Do you know the answer?

[Palehorse]

George Washington Parke Custis, who was the original owner of the Arlington estate, is interred with his wife in the cemetery; Section 13. He was the grandson of Martha Washington.

Mary Anna Randolph Custis inherited the property from her father. She was the wife of Lee.

GWP Custis was the one who constructed Arlington house, on the property he inherited from his own father upon reaching majority age. (He was raised by George and Martha Washington after his father's untimely death when he was a child).

[Palehorse]

Arlington; was it confiscated by the Union or was it purchased?

[Anne]

My guess would be confiscated.

[Palehorse]

Actually, it is both!

Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, proposed in 1864 that 200 acres of the "Robert E. Lee family property" at Arlington be confiscated for a cemetery.

The government acquired Arlington at tax sale in 1864 for $26,800. Mrs. Lee had not appeared in person, but had sent an agent, attempting to timely pay the $92.07 in taxes that were due.

The government turned away her agent, refusing to accept the tendered payment.

In 1874, Custis Lee, heir under his grandfather's will passing the estate in trust to his mother, sued the United States claiming ownership of Arlington. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Lee's favor in United States v. Lee, deciding that Arlington had been confiscated without due process, Congress returned the estate to him.

The next year, Custis Lee sold it back to the government for $150,000 at a signing ceremony with Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln.