Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA

The mortal remains of our ancestors rest in a variety of places, each uniquely special: Church yards, centralized diocesan graveyards, municipal cemeteries, family vaults, small private graveyards, garden cemeteries, and U.S. national cemeteries. Our paternal grandparents are buried at Arlington, widely considered to be the country’s premier military cemetery

Battlefield and Military Cemeteries

[W]e can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, November 1863

Battlefield and military cemeteries were initially established to give soldiers honorable burials when their family could not afford to transport the body home. The shocking loss of life during the U.S. Civil War quickly made the ordinary logistics of burials impractical, and often overwhelmed local mortuaries and cemeteries. The National Park Service currently manages 14 cemeteries, mostly at Civil War battlefields including Gettysburg, while the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs maintains 148 national cemeteries, foremost among them Arlington.

The Arlington Estate

The 1,100 acre Arlington estate was inherited by Martha Washington‘s grandson George Washington Parke Custis, who built the impressive Greek Revival mansion known as Arlington House that still dominates the heights above Arlington Cemetery. The view of Washington, D.C. from the historic home is truly stunning, and is well worth the climb. When Custis died in 1857, the house and plantation were inherited by his only child Mary Custis Lee, the wife of Robert E. Lee. The Lees abandoned Arlington when her husband elected to resign his U.S. Army commission following the secession of their native Virginia in 1861.

Arlington and the Federal City

It is interesting to consider that both sides of the Potomac River were initially included in the 100 square-mile Federal Capital, and that it was only in 1847 that the 31 square-mile portion on the western shore including the port of Alexandria and the Arlington estate was retroceded to Virginia. How would history have changed if the estate had remained in the Federal District? Robert E. Lee, who opposed secession, would likely have accepted the offered field command of the Union army, and the Federals would have been spared the merry-go-round of timid and inept commanding generals leading up to Ulysses S. Grant. More to the point, Arlington National Cemetery would likely not exist, and the property may long ago have been subdivided into apartment complexes and single family homes boasting enviable views of Washington.

The Founding of a National Cemetery

Shortly after the Lees left, the Federals seized the Arlington estate and its heights that loomed above the Union capital. In 1864 Union Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs, like Robert E. Lee a southern-born West Point-trained engineer, proposed setting aside 200 acres of the estate for use as a cemetery. It has since grown to more than 600 acres.

Notable Burials

A few of the hundreds of notable graves at Arlington include Pierre L’Enfant, the French-trained engineer who designed the layout for the federal city, Presidents John F. Kennedy and William Howard Taft, and actor and WWII Medal of Honor recipient Audie Murphy. Also buried on the property are George Washington Parke Custis and his wife, interred there before the property became a National Cemetery, John Rodgers Meigs – General Montgomery Meigs’ only son to survive to adulthood – killed in an encounter with Confederate scouts in the Shenandoah Valley late in the Civil War, General Meigs himself, and some 400,000 lesser known men and women.

Lt. Col. Santiago G. Guevara, U.S. Army

Among those lesser-knowns are our grandparents Lt. Col. Santiago Garcia Guevara and his wife of 66 years, Carmen Fernandez Guevara. The Guevaras were born and raised in the Philippines, then a U.S. protectorate. Santiago earned a coveted foreign-cadet appointment to West Point and was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Army’s Philippine Scouts. He and Carmen had three children, ages 10, 6, and 3 when war came to the Philippines on December 8, 1941 – hours after the Pearl Harbor attack. Santiago fought on Bataan, was ultimately surrendered, and underwent the horrors of the Bataan Death March and internment at Camp O’Donnell Prisoner of War camp. Carmen and the children endured 3 1/2 years of Japanese occupation. The family moved to the U.S. following their trials, and there lived out their lives in comparative peace. Santiago died in January 1996 at age 96.

A Memorable Funeral

It was a memorable experience. On a crisp, mostly cloudy day a U.S. Army honor band blew “Ode to Joy” as Santiago’s casket arrived and then “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!” as it was carried reverently into the small post chapel at Fort Myer, Virginia. Inside, where we his family and friends gathered for the funeral Mass, the organist took up and carried on the latter tune as the doors closed.

Following the Mass, the 18-piece band somberly played “Soul of My Saviour” as the casket was slowly re-loaded onto the shiny black WWI-era artillery caisson harnessed to six white horses, a matching seventh horseman charged with leading the caisson platoon. The three horses on the left were mounted, those on right saddled but riderless. Caissons, historically used to bring ammunition and supplies to the battlefield, were often then pressed into service to carry any wounded or dead back to the rear; Thus the tradition began of utilizing caissons for the solemn duty of carrying a soldier to his final resting place.

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” played to the slow tempo of a bass drum, guided a color guard, the band, a large escort squad, and the horse-drawn caisson flanked by the ceremonial pallbearers through an adjacent gate and down the hillside into Arlington National Cemetery.

We followed in our cars, and all assembled near the grave. The band resumed “Soul of My Saviour” as the casket was borne to the interment site for the burial rite, following which the pallbearers lifted the flag and held it reverently above the casket. “Taps” was played, three rifle volleys fired, and “Aura Lee” accompanied the folding of the flag and its solemn presentation to Carmen, who later had it mounted in a wooden display case. The flag was passed down to me in 2015, and hangs in my living room today.

Santiago and Carmen’s eldest child Santiago Jr. served in the U.S. Army Reserves medical corps, and when he died in 2002 he too was honored and buried at Arlington. When Carmen passed away at age 102, she was buried with her husband.

Getting There

Arlington Cemetery is located directly across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial at the end of Memorial Drive. Pay parking is available. A family pass is required to drive into the cemetery. Metro’s Blue Line has a nearby stop. Santiago and Carmen’s grave is in section 60 north and slightly east of the intersection of Bradley and MacArthur Drives. Santiago Jr. is in nearby section 66 southwest of the same intersection. A cemetery map is available here.