Robert E. Lee’s Virginia estate was confiscated by the Union and turned into a cemetery during the war

Lee and his wife Mary left their 1,100-acre Virginia estate, Arlington, which looked over Washington, D.C., as war descended on Virginia. For failing to pay $92.07 in taxes, the United States government seized it in 1863. Lincoln also approved the construction of a cemetery on the grounds, which included a burial vault in the estate's former rose garden.

According to his biographer Elizabeth Brown Pryor, the plan was that if Lee ever left again, he would "have to look at these graves and realize the carnage that he had made." The Lees considered regaining Arlington after the war but took no action before they passed away. When their eldest son George Washington Custis Lee sued the federal government in 1877 for unlawfully taking possession of Arlington, the Supreme Court agreed with him and returned the property to him. However, the Lee family was powerless to do anything about the estate's body count. For $150,000, George Lee resold it to the government. In the future, Arlington National Cemetery would eventually house the remains of 250,000 soldiers.