New York Times

Item NEW-6598

Description

Full edition (8 pages) of New York Times, June 20, 1864.
Progress of the Union Army at Petersburg and perhaps one of the first documented accounts of the creation of Arlington National Cemetery.

" Gen, Robert E. Lee, who commands the army of rebels, is fighting to enslave the black man. In view of this fact, a happy thought has occurred to the Secretary of War, which it gives us pleasure to record. First, he ordered Colonel Greene to organize the Freedman's Village for the protection of the black man and his family upon the Arlington estate...That village is a success. Second, he has himself recently selected a site, upon the same estate, for a national cemetery for the burial of loyal soldiers who die in Virginia from wounds inflicted by Lee's orders! General Meigs has been directed to supervise the laying out of the grounds."