Arlington National Cemetery

This guide to Arlington National Cemetery traces how a Union quartermaster general, Montgomery Meigs, picked Robert E. Lee's abandoned family estate as burial ground in the summer of 1864, and why he meant it as punishment rather than practicality. You'll hear about Private William Christman, one of the first soldiers laid in the ground, and how Meigs answered a Lee relative's request to someday move the graves. Listen for how deliberately the burials crept toward the mansion itself.