Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial
By early 1864, the military cemeteries of Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, Virginia, were rapidly filling with war dead. Quartermaster General of the United States Army Montgomery C. Meigs proposed using of the Arlington estate as a cemetery. United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton approved the establishment of a military cemetery on June 15, 1864, creating Arlington National Cemetery. Meigs believed that since Lee had committed treason in deciding to fight against the Union, denying Lee use of the mansion after the war was a rough form of justice. Meigs decided that a large number of burials should occur close to Arlington House to render it unlivable. Officers were to be buried next to the main flower garden south of the house, and the first burial occurred here on May 17. Meigs ordered that additional burials commence immediately on the grounds of Arlington House in mid-June. When Union officers bivouacked in the mansion complained and had the burials temporarily stopped, Meigs countermanded their orders and had another 44 dead officers buried along the southern and eastern sides of the main flower garden within a month.
Confederate Memorial (Arlington National Cemetery)
The Arlington Confederate Memorial Association (ACMA) was founded in 1906, although sources differ as to the exact date. On June 7, 1906, John M. Hickey of Camp No. 171, United Confederate Veterans, submitted a resolution to his local chapter authorizing the establishment of a committee on "ways and means" to erect the memorial. According to Hilary A. Herbert, the resolution in its final form established the ACMA. But historian Karen Cox puts the organization's founding at a meeting organized by Thompson and sponsored by the UDC on November 6, 1906. Local news media, however, reported that the founding occurred on December 28, 1906, when Confederate organizations in Washington, D.C., met under the auspices of Camp 171. Even the list of founding directors is not agreed upon. Herbert says the board consisted of himself as well as Hickey, J.T. Callaghan, James McDowell Carrington, F.M. Hare, the Reverend Doctor Randolph H. McKim, and Judge Seth Shepard. The "Washington Post", however, did not list Callaghan, Carrington, or Hare and instead included former Brigadier General Frank Crawford Armstrong (CSA), former Missouri Senator Francis M. Cockrell, and former West Virginia Senator Charles J. Faulkner.