McClellan Gate

McClellan Gate
United States
The McClellan Gate in 2011
For Major General George B. McClellan, Commander, Army of the Potomac
Unveiled	circa 1871-1875
Location	38°52′44″N 77°04′02″W / 38.878794°N 77.067150°W / 38.878794; -77.067150Coordinates: 38°52′44″N 77°04′02″W / 38.878794°N 77.067150°W / 38.878794; -77.067150 near Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.

The McClellan Gate (sometimes known as the McClellan Arch) is a memorial to Major General George B. McClellan located inside Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, in the United States. Constructed about 1871 on Arlington Ridge Road (then the eastern boundary of the cemetery), it served as a main gate until about 1879 when the Sheridan Gate was constructed. The McClellan Gate became nonfunctional in 1966 when the road closed, and expansion of the cemetery eastward in 1971 left the gate deep inside Arlington. It is the only gate constructed on the cemetery's eastern boundary in the 1800s that survives.

In 1778, John Parke Custis purchased an 1,100-acre (4,500,000 m²) tract of forested land on the Potomac River north of the town of Alexandria, Virginia, in 1778. Custis died on November 5, 1781, leaving one-third of his estate to his wife, Eleanor, and a life estate interest in the remaining two-thirds to his step-father, George Washington. After the death of George Washington in 1799 and Martha Washington in 1802, Custis' son, George Washington Parke Custis (known as "G.W.P.") inherited the property. He named his new estate "Mount Washington" after his foster grandfather, and put 57 African slaves to work building log cabins for themselves, clearing land, and farming.

Custis' estate encompassed an area with a highly varied topography. Near the river, the land was flat and lush. But about 1,500 feet (460 m) inland, a ridge ran roughly parallel to the shoreline. Another 300 feet (91 m) or so beyond the ridge, the land rose sharply by nearly 100 feet (30 m) to reach the uplands. "Mount Washington" was too small to be self-supporting as a working farm, so Custis sought to make Arlington into a family seat — complete with a large park, a forest, and gardens. Farming occurred so that G.W.P. could experiment in land management techniques and animal husbandry, and to enhance the diets of his family, farm hands, and slaves. From 1804 to about 1840, Custis worked to create what he called "the Park". Patterned on the English landscape park, "the Park" was bordered by the carriage drive on the south, native forest on the north, uplands and the house on the west, and the ridge in the east.