The Old Post Chapel is situated adjoining Section 1 of Arlington National Cemetery on Meigs Drive. Meigs Drive is named after prominent military leader Major Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs who is buried in Section 1 of the cemetery. As quartermaster general of the Army during the Civil War, Meigs directed the establishment of Arlington National Cemetery. A West Point graduate, he served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, supervising several important prewar projects in Washington, D.C. — including the Washington Aqueduct and the construction of the wings and dome of the U.S. Capitol. In May 1861, shortly after the Civil War began, Meigs was appointed to quartermaster general, charged with managing Army logistics. In this capacity, he oversaw military burials, and in May 1864 he designated part of Robert E. Lee and Mary Custis Lee’s former estate, now occupied by Union troops, as an Army cemetery. His wife, Louisa Meigs, was the first person to be buried, in 1879, in the family’s plot off of Meigs Drive; Montgomery Meigs joined her in January 1892, following a full military honors funeral at the cemetery he had helped to create.

[igp-video src=”” poster=”https://www.arlington.media/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/the-old-post-chapel-is-situated-adjoining-section-1-of-arlington-national-cemetery-on-meigs-drive.-m.jpg” size=”large”]The Old Post Chapel is situated adjoining Section 1 of Arlington National Cemetery on Meigs Drive. Meigs Drive is named after prominent military leader Major Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs who is buried in Section 1 of the cemetery. As quartermaster general of the Army during the Civil War, Meigs directed the establishment of Arlington National Cemetery. A West Point graduate, he served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, supervising several important prewar projects in Washington, D.C. — including the Washington Aqueduct and the construction of the wings and dome of the U.S. Capitol. In May 1861, shortly after the Civil War began, Meigs was appointed to quartermaster general, charged with managing Army logistics. In this capacity, he oversaw military burials, and in May 1864 he designated part of Robert E. Lee and Mary Custis Lee's former estate, now occupied by Union troops, as an Army cemetery. His wife, Louisa Meigs, was the first person to be buried, in 1879, in the family's plot off of Meigs Drive; Montgomery Meigs joined her in January 1892, following a full military honors funeral at the cemetery he had helped to create.