Robert M. Poole on “The Battle of Arlington”
- By Megan Gambino
- Smithsonian.com, October 20, 2009, Subscribe
Robert M. Poole was an editor and writer for National Geographic for 21 years. He retired from the magazine in 2004, the same year that his book Explorer's House, about the history of National Geographic's founding family, was published. Poole has written for National Geographic, Preservation, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Smithsonian, where he has been a contributing editor since 2005. His latest book, On Hallowed Ground, from which “The Battle of Arlington” is adapted, is due out in November.
What drew you to this story—and book idea?
I am keen on the biography of places—in other words, how a particular piece of geography evolves over time, taking on its own distinctive character. So I begin with a stage—in this case 1,100 acres of plantation land known as Arlington—and watch the characters come and go over a 200-year period. Each character brings something new to the place and changes it in some way.
I wish I could say that I developed the idea for my new book, On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery, but it came from my friend and literary agent, Raphael Sagalyn. Living within a few minutes of the cemetery and having visited it many times, I knew the place well, at least superficially, but it was so close to home that it never occurred to me that it might make a book and a magazine piece for Smithsonian. It took someone else to see it for me.
Has Arlington always been a place of interest to you? Can you recall your first visit?
To answer the last part first, I vividly remember my first visit. I was eight years old, Dwight Eisenhower was president, and my family drove up from North Carolina to see the sights, including the White House, the Capitol, the Armed Forces Medical Museum (which featured, among other things, the amputated leg of Civil War Gen. Daniel Sickles in a jar), and Arlington. My parents made my brother and me shut up for the changing of the guard at Arlington's Tomb of the Unknowns, which was as impressive then as it is now. From that time, and from attending occasional funerals at the cemetery, I retained an interest Arlington. I knew it was one of our nation's most familiar and important historical sites, but like many others, I never knew why. My book attempts to answer that. It shows how this place, once the home of Gen. Robert E. Lee, became a pauper's cemetery, a refuge for freed slaves during the Civil War and gradually a national shrine to those who sacrificed everything in service to our country.
What's the experience of walking through the cemetery like now, after all the research and writing you've done on its history?
I've been practically living at Arlington for several years, visiting several times a week, but I must say that I discover something new on each visit, a corner I had missed before, a piece of history that comes into focus. A walk through Arlington is quite literally a walk through history, through all of the wars our nation ever fought—even those predating the Civil War and the creation of the national cemetery. As you would expect, it remains a place of quiet beauty, and one linked, by way of Memorial Bridge and the Lincoln Memorial, to the viewscape of the nation's capital. Indeed, that view is the reason that President Kennedy is buried there. After looking through the Lee mansion in March of 1963, he stood on the hill looking back across the Potomac River to Washington and remarked to a friend: "So beautiful! I could stay here forever." His words were prophetic, of course. He returned to Arlington for burial a few months later, in November 1963.
What was your favorite moment in your research?
Getting to know the people who work behind the scenes to keep Arlington going—the specialty teams from the armed services who fire rifle salutes, fold the flags, play the music, drive the caissons; the groundskeepers and chaplains who make sure that a final salute at Arlington is carried out with care and dignity; the Tomb Guards who keep watch at the Tomb of the Unknowns around the clock, rain or shine. It is a remarkable place with a unique history. It is unlike any other place I know, with so many memorable characters, living and dead, that the great challenge for a writer is to pick a few to carry the story.
To learn more about Robert Poole's book, go to: www.walkerbooks.com
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Comments (12)
I would like to interview Mr. Poole for a book I'm writing on ANC. Do you know how I could contact him? Thank you.
Posted by Nate Peterson on March 4,2012 | 05:28 AM
I'm impressed, Thankyou Robert M. Poole
Posted by Robert M. Poole on January 10,2011 | 02:54 PM
Dear Mr. Poole,
I have read with great personal interest your book, "On Hallowed Ground" primarily because an ancestor of mine, Albert H. Packard is cited by you as the first officer buried at Arlington National Cemetery on May 17, 1864. My family has been aware since my childhood in Maryland of his burial in the Lee Rose Garden. He was recruited into the 19th Maine Infantry in 1862. By Gettysburg, he was a corporal and their unit defended Cemetery Ridge near the Codori Barn on July 2 and helped repulse Pickett's charge on July 3, 1863. He went back to Maine and was instrumental in recruiting a company for the 31st Maine Infantry and he was made Captain of the company. He was shot at the Battle of the Wilderness above the left eye and was taken to Columbian Hospital which I understand later became Columbia Hospital for Women. He died ten days later and was buried as you describe. Of personal note, my mother, Ruth Esther Packard Dichtel, was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in 2007. Thank you for your excellent journalism.
Sincerely,
William J. Dichtel, M.D.
Posted by William Dichtel on October 8,2010 | 11:28 PM
Mr. Poole
I was reading any article that you wrote about Winslow Homer and saw your name.
My great-grandmother's maiden name was Poole. Her father's name was Patrick Vickhouse Columbus Poole and her mother's name was either Mary Catherine (sp) or Katherine Mary, I'm not sure. They made their homes in Kansas and Oklahoma and northern Texas where Patrick was a jack of all trades including a stint on the bench as a judge. They had close relatives in Tennessee and I think Georgia.
He and his youngest daughter Marguerite (called Daisy) ran in the great Oklahoma land race-no info on whether they got any land though.
One of my grandmother's brothers was named Robert Poole Nicholson, but he was older than you and was born and raised in Western Washington (state) so I'm sure that there was no direct link, but possibly a link because of the Robert and Poole names.
I don't mean to bother you, but I am interested in seeing if you might be related to these Pooles and if so can you give me any more info. I am getting older and want to try to get some of the story for my children.
Thank you for the time you took to read this message
Regards
Verlyn Hobbs
garyhobbs@comcast.net
P.S. I really enjoyed the article from May 2008 Smithsonian. Your style of writing is very informative and enjoyable.
Posted by Verlyn Hobbs on October 4,2010 | 12:42 PM
Thank you, Thank YOU for such an informative book about an important part of our history. Now that you have made that part so alive for me, I am looking forward to going back to Arlington for a third time to offer a prayer of thanks to all buried there.
Posted by Karen Lukow on August 24,2010 | 10:55 AM
Mr. Poole,
Can't express how much I enjoyed "On Hallowed Ground". I have three comments none of which are meant to be critical. The third I would not want published since it is based on an article I read which questioned some items on page 282. I don't recall where I read the article or the author. I wish I had saved it.
Page 183 mentions that the Pentagon was finished in seventeen months, but you didn't mention General Leslie R. Groves, who as I recall reading was in charge of the construction and, of course, later the Manhattan Project.
Page 191 mentions comments made by Lt. Gen Patton on the eve of D-Day in 1945. D-Day was in 1944 and I believe by then General Patton was a full general and Commanding General of the 3rd Army.
Page 282 mentions John Mitchell. May want to verify.
Thank you.
Ron
Posted by ron dunnington on May 17,2010 | 02:01 PM
There is an error in your book ON HALLOWED GROUND.
Page 113, second full paragraph, sixth sentence beginning "On February 4, 1899, the Treaty of Paris squeaked through the Senate on a vote of sixty-one to thirty-nine . . ."
61 + 39 = 100. In 1899. there were only 45 states in the Union and the Senate had 90 members, not 100.
Posted by James B. Cook, Jr. on March 17,2010 | 09:45 PM
With reference to your publication ON HALLOWED GROUND, there is an obvious error on page 71:
Second full paragraph, lines 4-5 from the bottom: "... infamous Confederate prison camps at Andersonville, South Carolina ...." Andersonville Prison was in GEORGIA, not South Carolina.
Posted by Jo Cille Hafter on February 18,2010 | 12:15 PM
This was one of the first articles I read twice. Usually I do read the Smithsonian from cover to cover. But this article was so interesting that I stopped and read it again. I have been doing my own research into the origins of the cemetery because of this article. Look forward to reading the book.
Thank you for such a great history lesson.
Posted by Ed Obermeyer-Kolb on November 12,2009 | 10:53 PM
I thoroughly enjoyed reading "On Hallowed Ground." But if it were not for your highlighting it by writing on page 113 . . . "the Treaty of Paris squeaked through the Senate on a vote of sixty-one to thirty-nine, one more than needed to seal the peace. . .", I would have missed your egregious error of the vote count: Since there were fewer than fifty states in 1899, the actual vote was 57 to 27.
The following is from Wikipedia:
The controversial treaty was approved on February 6, 1899 by a vote 57 to 27, only one vote more than the two-thirds majority required. Only two Republicans voted against ratification, George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts and Eugene Pryor Hale of Maine.
Posted by Edward J Mattis on November 10,2009 | 05:59 PM
Dear Mr.Poole,I enjoyed very much your article on the battle of Arlington.My wife Susanne is related to the Meigs.She has a vast amount of information on the family.Regards..Anthony de Vries
Posted by Anthony de Vries on November 5,2009 | 03:11 PM
It is mentioned in the article, or the section of it in the Smithsonian magazine that "The burials of Sgt. George E. Davis, Jr. and Maj. Audie Murphy followed their servie in World War II." It even shows a small picture of Davis's headstone partially engulfed in a growing tree.
Who was Davis? I have searched numerous websites, including the Cemetery's lists, and cannot find his name, at least in that form. The closest is a Navy Lt. who was killed on the USS Houston.
I don't want to interfer whith anyone's privacy or make a story or anything. I'm just curious of someone who was mentioned in the same sentence as Audie Murphy.
Any help?
Posted by Jim Fox on October 25,2009 | 08:59 PM