The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-11
HISTORIC ARLINGTON.
The Monument to the Maine Victims
 the Last of a Notable Group.

The Monument to the Maine NictillS the Last of Notable Group.
 Historic Arlington, the most beautiful of our national cemeteries, has gained additional importance recently through the burial there of those who lost their lives in the Spanish war, including the dead of the battleship Maine The fate of the latter is conmemorated by a striking monument-a granite slab sur mounted by a huge anchcr-whlle a 1 shaft of great height, capped by an eagle, has been erected in memory of | the soldiers and sailors who perished l in the conflict precipitated by the fate l full explosion in Havana harbor.
 l In respect to number of burials Ar llington is pretty nearly the largest of | the eighty-three national cemeteries, but it's romantic history makes it by far the most interesting of them all. It was formerly the property of General Robert E. Lee and he was living there when Fort Sumter was fired upon He l was married in 1881 in the drawing l roo moi the old mansion, where visitors nowadays are requested to register their names and in the room across the ! hall he wrote April 20, 1S61) his resigna- 1 ticn as an officer of the United States army. Two days later he himself car- Tried the resignation across the river to Washington, and handed it to General 1 Winfield Scott. He left Arlington on the same afternoon, never to return and the next day accepted the com lmand of the Confederate forces.
 l About 17,000 men have been buried at Arlington since it was opened as na- 1 ltionaI cemetery in 1864. Soon after the battle of Bull Run the government took lpossession of the mansion for hospi- | tai and used it for this purpose through the civil war. The first person buried there was a Confederate soldier named
 Reinhardt, of the Twenty-third North Carolina infantry, who died in the hos 1 pital May 13, 1864. During the next two months 2,619 Federals were inferred there. and nearly every battlefield be- | tween the Potomac and the Rappahan- | mock contributed it's quota to the Ar ] Engton metropolis.
 The appearance of the old buildings, Iespecially the Lee mansion, has been preserved as far as possible. Six stone columns which beautify two of the gateways on the east front were part lof the north portico of the old war de-
 partment, and were removed on the de- molition of the latter structure in l869. The stone pillars and entablature of the
 Temple of Fane-a noteworthy feature lof the cemetery-are from the corridors of the patent office in Washington, talk en a.way after it's partial destruction by | fire in 1877.
 Within the inclcsure of the grounds | is Fort McPherson, one of a chain ot | forts built during the civil war for the
 defense of the capital. It has been re stored as far as practicable
 One of the most striking features of the cemetery is the tomb of the un- known dead,'' a massive block of gran lite, on which are inscribed the words: s'Beneath this stone repose the bones of 2,111 unknown soldiers, gathered af- 1 ter the war from the fields of Bull Run and the route to the Rappahannock.
 Their remains could not be identified, I but their names and deaths are record- l ed in the archives of their country and lits grateful citizens honor them as of their noble army of martyrs. May they
 rest in peace.
 I The Arlington cemetery is part of an original grant of one thousand acres made by William Bukley, governor of 1 Virginia, to Robert Howsen, in October, ] 1864, in payment for the transportation | of settlers from England to the colony.
 Howsen, in the same year, sold the lpdoperty to person named Alexander 1 for fix hogsheads of tobacco, and more than century later a descendant of i this purchaser transferred it to John
 Parke Custis, the equivalent being e1,- l1C0 in Virginia currency. Custis was !! the son of Martha Washington by her 1 first marriage He was aide -de-eamp | to Washington and died of "camp fev- err (typhoid) at Yorktown, his two youngest children, G. W. Parke Custis and Nellie Custis, being subsequently,
 adopted by Washington.
 1 c. W Parke Custis inherited the es- tate, built the still existing mansion in 1Sl4, and died in it three years later, leaving the property to his only child, girl, who married General Robert E. Lee. By an executive order, dated Jan- uary 6, 1864, Arlington was ordered sold
 for taxes, and was afterwards bid in
 by the government for $26,S00. Mrs