Arlington National Cemetery Honors U.S. Military

The land used for Arlington National Cemetery has a long history that even predates the establishment of this military cemetery in 1864 near the end of the American Civil War. The Arlington Mansion that overlooks this site was started 1802 by George Washington’s adoptive grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, and by the middle of the nineteenth century it was the home of Robert E. Lee and his wife Mary. The Lees left Arlington Mansion after Robert E. Lee became a general in the Confederate army, and the land was eventually confiscated for the burial of Union soldiers by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
Today, more than More than 300,000 people are buried at Arlington Cemetery. Veterans from all the nation's wars are buried in the cemetery, from the American Revolution (reinterred after 1900) through the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two presidents are buried at Arlington—William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy, whose gravesite is one of the most frequently visited. Kennedy’s wife Jackie and two of their children who died in infancy are buried together at the site.
Visitors often come to see the solemn changing of the guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns. The tomb contains the remains of unknown American soldiers from World War I, World War II, The Korean War, and until DNA testing made identification possible in 1998, the Vietnam War. Eligibility for burial at Arlington National Cemetery is available at Arlingtoncemetery