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Item Title
Arlington National Cemetery, Sheridan Gate, Arlington, VA
Location
Sheridan Gate, VA
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Created/Published
Documentation compiled after 1933.
Notes
Survey number HABS VA-1348-B
Building/structure dates:
1818 initial construction
Building/structure dates:
1879 subsequent work
Building/structure dates:
1971 demolished
Significance: In the aftermath of the War of 1814, President Madison and his government faced the task of resurrecting many of the public buildings in George Washington's federal city. The Irish-born architect, James Hoban, oversaw much of the restoration, including the President's Mansion and its ancillary Executive Department buildings. Between 1818 and 1820, Hoban and his stonemasons were put to work on the construction of two new Executive Department office buildings located on the north side of the President's Mansion. Gracing the north elevation of each structure was an Ionic portico. Based on similarities in design, it is likely that the men who carved the ornament seen on the White House today also fashioned the columns and entablature of the 1818-20 office buildings. In 1879, Montgomery C. Meigs initiated the transfer of the six columns from the north portico of the condemned 1818-20 War Department building to Arlington National Cemetery and used for the construction of the Sheridan and the Ord-Weitzel gateways. He did so to "[preserve] these historic columns, among which have moved the chief soldiers of the Army and the chiefs of the War Department during the last sixty years, [...]." As formal points of entry into the park-like cemetery, the gateways represented the influence of neoclassicism in federal America and its resurgence as a stylistic revival late in the nineteenth century.
Subjects
Building DeteriorationWar (War Of 1812)Moving Of Structures
Related Names
Hadfield, George
Hoban, James
Meigs, Montgomery C.
Casey, Thomas Lincoln
Smithmeyer, John L.
Charles A. Schnieder & Sons
Price, Virginia Barrett, Historian
Collection
Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)
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