Fort
Myer, Virginia, traces its origin as a military post to the Civil War.
Since then it has been an important Signal Corps post, a showcase for
Army cavalry and site of the first flight of an aircraft at a military
installation and the first military air fatality.
The
acres encompassing Fort Myer and Arlington National Cemetery were called
Arlington Heights when they were owned in the 1800s by Mary Anna Randolph,
granddaughter of George Washington Parke Custis. Custis was Martha Washington's
grandson. Mary Anna Randolph married Robert E. Lee when he was a young
Army lieutenant. Lee helped rescue the estate from financial disaster
in 1858, left the area in April 1861 to lead the Confederate Army, never
to return.
The
land was confiscated by the government for military purposes when the
Lees were unable to pay their property taxes in person. Part of the
estate became Arlington National Cemetery and the remainder Fort Whipple,
named in honor of Maj. Gen. Amiel Weeks Whipple, a division commander
at Fort Cass which was established where the stables are today in August
1861. Gen. Whipple fought in the Civil War battles of Fredericksburg
and Chancellorsville in Virginia. He died of his wounds from Chancellorsville
in 1863.
Fort
Whipple, on 256 acres, was one of the stronger fortifications built
to defend the Union capital across the Potomac River. Units stationed
there lived in tents and temporary frame structures. The fledgling post's
high elevation made it ideal for visual communication, and the Signal
Corps took it over in the late 1860s. Brig. Gen. Albert J. Myer commanded
Fort Whipple and, in 1866, was appointed the Army's first chief signal
officer, a post he held until his death in 1880. The post was renamed
Fort Myer the next year, primarily to honor the late chief signal officer,
but also to eliminate confusion created by the existence of another
Fort Whipple in Arizona.
In
1887, Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, the Army's commanding general, decided
Fort Myer should become the nation's cavalry showplace. Communications
people moved out and cavalrymen moved in, including the 3rd Cavalry
Regiment, supported by the 16th Field Artillery Regiment. As many
as 1,500 horses were stabled at the fort during any given time from
1887 to 1949, and Army horsemanship became an important part of Washington's
official and social life.
Most
of the buildings at the north end of Fort Myer were built between 1895
and 1908. Many of those still standing have been designated historic
landmarks by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the state of Virginia.
"Quarters One" was completed in 1899 as the post commander's house,
but since 1908, it has been the home of Army chiefs of staff, including
Generals George C. Marshall, Omar N. Bradley, Douglas MacArthur and
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The
first military test flight of an aircraft was made from the Fort Myer
parade ground on Sept. 9, 1908, when Orville Wright kept one of his
planes in the air for a minute and 11 seconds. The second test flight
ended in tragedy when, after four minutes aloft, the aircraft crashed.
Wright was severely cut and bruised, and a passenger, Lt. Thomas Selfridge,
became the first powered aviation fatality.
Defensive
troops were stationed at Fort Myer during World War II, when it also
served as a processing station for soldiers entering and leaving the
Army. The U.S. Army Band (Pershing's Own) and the U.S. Army School of
Music moved to the post in 1942, joined later by the U.S. Army Chorus.
The Army's oldest infantry unit, the 3rd U.S. Infantry (The Old Guard)
was reactivated in 1948 and assigned to Forts Myer and Lesley J. McNair
in Washington to become the Army's official ceremonial unit and security
force in the Washington metropolitan area.
