United States v. Lee (1882)
With local cemeteries in Alexandria County and Alexandria filling rapidly with war dead, Quartermaster General of the United States Army Montgomery C. Meigs proposed using of the Arlington estate as a cemetery. The first burial there was made on May 13, 1864. United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton approved the establishment of a military cemetery on June 15, 1864, creating Arlington National Cemetery. By the end of the war in April 1865, more than 16,000 people had been buried at Arlington. In September 1866, a memorial and a burial vault (containing the remains of 2,111 U.S. and Confederate soldiers who died at the First Battle of Bull Run, Second Battle of Bull Run, and along the Rappahannock River) were buried in Lee's former wildflower garden on the mansion's east side beneath the Civil War Unknowns Monument, a memorial to honor unknown soldiers who had died during the American Civil War.
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.