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The cemetery is now over three times its original size.

Pause Volume On Off Stephen Carney, Historian 0:00/0:00

The cemetery is on land once owned by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s wife. At the beginning of the Civil War, the federal government realized the strategic value of the 1,100-acre estate across the Potomac River and appropriated it for military use. Part of the property became home to slaves who had escaped the war; another section became a cemetery to bury the growing number of war dead.