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)
At its April 1900 National Council meeting in Washington, D.C., the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America voted to seek to place a memorial to Spanish–American War dead at Arlington National Cemetery. The genesis of this effort is unclear, but a committee to consider "the subject of a tablet at Arlington in memory of the officers, soldiers, and sailors of the Spanish–American War" was appointed some time prior to the biennial National Council meeting. Winifred Lee Brent Lyster, wife of Dr. Henry Francis LeHunte Lyster of Michigan and a relative of Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee, conceived of and was the primary advocate for the memorial. The Memorial Committee proposed a bronze tablet bearing the name of all those who died (from whatever cause) during the war, and that this tablet be erected before the National Council meeting in May 1902. The National Council approved a motion to have a tablet erected, but left the design and content up to a committee (to be appointed by the chair), which was given the power to act on the resolution.