Arlington Cemetery is the closest thing to holy ground in America. A national monument it is the nation’s most important military burial ground.

A new book - On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery - captures the unique history of this place. First, a few facts:

- Over 300,000 U.S. soldiers, military officers and statesmen are buried at Arlington

- The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, President John F. Kennedy’s burial, Robert F. Kennedy’s burial, and General Robert E. Lee’s burial are the most visited sites.

- Rare individuals marked by their achievement have been allowed to be buried at Arlington even though they are not military or statesmen: Astronauts and boxers among others.

The story of Arlington is the story of the American Civil War. The cemetery was originally a fraction of the size and not a cemetery at all, but the residence estate of Confederacy (southern) General Robert E. Lee - still a revered icon in the South. As the Union army was marching toward Arlington (just across the Potomac from Washington D.C.), Lee’s family fled (Lee had been already gone leading the Southern rebellion. It was then that a Union bureaucratic made the decision to bury dead Union soldiers in front of Lee’s house so as to de facto declare his property now under the ownership of the U.S. government due to the fact that Lee’s family would be (as they were in fact) reluctant to move back into an estate which not functioned as a burial ground.

They did not want to live there again, but did want to regain the property. Lee’s son successfully sued to regain the property in 1882 (Civil War ended in 1965), but then sold it a short four months later for $150,000 (an incredibly sum in 1882). The buyer of the property? None other than Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the president - Abraham Lincoln - who defeat Robert Lee and secured his surrender 17 years earlier. A transfer of property between two Americans whose fathers stood divided and at arms against one another.

With Lincoln’s purchase, Arlington became state property and from then on grew to bury dead from every American war since the Civil War. Unfortunately, young men and women continue to be honored with gun salutes at Arlington after coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan for the final resting place.

Source: The Economist. Hope eternal.