On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery

On February 18, 2010, Robert Poole delivered a lecture on his book On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery. In his new book, Robert Poole traces the founding of Arlington Cemetery on what had been the family plantation of Robert E. Lee's wife. Arlington first became a U.S. Army headquarters and then a cemetery for indigent Civil War soldiers before Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton made it the new national cemetery. Arlington's special significance grew after the war, as the government gathered soldiers' remains hastily buried on nearby battlefields and reinterred them at Arlington, where they received the honors of a grateful nation. The rituals and reverence associated with Arlington evolved over the next hundred years, paid through the blood of those who fought in the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Cold War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan. (Introduction by Paul A. Levengood) The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.