Qualla: Arlington Ridge, Virginia

Arlington Ridge, Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

From the top of Prospect Hill on the morning of September 12, 2001, you could see the smoke. The hill is the northern end of Arlington Ridge, a long bluff that runs above the Potomac from Alexandria almost to Rosslyn. Photographers from the world's news outlets climbed the slope behind the row of mansions on South Arlington Ridge Road and pointed their telephotos across at the gash in the west side of the Pentagon, where American Airlines Flight 77 had hit the building 24 hours earlier. Most of the iconic still photographs of the smoldering Pentagon were taken from that vantage. A makeshift memorial of wreaths and flowers accumulated at the railing. The hill had been a strategic vantage long before 2001. The Union Army first seized it on May 24, 1861 - the day after Virginia voted to secede - and held it for the next four years. It was the first Confederate ground the Union ever took.

Arlington Ridge, Virginia: The Seizure of the Ridge

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On May 23, 1861, Virginia citizens ratified the convention's secession ordinance by a three-to-one margin. At dawn the next day, Union troops crossed the Potomac. Two columns moved south from the bridges. To the north, Colonel Orlando B. Wilcox's 1st Michigan Regiment landed on w...

Arlington Ridge, Virginia: Hume School and the Little Tea House

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Hume School, built in 1891, is the oldest school building in Arlington County. It taught local children continuously until 1958 and now houses the Arlington Historical Society and Museum at 1805 South Arlington Ridge Road. The school is on the National Register of Historic Pl...

Arlington Ridge, Virginia: Prospect Hill and the Pentagon

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Prospect Hill, the northern tip of the ridge, is a small Arlington County historic site at the corner of South Arlington Ridge Road and South Joyce Street. A brick mansion built in 1841 by James Roach - a contractor whose company had supplied the brick and stone for the Aqueduct ...

Arlington Ridge, Virginia: The Last Encampment

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On May 23 and 24, 1865, the Union Army held the Grand Review of the Armies down Pennsylvania Avenue - 150,000 soldiers marching in formation through Washington in two days, the final ceremonial parade of a war that had just ended at Appomattox. After the parade, the regiments cro...