Ft. Myer VA

The Fort Myer Military Community provideshousing, support and services to thousands ofactive-duty, reserve and retired Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, members of the U.S. Coast Guard and their families stationed in the National Capital Region. Fort Myer, Va., is the garrisonheadquarters, and the installation includes Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. FMMC’s mission is to operate the Army’s showcase community andsupport Homeland Security in the nation’s capital.
Fort Myer traces its origin to the Civil War. Since then it has been an important Signal Corps post, a showcase for Army cavalry and the site of the first flight of an aircraft at a military installation.

The home of Army chiefs of staff for nearly acentury, Fort Myer today is headquarters to service personnel working throughout the National Capital Region. Of note is that the first chief of staff of the Army moved into Fort Myer quarters in 1908, acentury ago.

Fort Myer and Arlington National Cemeteryoccupy land once owned by the family of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s wife, Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee, daughter of George Washington Parke Custis. The land, called Arlington Heights in the 1800s, and the Custis-Lee mansion wereconfiscated in 1864 the Civil War for the burial of Union war dead. Custis was Martha Washington’s grandson and adopted son of George Washington, to whom he made his mansion a memorial shrine.

Mary Anna Randolph Custis married Robert E. Lee when he was a young Army lieutenant. Lee helped rescue the estate from financial disaster in 1858. The Lees left the area in the spring of 1861, and Lee became military advisor to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and later, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. He never returned to Arlington.

Arlington Estate became a massive campground with a series of fortifications built on Arlington Heights, starting with Fort Cass in August 1861, and later Fort Whipple in May 1863. Other fortifications were on parts of the estate that became Arlington National Cemetery, such as Fort McPherson (theoutline of its fortifications being followed by acemetery road, McKinley Drive).

Fort Cass, constructed where the Caisson Platoon’s stables stand today, had a 288-yardperimeter and was equipped with 12 cannons. Fort Whipple was larger, having a 658-yard perimeter and 43 cannons. It was built more to the east, in the area between present-day Grant Avenue and the tennis courts.

The now nearly 245-acre post was named in honor of Union Maj. Gen. Amiel Weeks Whipple, a division commander at the Civil War battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville in Virginia. Whipple died of wounds sustained at Chancellorsville in 1863, and the post named for him was one of the strongest fortifications built to defend the Union capital across the Potomac River.

Fort Whipple’s high elevation made it ideal for visual communications, and the Signal Corps took it over in the late 1860s. Fort Cass was not retained. Brig. Gen. Albert J. Myer commanded Fort Whipple and, in 1866, was appointed the Army’s first chiefsignal officer, a post he held until his death in 1880. The post was renamed Fort Myer the next year,primarily to honor the late chief signal officer, but also to eliminate confusion created by the existence of another Fort Whipple in Mexico.

In 1886 Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, the Army’scommanding general, decided Fort Myer should become the nation’s cavalry showplace.

Signal Corps personnel moved out and cavalrymen moved in, including the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by the 16th Field Artillery Regiment. As many as 1,500 horses were stabled at the fort during the next 62 years, and Army horsemanship became an important part of Washington’s official and social life.

Most of the buildings at the north end of Fort Myer were built between 1895 and 1908. Many of those still standing have been designated historic landmarks.

The first military test flight of an aircraft was made from the Fort Myer parade ground on Sept. 9, 1908, when Orville Wright kept one of his planes in the air for more than an hour. Alexander Graham Bell filmed the flight for posterity, and visitors can see the seven-minute film, which includes pre-flight footage, when they tour the post. A later test flight ended in tragedy when, after four minutes aloft, the aircraft crashed. Wright was injured, and passenger Lt. Thomas Selfridge was killed, becoming the first powered aviation fatality. Selfridge Gate at Arlington Cemetery near the site of the crash is named for him.

During World War I, Fort Myer was a staging area for a large number of engineering, artillery and chemical companies and regiments. The area of Fort Myer now occupied by Andrew Rader Health Clinic and the Commissary were made into a trench-system training grounds where French officers taught the Americans about trench warfare.

Defense troops were stationed at Fort Myer during World War II, when it also served as a processing station for Soldiers entering and leaving the Army. The Army Band, ‘‘Pershing’s Own,” and the Army School of Music moved to the post in 1942, joined in 1957 by the Army Chorus.

The Army’s oldest infantry unit, the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), was reactivated in 1948 and assigned to Forts Myer and McNair in Washington to become the Army’sofficial ceremonial unit and security force in the Washington metropolitan area.

Fort Myer’s face is now starting to undergo some additional modernization. The garrison recently completed work on Wright Gate and Henry Gateproviding for added security based on new DoD standards. A small Child Development Center was completed in the Fall of 2004 to support the child care requirements of the Pentagon after the announced closing of the Pentagon CDC. Construction of a new maintenance facility for The Old Guard was completed in fall 2006. Tencza Terrace, a high rise home to military personnel and their families for decades was imploded in 2006 in an environmentally successful project to make way for a visitor and search entry center at the Fort Myer Hatfield Gate. Other constructionprojects begun in 2006 demolished 1960s-era barracks and allow formodern barracks, garrison headquarterscommand battalion and service facilities.