On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery

I surprised myself when I checked the 5-star icon when writing this review. There was a lot I wasn't too thrilled with, but the other parts of the book were just so excellent that it is truly a case of the good swamping out the bad. The book is nominally about the National Cemetery at Arlington, but it is just about impossible to tell the story of the cemetery without reviewing half of American history. The two are very intertwined, and both influenced each other all through history.=== The Good Stuff ===* Robert Poole does a masterful job of capturing the origins, constant changes, and current status of the cemetery. As most everyone knows, it started life as Robert E. Lee's house, which was "confiscated" when Lee became a Confederate Officer. Of course the story really isn't all that simple, and there were many gyrations and agendas along the way.* Similarly, Arlington played some part in every major US action from the Civil War onward. Often the nation's true feelings about a war weren't really captured until it came time to tend to the fallen. This was obviously the case with Vietnam, but even WWII and Korea posed their own controversies. Poole does an excellent job of capturing these conflicts and their resolution.* There was much about Arlington I didn't know. They range from the simple (the buses used my the honor guards do not have seats, because sitting will wrinkle uniforms pressed to perfection), to the complex. Modern DNA techniques make it just about impossible to have an "unknown" soldier. I was surprised at some of the history of the Vietnam unknown soldier.=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===* As usual with a Kindle book, there was an annoying number of typos, misspellings and just general literary carelessness. How ironic that a chapter describing the precision and absolute intolerance for error of the Military Honor Guards should be plagued by typos.* My biggest complaint with the book is the way in which it goes off track, often for pages and pages at a time. I realize that it is just about impossible to separate the history of Arlington from the history of the US, but at times I think Poole errs too much on the side of over-detailed looks at history. The chapters on the Lee family and the Civil War actually became a bit onerous and tiring to read. I also found much of the other history to be "overexplained", rehashing stuff I already know. I suppose if you are not well versed in American history, this will not be as big an issue. As it was, I was almost tempted to put the book down during the early chapters. The latter chapters, especially about the modern Arlington easily made up for this.=== Summary ===Despite my many complaints, I very much enjoyed the book, and learned a bit about Arlington, Washington DC, and how the military of the US treats its fallen soldiers. Parts of the book were a little boring and repetitive, but other parts were simply fantastic. I'd recommend it to any casual or serious US history fan.

i have gotten back into reading because of kindle. i can adjust the font YEAH!! i hadn't read in years because reading glasses give me a headache and the font in books is still too small. i read both fiction and non fiction. was reading a little of history, because as a country the story is true. we have a tendency to repeat history. but this book, what can i say, it was very eye opening. like reading history through a different set of eyes. kind of. no politics, just the facts. amazingly good truthful book. i go to work and i work with men who like to argue history and this book brought so many facts to light that they would say "wow, i didm;t know that. " to the point that when i would come to work the guys would ask if i read anything new in the book lately. i am a night shifter and only would read at night to relax my mind after work so i could sleep. so i read slowly but learned wayyyyy more than i would have expected. excellent. would love to write to the author and tell him the same. good books don't get then recommendations that they should. thank you . i can't wait now to go to washington d.c. arlington national cemetery will have a whole new meaning to me now. something i want to just take a day to roam around and find all the people mentioned . the book made me laugh, and made me cry , but most of all , it made me think....

Twice in my life, in five separate years, I've been employed at Arlington National Cemetery. I even took my pen name, Anson Cassel Mills, from a grave near Arlington House. In my opinion On Hallowed Ground is the best book written about the cemetery, a remarkably fine retelling of various stories that have intertwined to create the history of the place.Especially effective are Poole's descriptions of Robert E. Lee's loss of the property, the importance of Montgomery Meigs in developing the cemetery, the creation of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, FDR's refusal to allow the Pentagon to crowd the graves, and the Reagan-era fiasco that produced an "unknown" of the Vietnam war, only to have the remains later identified and removed.The description of the Kennedy funeral struck me as too long, and Poole is content to tell the story of the Tomb guards as if 21st century ceremony and procedures sprang to life full blown rather than having a historical narrative of their own. The Arlington Ladies are not mentioned at all.As might be expected of a former editor at National Geographic and a current contributing editor to the Smithsonian, Poole's prose is graceful and polished. In a book of this kind, bands can march, clergymen can pray, and Taps can be sounded only so many times before the reader begins to sense the repetition; but Poole manages these reiterations as well as possible. Nevertheless, Poole was fortunate in having published before the 2009 scandal in which dozens of Arlington graves were discovered to have been misidentified, an indignity on which it might have been difficult to end a book intended to be inspirational as well as good history.

How Arlington Cemetery came to be is the best history book I have ever read. The lives of the guards of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is amazing. Worth the price of the book alone.

Lovely book. Very interesting

Brilliant book!

For those interested in military history this book will not disappoint. A very easy read with facts nicely intertwined with historic fact.

Fantastic Book,great reading a must for US History Buffs.

after visiting Arlington cemetry this summer I wanted to know more of its history. This book was very infomitive and more agreat read and one i recemend