The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1906-02-01
WHEELER IN ARLINGTON.

! Nv Dulldl VI bllbhulel btH'Idl JO'
seph Wheeler OF the United States
Army in Arlington. under the escort
Of troops OF that army. IS an event
which no one but visionary would
hayc predicted ten years ago
For Arlington was deemed consc-
Grated to tho dead OF the Union cause
in the Civil War, and though four
Confederate officers, dying, presuma.
bly, as prisoners Of war, during the
conflict, lie buried there, no other
Confederate dead have been admitted
90 It since 1865.
by the burial Of Wheeler there the
South becomes a partner with the rest
Of the country in the beautiful prop
erty which was first the home OF the
adopted son of George Washington
and grandson of his wife-namely,
the learned and accomplished George
Washington Parke Custis. Later II
was the home Of Custls's only child,
who became the wife Of Robert f.
Lee.
In the passion OF the Civil War this
property WAS confscated from the
Lees, and to make sure that II would
never revert to them Il was converted
into a cemetery for the burial OF Union
soldiers. Later, the injustice Of the
confscatlon was rendered by con.
gress. whicn appropriated four or five
hundred thousand dollars to pay for
the property, but that was years AZ.
ter Lee had died.
George Washington Parke Custis,
who built Arlington House on an in
herited property of / 900 acres on the
Potomac opposite the city OF Wash.
ington, was born only a few months
before Yorktown. In the siege of which
his father, Parke Custis, stepson and
military aid of Washington, contract
ed the Illness which cost his life.
Custis resided at Mount Vernon I'm.
tl the death of his mother In 1902
and then founded Arlington. Well ed.
ucatcd and possessing a Handsome for.
tune he lived the easy life of a Vir.
ginia country gentleman, devoting
himself to agriculture, literature and
to social entertainment, which made
him notable character in the life of
Washington City until his death in
1857.
And now Joseph Wheeler. who
fought brayely ami brilliantly against
the Government IN the South. and for
It under the torrld suns of Cuba and
the Philippines, rests in soil conse-
Grated by the former ownership of
the heirs of the name OF Washington
and of Lee, as well as by the ashes
of The Union dead. Verify, his burial
there seems the last spadeful of earth
needed to f,l the chasm of Civil War
sedltionalism.
Besides General Frederick Dent
Grant and other Union soldiers there
We e among Wheeler's honorary pail
h'AlNlo III ANNM VI N NNb lhNh NllOnt
success in the North illustrates the
truth that the bitterness of this sec
ionolism was never universal either
in the North or in the South j. A
Wyeth fought under that other great
cavalry leader of the South, Nathan
Bedford Forrest and william Neck
lenburg Polk served upon the stan o.
his father Leonidas Polk. the Soldier.
Bisnop of the Confederate Army
As young men both Polk and Wyeth
moved to New York shortly after the
war and both have risen to the high
est rank in the medical profession
there. Polk's history of his fathers
life and campaigns is an important
contribution to the story of the great
war Wyeth's life of Forrest" Is a
book that NO admirer of the great
Tennesseean and no soldier who
fought under him can afford to leave