MEMORIAL DAY DEDICATION

MEMORIAL DAY DEDICATION

I am incredibly Honored to be here today and speak on behalf of my Ancestors who had a part in the founding of Arlington National Cemetery. This year is the 160th Anniversary of the Establishment of Arlington National Cemetery and our Memorial Day Holiday. Of all of America's National Cemeteries this is the one which is best known and most revered.

On July 16, 1862, the U.S. Congress passed Legislation authorizing the U.S. Federal Government to purchase land for National Cemeteries for the purpose of burying military dead and placed the U.S. Army Quartermaster General in charge of this program.

This Legislation preceded by two months the Battle of Antietam Creek in Maryland just 73 miles away, where the highest death toll of any battle during American Civil War was witnessed: 3,650 killed; 17,300 wounded; and 1,770 missing/captured in just one day.

The reason why the Civil War was such a wholesale slaughter was that the weapons of war had improved but the tactics utilizing them effectively had not improved since the American Revolutionary War. There are approximately 16,000 Civil War Veterans buried on these grounds alone.

The development of this property began in 1802 when George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of George Washington's Wife Martha through her first marriage, began building Arlington House at the present-day Arlington National Cemetery on land that he inherited from John Parke Custis, his natural father, following his death.

In 1804, John married Mary Lee Fitzhugh. They had four children, but only one, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, survived into adulthood. On June 30, 1831, she married future Confederate States Army general Robert E. Lee. In 1818, Arlington House was completed. John initially intended the house to serve as a home and memorial to George Washington, his Stepfather, who had no natural Children of his own with Martha but America's Greatest Leader died on December 14, 1799.

John's Will granted a life inheritance of the house to his Wife, allowing her to live at and run Arlington House for the rest of her life but prohibiting her from selling any portion of it. Following his Wife's death, Arlington House, then known as the Custis-Lee Mansion, was passed on to her eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee.

Of course, it is great historic irony that the last owners and occupiers of this land before the Civil War and it becoming a National Cemetary were Mary and Bobby Lee. The immediate proximity of the Custis-Lee House to the Nation's Capital made it necessary to confiscate the land when Bobby made his Decision to lead the Confederate rather than Union Armies. Both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis wanted him as their Commanding General.

Bobby is my First Cousin six times removed. He is the Son of Light-Horse Harry Lee or Henry Lee III and the Grand Nephew of Richard Henry Lee, my Fifth Generation Grandfather and Brother To Henry Lee II. Richard is one of the Founders of the Continental Congress where his Independence Resolution was Adopted and his Second Cousin, Thomas Jefferson, wrote the Declaration of Independence in its defense.

In the Introductions of my last seven books I chronicled why Bobby fought on the Confederate side. From the Introduction of my latest book, TRAILBLAZER TO REVIVAL OF THE AMERICAN DREAM:

..."the author took a course in General Semantics that
changed my viewpoint of the world forever. Perception
and interpretation of the events around us is the
most compelling factor in how we behave and conduct
ourselves. What we believe is not always true
and what is true, we do not always believe.

"General Semantics forces us to examine and
wrestle with our beliefs that we ourselves accept as
fundamentally true, but in fact are not. Most of us
would say that if we lived 160 years ago at the time
of the American Civil War we would have supported
and/or fought on the union side, right? After all, the
union won and ended slavery, right?

"Humans, when confronted with a decision of this
magnitude, rarely see such a cut and dry choice in
front of them. The author would be one of those that
would say I would have chosen to fight on the union
side. As an 11-year old boy, the author made such
a statement, in fact.

"Fresh off a tour of Gettysburg, Antietam,
Manassas and Harper’s Fairy while visiting relatives
in West Virginia, the author made such a boast to my
father after we returned to Montana. Dad just laughed and
was quick to remind me of our southern ancestry
which includes his namesakes John Marshall and
Robert E. Lee.

"Dad went on to inform me that the author’s sister,
brother and I had ancestors at the Battle of Hastings
on the side of William, the Conqueror; were some
of the nobles that virtually forced King John to sign
the Magna Charta 808 years ago; and that we were
descendants of Henry VII, who expanded the powers
of the Parliament after the War of the Roses; and
were Stuart Pretenders, which families included that
of George Washington.

"Some traditional British historians may find
it positively galling that none other than George
Washington is more closely related to William, the
first British/English Monarch, than is King Charles III.
As a result of our mother’s Norman ancestry, the
author was named after Prince Philip and my brother
was named Stuart, after the House of Stuart, the last
ruling House in London which our family is directly
related and was loyal to.

"My father was not finished. Through his mothers’
ancestry we are related to Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, James Monroe; John, Peyton and Edmund
Randolph; Richard H. Lee and Henry (Light Horse
Harry) Lee III; and John Marshall. He took a little
pride in calling his mother an “unreconstructed rebel.”
There is a story told in the Lee Family told to me
by my father which you will not find in the history
books but illuminates why Bobby Lee fought on the
Confederate side. Shortly after a Confederate cabinet
meeting, the General and Confederate President
Jefferson Davis had a conversation. In it, Lee told
Davis he believed slavery to be morally wrong and
secession to be unconstitutional.

"Probably somewhat horrified, Davis asked Lee
why he was there. Lee told him: “Five generations
of my family have been born and raised in Virginia.
I could no sooner raise my sword against Virginia
than my own family.”

That is why Robert E and Mary Custis Lee,
step-Granddaughter of George Washington, abandoned
the Lee Family home, Stratford Hall, and
fought on the Confederate side during the American
Civil War.

My father had made his point. He led me to
realize that the decision concerning which side to
fight on during our nation’s civil war was not as easy
and clear-cut as I had imagined.

So often we have core beliefs that unduly influence
our values, viewpoints and decisions, many times
without even realizing it!

Our current viewpoints of America, its relationships
to other nations and our internal affairs are set
by our belief systems and, that in reality, may be
faulty and need to be appropriately changed!
Please understand the author is not trying to
foment a national introspective here or persuade
the readers to toss your current belief structure
and adopt a new one, although for some that might
not be a bad idea at all. The author is merely suggesting
that everyone be willing to open their minds
upon different perspectives and how we perceive our
world and our future. This is the primary topic of the
third chapter....".

I have observed over the past half century that so much of my Family History is the history of the United States and the world. My Father's Family have multiple Descendants from the Randolph Dynasty here in the Old Dominion and my Mother's Family from the Norman Dynasty in France and England.

My Wife Angelica is a direct Descendent of John and John Quincy and related to John Hancock. We named our Son Jack after the first three U.S. Presidents, who he is most certainly related, and his Sister Marti after their Wives. Because George and Thomas married widows named Martha, we couldn't name her Martha Abigail Martha. So we named her Martha Abigail Elizabeth after her Mother and the two Queens, Elizabeth I & II, she is related to on my side of the Family.

Because I am now in my 60's many of our Members at the Sutton Viewpoint Center believe I will soon retire. On my 63th birthday in Rio two years ago I stated that I feel I have another 25 or 30 years of doing what I love doing: serving others and our creator in any way I can. I am not going anywhere!

The next day, Queen Elizabeth sent me a message saying in part: "I am so glad to hear there is someone else who is in this for the duration." She died 11 days later. In one of her last Official Acts as Queen after over 70 years of service, she welcomed her Realm's 179th Prime Minister, Liz Truss. Queen Elizabeth was a dedicated Public Servant and a great example to the rest of us!

I began thinking along these lines when my Father died of covid-19 complications on the infamous day of 6 January 2021. He was a practicing Physician at age 87 and probably caught the disease from one of his patients. It is very clear to me that one of our Family Ethics is dedicated Public Service and I want to honor that Ethic by renaming the Fitzsimons Building in Aurora, Colorado, soon to be Jefferson, after My Father. He worked there when it was a hospital for over 20 years. It is the same hospital where U.S. President and Five-Star General Dwight David Eisenhower spent time recovering from a heart attack when he was President.

Phil Sutton, DBA
SVC President & CEO
Arlington National Cemetery
U.S. Memorial Day, 27 May 2024