Arlington National Cemetery Early Burial
by Joan Carroll
Title
Arlington National Cemetery Early Burial
Artist
Joan Carroll
Medium
Photograph - Photography And Digital Art
Description
I was just wandering through Arlington National Cemetery when I was drawn up short by this headstone with the tree growing around it. From this angle you can’t see that the date of death of Private Michael Burns from New York was in the 1860s (all that is visible is 186 with the last number obscured by the tree’s roots) so this is one of the earliest graves in the cemetery. At the time the tree must have been very small, or perhaps a tree was planted soon after, but by 2019 the tree was engulfing the headstone. Arlington National Cemetery was officially designated as a national cemetery in June of 1864. The land once belonged to George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of Martha Washington and step-grandson of George Washington. In 1857, Custis willed the property to his daughter Mary Anna Randolph Custis, who in 1831 had married U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Robert E. Lee. After the Lee family vacated the property at the onset of the Civil War in 1861, federal troops used the land as a camp and headquarters. By the third year of the Civil War, the increasing number of fatalities was outpacing the burial capacity of Washington, D.C. cemeteries. To meet this demand, 200 acres of Arlington plantation was set aside as a military cemetery. The first military burial took place on May 13, 1864. On June 15, the War Department officially designated this burial space a national cemetery, thus creating Arlington National Cemetery.
Joan carroll, grave, civil war, infantry, Washington, DC
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Uploaded
July 19th, 2019
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Viewed 1,402 Times - Last Visitor from Fairfield, CT on 04/17/2024 at 6:39 PM
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