United States Soldiers' and Airmen's Home National Cemetery, Main Gate, 21 Harewood Road Northwest, Washington, District of Columbia, DC

Significance: The Main Gate, erected as a simple yet elegant, classically inspired colonnade, was built in 1883-84 to form the ceremonial entrance into what

was then referred to as the Soldiers' Home National Cemetery. It was built from architectural components of local landmarks, likely from the U.S. Patent Office building, that Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs salvaged after the building burned in 1879; Meigs in fact used parts from the Patent Office to build the Temple of Fame at Arlington Cemetery the same year the Main Gate was erected. Meigs also employed this tactic for the similarly styled Sheridan and Ord-Weitzel gates at Arlington, erected in 1879 from parts of the porticos of the former State and War Department buildings. While Meigs may not have actually designed the gate, his hand is clearly visible in its reuse of parts and the practice of inscribing on its columns the names of great statesman and military commanders.

The Soldiers' Home National Cemetery was created in 1861, following the outbreak of the Civil War to provide burial for soldiers and officers of the Union Army, and is the nation's oldest military cemetery. The Commissioners of what was originally referred to as the U.S. Military Asylum offered 6 acres of its larger tract to create the burying ground following the bloody Battle of Bull Run. The first burials were made on August 3, 1861. By 1864, the cemetery had reached its capacity, necessitating the creation of Arlington National Cemetery. However, limited burials continued, and the cemetery was finally expanded to 16 acres, in 1883. It was at that point that the Main Gate was built as part of a larger program of improvements and embellishments to the newly expanded cemetery.

Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N150

Survey number: HALS DC-51-A

Building/structure dates: 1883-1884 Initial Construction

national cemeteries war civil war gates colonnades doric order wrought iron gates r n batchelder composite iron works l naomi doddington historic american landscapes survey catherine c lavoie sergio lizarraga r h matthews montgomery c meigs quartermaster general office of national cemeteries jarob j ortiz ryan pierce mark schara soldiers home national cemetery us army us patent office photo airmen home national cemetery harewood road northwest states soldiers main gate american civil war civil war library of congress arlington national cemetery virginia

1861 - 1865

Library of Congress

https://www.loc.gov/

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