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A Prank Led to America’s First Nominated Female to Office, and Other Lesser Known American History Facts

Khalid Elhassan December 13, 2019 33 min

9. Arlington National Cemetery Sits Atop Land Confiscated From Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee’s home, Arlington House, during the Civil War. Smithsonian Magazine

Arlington National Cemetery, situated on rolling hills overlooking Washington, DC, is well known as the United States’ most prestigious burial grounds. Less known is that it was established during the Civil War on an estate confiscated from the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. To ensure that Lee could never return to his house, Union soldiers were buried in his wife’s rose garden, and the estate was designated a military cemetery.

After the war, Lee sued, and the fight over his beloved home went on for decades, continuing on after his death. Lee’s family eventually got some compensation, but the property remained a national cemetery. Since then, Arlington National Cemetery has become America’s premier military burial ground. It is the final resting of over 300,000 veterans, from the Revolutionary War to Afghanistan and Iraq, their family members, as well as civilians whose service to the country in non-military fields rendered them eligible for burial on its hallowed grounds.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.