Memorial Drive (Arlington National Cemetery)
Memorials and monuments at Arlington National Cemetery include 28 major and 142 minor monuments and memorials. Arlington National Cemetery is a United States national cemetery located in Arlington County, Virginia, in the United States. It is managed by the United States Army, rather than the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
The first major memorial in the cemetery was completed in 1866. Entry gates in the cemetery were later dedicated to Union Army generals. The Spanish–American War and World War I led to the construction of several more major memorials. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was constructed in 1921, although the large sarcophagus above the burial vault was not dedicated until 1932. Almost a third of the cemetery's major memorials have been constructed since 1983.
Owing to space constraints, Arlington National Cemetery does not permit the construction of large memorials or monuments without an act of Congress. The cemetery does, however, encourage the donation of trees ("living memorials") and permits small memorial plaques to be placed before these plantings. As of 2011, there were 142 such memorial plaques in the cemetery.
In 1778, John Parke Custis purchased a 1,100-acre (450 ha) tract of sylvan land on the Potomac River north of the town of Alexandria, Virginia. This land became the Arlington Estate. In time, his granddaughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, inherited the estate. She married Robert E. Lee, an impoverished lieutenant in the United States Army, in June 1831. With the outbreak of the American Civil War on April 12, 1861, Robert E. Lee resigned from the United States Army and took command of Virginia's armed forces on April 23. Mary Custis Lee fled the house on May 17, and Union troops occupied Arlington Estate and Arlington House on May 24.
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