Arlington

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Arlington National Cemetery. 

Six weeks of special observances got underway this week with a wreath-laying ceremony at the grave of the first soldier to be buried there.  Special observances will continue through June 16th, with a special ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, on the date that Arlington was officially designated as a national cemetery.

Arlington, the family estate of General Robert E. Lee, is on the banks of the Potomac River across from Washington D. C.  It was confiscated by the Union Army when Virginia seceded from the Union.  It was turned into a graveyard, at least in part, to spite the commander of the Confederate Forces.

The soldier buried in that first grave is Private William Christman, and he did not die as a result of battle.  The twenty-year-old soldier enlisted in the 67th Pennsylvania Infantry in March and promptly contracted measles.  He died in a military hospital five weeks later and was buried on May 13, 1864.

That rock sitting atop the gravestone in the picture above is a piece of the Christman home in Pocono Lake, Pennsylvania.  The house was built using funds from the dead soldier’s military benefits.