arlington has so much history tied up in the civil war, this section of the cemetery was begun in may of 1864 before there was a cemetery. how did that happen? it happened that 1864 the civil war had bee going on for several years and washington was a hospital city at that time. there were 50,000 soldiers and sailors in the hospitals of washington, temporary hospitals set up all over town and those people started dying. they had to be buried. so earlier in the war the national cemeteries were established at alexandria, virginia and the old soldier's home in northwest washington. they were planned to accommodate all of those who died in

washington area hospitals. what happened was the war went on much longer and was much bloodier than anyone expected so that pretty soon we filled up the graveyards at alexandria and at the old soldier's home in washington. they needed new burial space. the quartermaster's office of the union army looked across the river and found this place and thought it would be a good place to begin burying people. arlington happened to be the home of robert e. lee the personal the confederate general. not only was it a convenient place to begin military burials from the civil war, it was felt to be a matter of justice the deletion vindication. the first military burials at

arlington came in may of 1864, well into the civil war and the first of those burials was from 67 pennsylvania infantry named william christman. he was a farmer from a poor family and he came to serve in the union army. he ended up in a hospital in washington. he got a case of german measles which killed many service members on both sides of the war. he developed peritonitis from this measles infection and died in the washington hospital across the potomac river at arlington, the first military burial. things were so desperate at that time in the civil war, so many people dying that there wasn't much time for ceremony or ritual

at arlington. they would bring people for burial day after day after day and they went into the ground with no flags flying, no bugles' playing, often not a chaplain to give them a sendoff. basically just trying to keep up with the carnage from the civil war when arlington began. during the war things were so desperate that there wasn't any time for tombstones. they had head boards made of pine or walnuts, painted white with black lettering. those had to be maintained or they fell apart so that in years after the civil war as we began to clean up we began to make sense of things. sit someone came up with the design in the 1870s for the

white marble tombstones you see at arlington today. uniform design. anyone qualified for burial here qualified for one of these tombstones. the earliest stones were like these you see here which have the name of the company, the state and the date of burial and an incised shield. later the design was simplified to include the name of the person, the date of birth and the date of burial. that is the modern tombstone you see in other sections of the cemetery today. the first military burial, william christ'sman was typical in that like many soldiers on both sides he wasn't killed by a bullet or a cannon ball. he was killed by a disease. most of the people who died in

the civil war died from infections. dysentery, yellow fever, measles, mumps, fan died from battle wounds. most of the people you see in this section of the cemetery are in that category. william christman was buried in may of 1864. the cemetery was not established until a month later, april of 1864. it began to fill up very quickly. this part of the cemetery we are in, section 27, was called the lower cemetery. as you can see it is the edge of arlington. there is a road just outside the cemetery. you can't see anything from this location. that is the way the officers who were living and working in the

mansion during the war wanted it. they didn't want to see the burial coming in. they didn't want to work in a graveyard. they wanted to be out of sight and out of mind. the quartermaster general, montgomerie mags progress will didn't like that idea. he did not have much use for robert e. lee. they served together in the union army. he considered lee a trader and thought he should be hanged for his desertion of the union army and his leadership of the army of northern virginia. meigs came to arlington on the day it was officially begun as a cemetery, june 14th, 1864, came to this part of the cemetery, ground and was upset that their renault graves around the league

mansion. is next act was to go up the hill to begin to put burials next to the mansion. you can see his strategic approach to the creation of arlington cemetery. up the hill in mrs. lee's garden. we are now up on the hill overlooking washington d.c. at the lee mansion. >> the highest point at arlington national cemetery, this was home, this was the home of robert e. lee before the civil war. at the height of the civil war in 1864 the first military burials were made in the cemetery, out of sight of the mansion.

quartermaster general didn't think the graves were close enough to the mansion. he found officers who died in service and he had them buried here around mrs. lee's garden to make it more difficult for them to return after the war. >> as we walk along here we see these tombstones and circled the garden. >> they don't go all the way around but they form a border around part of the garden. there is something like at the end of the war, 40 graves of officers. we don't know exactly what montgomery meigs's thinking was but i suspect he chose to bury officers here rather than privates and enlisted men because it would make it more difficult to remove them after the war was over because they were more prominent and better known. it was a strategic move on

montgomery meigs's part and proved pretty effective because by the end of the war there were not only these graves but thousands of other graves at arlington and that made it difficult for the lee family to return. >> did they attempt to return? >> they did not attempt to return but they wanted to get arlington back and they worked for years. robert e. lee after the war quietly met with his lawyers in alexandria and discussed with them a way to get -- mrs. lee was more vociferous about it. went to congress after a general lead died and petitioned congress to give arlington back. her petition was booted out of congress. they thought it was a ridiculous idea. radical republicans were in charge of congress. they did not give her a very big hearing.

she died in 1873. her son, their eldest son went to congress, got voted down and went to court and by 1882 he won a famous case in the supreme court. the supreme court ruled arlington had been seized without just compensation during the civil war and gave arlington back to the family. it took awhile but by 1883, the lees have arlington back but there were 16,000 to lose here at the time. as a practical matter they couldn't come back to live here. so they settled with the government for fair market value. $150,000, 1100 acres of prime real estate and 16,000 to montalban inc's of the potomac river. the great irony is when custoi l

lee signed the deed to the government, signing the title on the other side, the secretary of war, robert todd lincoln, so that you had son of lee and the son of lincoln agreeing on something. that was the beginning of the reunion. >> we are going to walk over here to the first tomb of the unknown soldier is. >> one of the great traditions of arlington is honoring the unknown soldiers lost in war. the first instance of that came after the civil war when quartermaster general montgomery meigs sent recovery teams into the battlefield with a 30 mile radius of washington to recover

unknown soldiers from that war. they brought them here to this part of arlington. after the war, these teams recovered the dead from chancellorsville and other great battlefields. montgomery meigs had a huge pit dug here and had then buried in a mass grave in 1866. two thousand 1 hundred eleven unknowns buried here at arlington. this is the end of mrs. lee's garden. another instance of montgomery meigs not only taking the opportunity to honor the war dead but also to erect a barrier to the lees returning to

arlington. you will see many unknowns like these gravestones here. that is significant because so many people in the civil war on both sides went to their graves without names. more than 42% of, which is bad enough to get killed in the war but also to lose your identity for your family to have no trace on you left. what could be worse than that? we did learn from the civil war and subsequent wars, we worked very hard to identify our service members as soon as the fighting was over. we spend says -- specialty teams to make ids and provide a name for the fallen warriors and give them a decent burial.

but it took a while. it took a few wars to perfect it. the rate of unknowns went to 10%. in the spanish-american war, 3% became the standard in world war ii. we have gotten so good at this particular part of warfare that by the time vietnam came along there was only a handful of unknowns at the end of that war. >> this is a head stone that says cornelia brown citizen. what is this? >> this is a section for slaves at arlington national cemetery. before there was a cemetery this was a working plantation boned by the robert e. lee family. their were slaves living here, working here, dying here. when the civil war broke out, to

many slaves, thousands and thousands of slaves came to washington from virginia searching for their freedom and that became a flood with the emancipation proclamation in 1863. thousands of slaves came to washington. they lived here, they died here, they died in great numbers in the early years after the emancipation proclamation because they were not prepared for the flood of refugees. they didn't have a place to live for each. so the union army decided to find a place for them at arlington. so they established the freedman's village on the old plantation. 1500 slaves came to live here in

the spring of 1863, early 1864, and they stayed here, one generation to the next generation to the next generation, three generations. the last former slave left freedman's village in 1900. ..

>> you can see the slave section of the cemetery stretches on and on over down this hill, over the next one. there's thousands of slaves buried in this part of arlington. >> are people surprised when you tell them that? yeah, most people don't know about -- they know they were slaves living here when there was a plantation, but most people don't know about freedman's village. there was a thriving black community which the army built for former slaves here at arlington. and it lasted for quite a few years. they are the descendents of those people still living in the washington area. they come here. they are their ancestors. they remember them. >> are all of these tombstones and monuments in here are much

more elaborate than we have seen before. what's the story of this section? >> this is section one of the cemetery. arlington begin as a poppers cemetery. during the height of the civil war. 1864. after the war, when we had time to think about, to reflect about what had happened, what we had just gone through, we had time for more ceremony, more ritual, and gradually one by one, the officers from the civil war wanted to be buried here. it was a great honor to be buried here, essentially, after the smoke and blood of the civil war had settled somewhat. this was the place the officers, known as the officers section in its day, section one. and remember, this is the period they were basically no limits to

on the design. if you had the money and wanted to build an angel as your grave marker, even if you were a lieutenant, you could have it be any size, any have you wanted. so you see again, at arlington, it's a reflection of the times, of the opulence of the time, the excessive ornamentation of the victorian era. you see come into play here. one gentleman, an artillery officer, union artillery officer, loved his work so much that he had a canon brought in as his grave marker. and it was a working pole in canon. and he's just down the road here in section one. his poor wife is also under the canon for all eternity. sleeping beside him. >> yes said the contrast is that you had a first lieutenant with

this elaborate tomb, and then this is a brigadier general? >> yes. i mean, you can see side-by-side the lieutenant would have a great tomb with the angel holding her roses and great cross and june right beside a more discrete tomb from eight brigadier general, so that rank mattered here. you couldn't be here unless you were an officer, but it didn't matter as far as the design and grandeur of your tomb was concerned. this section also has, not only civil war figures, but there are great explores in this section of arlington. remember back in the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century, much of the export was done by the army and 80. so that just across the road here, we have adolphus w. greeley, one of the early arctic

explorers who was here on an army signal corps expedition at the end of the 19th century. went farther north than anybody had been at that time. just down this road is the grave of john wesley powell, who explored the colorado river. he had one arm at the time. he had lost his arm at shiloh in the civil war, but he went on to be a great explorer, and other great things. u.s. geological survey. another part of arlington just over the hill are the arctic explorers, robert gary and his associate matthew, who claim to reach the bowl in 1909. they are here. the point is arlington is more than just a military cemetery. it's a place for explorers, figures from history. and many other things.

>> we are on the hill overlooking the city here. what is this tomb on the mound here overlooking the sea? >> this is the tomb of the freshmen who served in the american revolution. he stayed on. he was commissioned to design the city of washington. so he came here in 1891, 1892. just across the river it looks very finished down with the buildings, the capital, the washington monument. all of that. but when he came here, it was just words, creeks, swamps. and out of that he envisioned a national capital. for this new nation. he designed it. his design was accepted. it was adopted. you can look at the city today and see the city that he envisioned. in the late 18th century.

i he died in 1825. his estate was worth less than $100. in a sort of an unforgotten and. he was buried in a grave on a farm. there was a cedar tree planted to marcus gray. so at the beginning of the 20th century, glenn browne and other designers, city designers, daniel burnham, had the idea of finding him, honoring him properly, giving him a proper burial he had never had and recognizing the man who designed the nation's capital they did here. they brought him to the spot in 1909. and gave him this grave, a little late maybe, but better late than never.

>> the way they have a range here is you often find the name of -- this is a u.s. air corps lieutenant. you'll find the name of the person who was in the service on one side of the tomb, and on the other side you'll find his or her spouse's name. so at arlington, the rule is that if you qualify for burial here, your husband or wife can come as well. and in order to save space in recent years, they have put people basically in the same tomb. they call that bunk, one of top of the other. there's great attention given now to save space. with the way the very people, still with great respect, but

with attention to efficiency and space. there's also a trend in recent years to encourage cremation for those who want it, and there has been built over the past few years, just at the other end of section 60, where anyone who is on early discharge from service is qualified for and on but it's coulter doesn't take up much space. they are very aware of that for the future needs of arlington. >> robert poole, this is section 60 of arlington cemetery. can you explain to us what this is? >> yes. we are in section 60 of arlington national cemetery. this is one of the newer section of arlington. older sections are numbered, so this is one of the higher numbers, one of the newer sections. this is where the people who have been serving in iraq and afghanistan are buried and

honored. unfortunately, quite a few funerals go through here each week. >> you've attended some memorial services and funeral services here in this area, haven't you? can you describe, briefly, what that scene is like? >> well, there are many -- i have been too many funerals are the past several years when i was working on my book. it's never easy when you see the young soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, coming back from iraq and afghanistan to be buried here. you see young families, you see young friend. you often see incidents who are now without a father or mother, and no matter how may times you see it it's not easy to take. it's not easy to see.

the most memorable part of the section is this section of arlington, is the great care and the great dignity and a great honor that comrades tried to give to the fallen comrade here, fallen servicemembers. as you will see, there's great emphasis on doing it right, giving a comrade a send off with great dignity and style. just to make the point that this person is remembered, he or she died for reason and we are here to honor that today.

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>> somebody that will read your book, what do you hope that they will take away from it? >> i hope they will take away from it a sense of what a special place garlington is, and the american story. and how it got that way. because we tend to come here today and you look at it, it looks finished. it looks complete, but it wasn't that way in the beginning. it evolves from one thing into another thing into another thing. to what i tried to do in my book was to say, how did it get to be the place, the national shrine, we know it as today. what was it before? what was it before that? so i tried in my book, peel back the layers of what arlington was and how it became what it is today. >> over 4 million people visit arlington national cemetery each year. and nearly 100 gravesite

services are conducted each week. to learn more, visit arlington cemetery.org. >> a lot of this book is about culture and about how culture matters. and by that i mean how does, where we're from and to our ancestors were make a difference in how we do our jobs. and how good we are, what we choose to do for a living. take that idea, takes a little second half of the book. it's a very, i think, profound and sometimes difficult thing to wrestle with. one of the examples i use in the book to illustrate his point of how much culture matters, is plane crashes. there's a chapter on plane crashes. so i thought when i redo to do is tell a story from that chapter. i will warn you though that i'm not going to tell the whole chapter, the whole chapter, what

i'm going to dave makes a good deal of sense than the version you will read in the book. it's also a good deal scarier than the version you will read in the book. but who in this room will be flying in a point in the next month or so? [laughter] >> sorry to hear that. [laughter] >> but i think, so it is scary. the most important thing about this plane crash that i want to talk about is that it's scary not because it is unusual, it is scary because it is typical. is a very important thing to keep in mind. so here goes. the crash want to talk about, takes off from columbia on gender 25th, 1990, bound for jfk airport in new york. as most of you know, columbia is not that far from the united states. is just on the other side of the