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.
John C. Metzler Jr.
In 2007, Metzler implemented the Millennium Project, a $35 million, 100-year-long expansion plan which transferred of woodland from the National Park Service-controlled Arlington House and from adjacent Fort Myer to the cemetery. Another of cemetery property currently occupied by maintenance buildings would also be converted to burial space. The expansion would add 14,000 burial and 22,000 inurnment spaces. The Millennium Project expanded Arlington's physical boundaries for the first time since the 1960s, and this was the largest expansion of burial space at the site since American Civil War. Metzler also implemented plans move several utility lines to gain even more space. Metzler's plans were criticized and opposed by several environmental and historical preservation groups.