10 Average Questions about Arlington National Cemetery

Answer: John F. Kennedy

JFK's place of interment is a highly emotional gravesite to visit. When President Kennedy visited Arlington during his presidency, he is said to have been particularly moved by a certain section of the cemetery. His widow, Jackie, remembered that visit, and that section became her husband's gravesite. Mrs. Kennedy and two of their children are also buried here. President Kennedy's grave is marked with the eternal flame.

Answer: Gettysburg Address

The pledge reads: "We are highly resolved that these dead shall not have died in vain." After the Battle of Gettysburg, the South was no longer able to mount an offensive campaign north of Virginia. Four months later, Abraham Lincoln gave his address that lasted only two minutes. The Gettysburg Address is considered one of the most articulate eulogies ever delivered.

Answer: 1864

Arlington National Cemetery, located in Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington D.C., was established during the fourth year of the U.S. Civil War because so many casualties were coming to the North's capital's burial grounds and hospitals. The date was June 15, 1864. The cemetery is owned by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Answer: Robert E. Lee

The soldiers that General Grant was sending to fight Robert E. Lee were being buried in Robert E. Lee's own front yard. Officers stationed at the site were ordered that the Union dead be laid to rest within a few feet of the front door of the man that the Union blamed for their deaths, so that no one could ever again live in the house.

Answer: 16,000

The cemetery is a place of respect and reverence. William Henry Christman, a private from Pennsylvania, was the first soldier to be buried in Arlington on May 13, 1864. Arlington, and Mill Springs National Cemetery, are the oldest military burial grounds in the U.S..

Answer: Section 60

Hundreds from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried in Section 60. Many soldiers had requested in their wills to be buried in Section 60. The area has become a gathering place for those who lost loved ones.

Answer: Tomb of the Unknowns

Originally known as the Tomb of the Unknown Dead, it was first filled with the anonymous remains of over 1,000 soldiers gathered from unmarked graves on battlefields near Washington. The Tomb's site marks the center of Mrs. Robert E. Lee's old rose garden.

Answer: Montgomery Meigs

Montgomery Meigs was from Georgia, and had once served under Robert E. Lee in the peacetime army. It was Meigs who picked Robert E. Lee's lawn at Arlington for the new army cemetery. His son, Lieutenant John R. Meigs was killed by Confederate guerrillas in the Shenandoah Campaign, and was buried in his father's old commander's lawn.

Answer: William H. Taft

Taft was born in 1857 in Cincinnati, was president from 1908 to 1912, and died in 1930. Taft's widow, Helen, was the first first lady to be buried in Arlington.

Answer: Robert F. Overmyer

Retired Marine Col. Overmyer died in 1996 during the crash of an experimental civilian aircraft he was test piloting. Col. Overmyer commanded the first fully operational flight of the space shuttle.