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.
Spanish–American War Memorial (Arlington National Cemetery)
Choosing a site for the memorial was not difficult. The Army Quartermaster Corps controlled Arlington National Cemetery, and in March 1901 Lyster asked the Quartermaster General, Brigadier General Marshall I. Ludington, for permission to erect the memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. Permission was granted, provided the federal government bore none of the cost. It is unclear just when the society obtained the pre-determined 1899 site, however. The Secretary of War had chosen the site in early 1899, and the existing memorial was already located there. Obtaining the site for the Society memorial was not a foregone conclusion. The record is clear, however, that Justine Van Rensselaer Townsend, President of the National Society of Colonial Dames, approached Secretary of the War Root directly and secured the existing location for the Society's memorial.