Upon the death of Mrs. Lee, in 1873, her eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, according to the will of his grandfather, George Washington Parke Custis, became entitled to the Arlington estate. He at once took steps looking to the recovery of the property. After petitioning Congress in vain, he began suit in ejectment in 1877 at Alexandria, Va. In 1879 the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Virginia decided he was entitled to the estate and that the United States did not have lawful title. The Department of Justice carried the case to the United States Supreme Court, which decided that the property belonged to Mr. Lee. The United States was thus faced with the question of whether to disinter the remains of thousands of soldiers and sailors and vacate the property, part of which had become a military post, or purchase the same. However, Mr. Lee was willing to sell Arlington for $150,000. On March 3, 1883, the Forty-seventh Congress appropriated the necessary money, and on March 31 Mr. Lee executed a deed which conveyed the title to the United States. The deed was recorded at the Alexandria County Courthouse on the 14th day of May, 1883, just 22 years, less 10 days, from the day, May 24, 1861, when General Scott’s soldiers crossed the Potomac River and took possession. Mary Randolph, wife of David Meade Randolph, and a relative of the Custis family, is the first person known to have been buried at Arlington. In April, 1853, Mrs. Custis, wife of the owner of the estate, George Washington Parke Custis, died and was laid to rest in a little plot of ground beneath huge oaks not far from the mansion house. The master of Arlington died on October 10, 1857, and was laid beside his wife. To-day their graves may be seen, surmounted by simple marble shafts, within an iron-fenced inclosure, where lilies-of-the-valley cover the ground in profusion. The Quartermaster General’s Department has recently erected a marker beside the grave of Mrs. Randolph, giving a short history of her life. ARLINGTON AS A NATIONAL CEMETERY Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, Quartermaster Corps, United States Army, was the first to suggest to President Lincoln that the estate be converted into a military cemetery, and in 1864, by order of Secretary of War Stanton, 200 acres were set apart and dedicated as a national cemetery for the burial of Union soldiers and sailors. However, the first man to be buried there was a Confederate soldier who died in the hospital May 13, 1864. There are buried in Arlington a small number of those who fought in the Revolutionary War and some who were in the War of 1812. Their remains were removed to Arlington from an abandoned cemetery in 1892. Thousands of men who died in the Civil War are buried there, with veterans of the Spanish-American War and the Philippine campaign, and now the veterans of the World War are steadily being added to the number. [Illustration: ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY--MEMORIAL AMPHITHEATER]