Confederate Memorial (Arlington National Cemetery)
Arlington National Cemetery was established in June 1864 as a cemetery for Union (United States of America) Civil War dead. The first military burial at Arlington (a white soldier, William Henry Christman) was made on May 13, 1864, close to what is now the northeast gate in Section 27. However, formal authorization for burials was not given by Major General Montgomery C. Meigs (Quartermaster General of the United States Army) until June 15, 1864.
List of memorials and monuments at Arlington National Cemetery
In 1778, John Parke Custis purchased a tract of sylvan land on the Potomac River north of the town of Alexandria, Virginia. This land became the Arlington Estate. In time, his granddaughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, inherited the estate. She married Robert E. Lee, an impoverished lieutenant in the United States Army, in June 1831. With the outbreak of the American Civil War on April 12, 1861, Robert E. Lee resigned from the United States Army and took command of Virginia's armed forces on April 23. Mary Custis Lee fled the house on May 17, and Union troops occupied Arlington Estate and Arlington House on May 24.