#2: The First Burials at Arlington - An Act of Necessity and Vengeance

This week we discuss some of the firsts in Arlington's history - including the first burial, the first burial with family present, the first burial of a combat casualty, the first burial of a draftee, and the first officer burial. Included is also the history of arguably history's most famous bugle call, Taps. 

This Week's Ghosts of Arlington are:

1. US Army Private William Henry Christman (Section 27, Grave 19)
2. US Army Private William H. McKinney (Section 27, Grave 98)
3. US Army Private William Reeves (Section 27, Grave  99)
4. US Army Private William Blatt (Section 27, Grave  18)
5. US Army Captain Albert Packard (Section 26, Grave 5203)

For more information, including links to stream the show, visit the GoA website: https://www.ghostsofarlingtonpodcast.com 

Transcript

Welcome and thank you for joining me for Ghosts of Arlington; Episode 2: The First Burials at Arlington – An Act of Necessity and Vengeance. <PLAY THEME> I have a personal goal to visit the grave of each individual I highlight on this podcast, take a photo or two of their headstone, and post those pictures – and any additional pictures or information I find relevant to the week’s discussion – online at ghostsofarlingtonpodcast.com, which I invite you to visit. The website also lists ways to interact with me online if you feel so inclined.

Last week we covered the unimaginably high number of Civil War casualties suddenly requiring burial in and around Washington, DC. As the war entered its third year, cemeteries in the capital were filled well  beyond capacity. As the Federal government looked for new cemetery locations, a brigadier general in the Union Army, took it upon himself to begin burials at the recently acquired Arlington property; he did this a month before the site was officially declared a national cemetery. These early burials were an act of improvisation by the general, born of necessity and more than a touch of vengeance. 

While some of the early history of Arlington as a cemetery is clouded by the confusion of war and the passage of time, many of the cemetery’s firsts are well known. The first soldier laid to rest on the Lee estate was Private William Henry Christman, of the 67th Pennsylvania Infantry who was interred on May 13, 1864. Private Christman was born in 1844 and on the eve of the Civil War he was living with his family in Pennsylvania. He was the second oldest of seven children ranging in age from 18-1. William’s father Jonas supported his family as a wagon driver for a successful local farmer. 

As with many others, the Civil War changed the Christman’s lives forever. Two months after the outbreak of the war, William’s older brother Barnabus enlisted and served for just over a year before being killed in action on June 30, 1862 in Virginia at the Battle of Glendale – He was 20 years old and one of 935 men killed that day. 

Barnabus’s death devastated the Christman family. Jonas was particularly affected by the loss of his eldest child and soon suffered from various illnesses. Due to his father’s failing health, William took over the responsibilities of the Christman household and as the war continued, William decided that he too would enlist in the Federal army as a way to financially support his family. He mustered into the Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry on March 25, 1864. William’s service record indicates that he received a $300 enlistment bonus, with $60 being paid in advance and the remaining $240 being paid in allotments over his three year enlistment. He also received an advanced month’s pay of $13.41. According to pension records, Williams sent his bonus and advance pay to his parents. Less than a month later, he sent an additional $35 home and indicated that he wanted them to use the funds to buy land for a family farm.

I have not found any pictures of Private William Henry Christman, but his enlistment papers describe him as having grey eyes, sandy hair, and a florid complexion. He stood five feet, seven and one half inches tall, and had a scar on the left side his neck.  

After spending time training at Camp Carmac Woods in Philadelphia, Christman and his unit were  ordered to Washington, DC and continue on by transport barge to Belle Plain, Virginia. One week later, Christman was in Culpepper County, Virginia – a region experiencing fierce fighting.

As PVT Christman arrived in Cullpepper, he contracted the measles. Over the following week, his condition worsened and on May 1st, he was admitted to Lincoln General Hospital.  Located on Capitol Hill in Washington, this 2,575-bed military hospital was specifically built for the Civil War and demolished a short time after the war ended.

Lincoln General was a perfect example of the poor sanitary conditions of 19th century wartime hospitals. While 79 soldiers from Christman’s regiment were killed in battle during the course of the war, 153 lost their lives to disease. PVT Christman was part of the latter group; he succumbed to his illness in the hospital on May 11, 1864. 

Christman fought his own private battle in the hospital for 11 days, subject to the atrocious medical conditions of the time. At the time of his death, William was in possession of one blouse, one pair of pants, and one hat, all of which were sent to his father, now grieving the loss of a second son. As with his older brother, Christman was just 20 years old when he died.

Private William Henry Christman was buried in what is now section 27 of Arlington National Cemetery on May 13, 1864. The site is located about half a mile northeast of Arlington House and a few hundred yards from the Potomac River. One other solder was interred that day, 17 year old Private William H. McKinney, of the 17th Pennsylvania Cavalry. PVT McKinney was the first soldier at Arlington to have his family present at the funeral. The following day saw the funerals of Private William Reeves, 76th New York Infantry, the first draftee to be interred and Private William Blatt, 49th Pennsylvania Infantry, the first battle casualty buried on the grounds. Two days after that, the first two unknown Union Soldiers were interred – nearly 5000 unknowns are buried there today. Records show that these first graves were most likely dug by a former slave of the Lee family, John Parks who became mainstay at the cemetery as it evolved over the years, digging thousands of graves and performing site maintenance. 

There are no surviving records of Private Christman’s funeral service, but records of the second funeral that day, note that Private McKinney was <quote> interred with the usual military honors <end quote>. Typical military honors in 1864 involved an army chaplain and possibly a bugler to sound Taps, which was a new tradition beginning to take hold at military funerals. 

I will return to the first burials in a bit, but speaking of Taps, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about the history of that particular bugle call. So, pop quiz: last week I told you to remember the name of the officer who led the first unit across the Potomac River to seize the ports in Alexandria and the heights of Arlington. At the time, he was the colonel of the 12th New York Infantry Regiment. Do you remember his name? If you said Dan Butterfield – you get a gold star! During the Peninsula campaign of 1862, Butterfield, now a brigadier general and commander of the 3rd Brigade, 5th Corps, grew irritated with the army’s standard lights-out tune known as Scott’s Tattoo, named for the former army chief Winfield Scott and in use since 1835. Butterfield found the tune to be to be too harsh and in his own words, “not as smooth, melodious and musical as it should be.” To that end, he summoned Oliver W. Norton, his 23 year old bugler, and asked Norton to make changes to the tune while he listened. Openly admitting that he could neither read nor write music, Butterfield made his alterations by ear until it sounded right. In Norton’s words: “After getting it to [Butterfield’s] satisfaction, he directed me to sound that call for Taps thereafter in place of the regulation call. <PLAY TAPS> The music was beautiful on that still summer night, and was heard far beyond the limits of our Brigade. The next day I was visited by several buglers from neighboring Brigades, asking for copies of the music which I gladly furnished.” This 24 note call, officially known as Butterfield’s Lullaby, quickly spread throughout the Union Army and crossed enemy lines, entering into the Confederate Mounted Artillery Drill manual by 1863. The new tune was played at a funeral just a few days later after an unknown Union artilleryman was killed during the Peninsula Campaign. As his comrades buried him and prepared to fire the traditional three volley salute at the graveside, Artillery Captain John C. Tidball (a future commandant of West Point), feared that an outbreak of musketry in close proximity to the enemy might trigger more bloodshed. With this in mind, CPT Tidball called for a bugler to play the soothing new lights-out tune – the first recorded instance of Taps being played over a soldier’s grave. This tradition soon became common practice. 

OK, now that I’ve digressed, let me try to get back on task. Less than a week after the first private soldiers were buried in the lower cemetery, the first officers were laid to rest in a prominent location close to the Lee mansion, near Mrs. Lee’s garden with a commanding view of the river and the capital. The first officer interred was Captain Albert H. Packard of the 31st Maine Infantry, on May 17, 1864. Packard, who had been <quote> shot in the brain <end quote> during the battle of the Wilderness, miraculously survived his initial wounding and the journey from the battlefield to Washington’s Columbian College Hospital, but died soon after. By the middle of June, CPT Packard had been joined by six other officers. 

While the need for a new location for burials was clearly laid out in the last episode, I also said there was more than a touch of vengeance in the decision to use Arlington. Brigadier General Montgomery Meigs, the Army quartermaster general throughout the war and an ardent patriot of the Union cause, never saw the soldiers and officers who fought for the Confederacy as anything more or less than traitors to America – especially one of his first commanding officers, fellow West Point graduate Robert E. Lee. It is almost certain that he had formed a master plan for Arlington before he sought permission to make it the nation’s preeminent cemetery, a plan that would make it impossible for the Lees to return to the plantation after the war. The placement of the early officer graves, around the garden just a few yards from the Lee’s, home made the Arlington House uninhabitable unless, in Meigs own words, “the Lees wanted to live among ghosts.” Planting prominent Union officers in Mrs. Lee’s beloved garden would make it politically difficult to disinter those heroes of the Republic. It is likely that Meig’s hit upon the Arlington idea and put it into practice, only to seek bureaucratic approval after the fact – a practice still in use in today’s military (I can’t begin to tell you how many times I heard it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission during my time in uniform). Two days after the first burials, Meigs wrote to Secretary of War Stanton to inform him what had been done and asked that 200 acres – nearly 1/5 of the plantation – be set aside as a national cemetery. Stanton, whose disdain for Lee matched Meigs’, endorsed the quartermaster’s recommendation that same day. Stanton signed the historic order in his bold, back-slanting hand and was applauded by loyalist newspapers for this action. The Washington Morning Chronicle reported: “This and the [freedmen’s] establishment are the righteous uses of the estate of the rebel General Lee. The grounds are undulating, handsomely adorned, and in every respect admirably fitted for the sacred purpose to which they have been dedicated. The people of the entire nation will one day, not very far distant, heartily thank the initiators of this movement.” 

Next week, we will see that despite Meigs’ best efforts, the Lee family ultimately launched a successful campaign to have the plantation returned to them. Before we finish today, I have a few personal thoughts about Private William Henry Christman, our first honored ghost of Arlington. Christman served in the army for just two months and met an ignoble end for an infantry soldier, dying in a sickbed before getting a chance to prove himself in battle. It is because of the specifics of his service, rather than in spite of them, that I believe it was a fitting honor for him to be the first service member interred at Arlington. William was already personally acquainted with the horrors of war, having lost a brother to combat, when he volunteered to take up arms in defense of the nation. His service, as short as it was, was honorable and he paid for that service with his life. I believe that anyone who dons the uniform of their country’s military, especially in a time of war, deserves to be recognized. Usually, this recognition goes to the senior ranking officers or those who distinguish themselves above and beyond the call of duty – but let us not forget that the silent professionals deserve recognition, too. And as always: “Fear not death for the sooner we die, the longer we shall be immortal.” <PLAY TAPS>