, who was afterward
the wife of George Washington. From
him it passed to his son, George Wash
ington Parke Custis, whose daughter was
married to Lieut. Robert f. Lee of the
United States army June 80 1881, by the
Rev. William Meade, afterward Bishop of
Virginia, in the drawing room of the
old mansion where visitors are now re-
quested rto9 o9egister their names. She in
herited the property from her father and
Arlington was the home of the great
chieftain of the Confederacy when Fort
Sumter was fred upon.
| Down in the corner toward Alexandria,
where several hundred Confederate dead
are buried, are two simple tablets that
mark the graves of George Washington,
Parke Custis, and Mary Lee Custis, his
wife. They were erected by Mrs. Robert
E. Lee, and have no inscription except
the names and dates and the words.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall
obtain mercy"
The letter in which Col. Lee resigned
his commission in the army was written
at Arlington on Saturday, April 20 1861,
and was brought over to Washington by
himself and handed to Gen. Winfield
Scott on the morning of Monday, April
%. That afternoon Col. Lee, with his
wife and children, left Arlington for
Richmond never to return, and on the
day following he accepted the command of
the Confederate forces.
4 The venerable steward of the Lee estate
remained in possession of the property
until shortly after the battle of Bull Run,
when the Government took possession OF
the fine old mansion for hospital, and
it was used for that purpose until the
close of the war. But it was not until
the 18th of May, 1864, that the body Of
soldier was buried within its gates Gen.
Meigs gave the order and personally
superintended the inter1nent of the first
body, which was that of Confederate
who died in the hospital, Lit. Reinhardt
of the Twenty third North Carolina In
fantry. The second interment was that
of Edward S. Fisher, a sergeant in Com
pany D. Fortieth New York Infantry,
who also died in the old mansion. During
the two months following 2,619 Federal
soldiers were buried there, including 2S1
colored men and abour 40 Confederates.
The roster of the silent army that camps
there now embraces more than $1,000
names. Long rows of long, white head
stones mark the graves of the privates,
and imposing shafts of marble and gran
ite that gleam through the foliage show
where the officers rest The Government
furnishes only simple white marble head
stones and footstones, with only refer
ence number corresponding to the record
books but the friends of those who are
buried there may erect any monument
that may suit their taste.
A few months before the first burial the
property was sold at auction under the
direct tax law, and was purchased by
| Quartermaster General Meigs for the
use of the government. Neither Gen.
Lee nor his wife made any attempt to re-
cover it, but in 1877 their son, George
| Washington Custis Lee, brought a suit in
the United States Circuit Court at Alex
andria for the ejectment of Frederick
1 Kaufman, the superintendent of the
cemetery, Z and Col r. p. Strong, the
commanding officer at Fort Whipple, the
military post adjoining, now called Fort
Myer, which was also upon the Lee estate.
The lower court rendered a verdict in
favor of the plaintiff, but in 1882 it was
| reversed by the Supreme Court of the
! United States on the ground that
sovereign cannot be sued without its own
consent, and the lower court had no
power to render judgment where it could
not enforce execution. However, admitted
the equity of the Lee claim, and, in con-
sequence, the Secretary of War was in
structed by a resolution of Congress to
negotiate for the purchase of the title,
which was transferred to him in 1883 for
the sum of $3.50, 900 about double what
the property would have been worth had
the soldiers of the Union army not been
| buried there
| The remains of thousands of the dead
| were brought from the battlefields around
Richmond and from the valley of the
Rappahannock, and the landscape was
| plotted and beautified under the direction
of Gen. Meigs like any other cemetery.
| There are reservations of lawns and
groves for ornamental purposes, but the
greater part of the estate is laid ont in
small lots, generally twelve feet square,
as a permanent burial place for the officers
of the army and navy, and while there is
no law on the subject, it is understood
that the wives of those to whom lots are
assigned may be buried with them.
Any officer in the regular army and
navy or ON the retired list, or who was in
the volunteer service during the late war,
may have lot assigned to him by max
ing application to the QuartcrrnastcrGcn-
eral; and although a paragraph in the
formal assignment informs him that the
Cemetery is not intended for family burial
purposes, no objection is made to the
burial of the wife or even the child in the
lot of an officer, even while he is still liv-
ing. In fact the Quartcrmaster- General,
in the absence of fixed regulations, has
given officers to whom lots are assigned
the privilege of burying within their
limits any member of their family, al
though some years ago. quite famous
General construed this permission so
literally as to include colored woman,
! who had for many years been his servant