Who owned the land of Arlington Cemetery?

From the picture above, I bet you have figured out that we are at Arlington Cemetery, in Washington DC.

It's part of what I call our Civil War Tour. More about that another day.

The history of the cemetery is quite interesting. 

It turns out that the land was the home of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate General. When he left his land for the war, the Union took over it and made it part of their military complex. Near the end of the war there had been so may deaths close-by that they needed a place to bury those soldiers. So the Union donated 200 acres of Lee's property for a burial site. Then they added more and more acres over the years. 

(P.S. After the War, the US Govt. recompensed the Lee Family for appropriating the property, but I do not know the term of that payment.)

Anyway, Did you know that George Washing also had something to do with this? Well, in an indirect way

Here are the details: Robert E. Lee got the land form his wife when they got married.

But Robert E. Lee's wife was the granddaughter of George Washington….(by way of being the daughter of Martha Washington's son form her prior marriage, whom George had  adopted as a son).

So there you have it. 
An original leader of our nation and a leader of the Confederacy both had to do with Arlington Cemetery.