soldiers. So she buried many of her family treasures on the grounds and left for her sister's estate at Ravensworth in Fairfax County, Virginia, on May 14. On May 3, General Winfield Scott ordered Brigadier General Irvin McDowell to clear Arlington and the city of Alexandria, Virginia, of all troops not loyal to the United States. McDowell occupied Arlington without opposition on May 24. On June 7, 1862, the U.S. Congress enacted the Act for the Collection of Taxes in the Insurrectionary Districts (12 Stat. at L. 422), legislation which imposed a property tax on all land in "insurrectionary" areas of the United States. The 1863 amendments to the statute required these taxes to be paid in person. Congress knew that few Confederate sympathizers would appear in person to pay the tax, thus allowing the federal government to seize large amounts of property and auction it off to raise money for the war effort. A tax of $92.07 ($ in dollars) was levied on the Arlington estate in 1863. But Mary Lee, afflicted with severe rheumatoid arthritis and behind Confederate lines in Richmond, Virginia, gave the payment to her cousin, Philip R. Fendall (who lived in Alexandria). The tax collectors refused to accept his payment. On January 11, 1864, the entire estate was auctioned off to pay the tax due. (With a 50 percent penalty for nonpayment, the total of tax and fine was $138.11 ($ in dollars).) Although the auction was well-attended, the U.S. government was the only bidder and won the property for $26,800 ($ in dollars) (less than its assessed value of $34,100 ($ in dollars)). With local cemeteries in Alexandria County and Alexandria filling rapidly with war dead, Quartermaster General of the United States Army Montgomery C. Meigs proposed using of the Arlington estate as a cemetery. The first burial there was made on May 13, 1864. United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton approved the establishment of a military cemetery on June 15, 1864, creating Arlington National Cemetery. By the end of the war in April 1865, more than 16,000 people had been buried at Arlington. In September 1866, a memorial and a burial vault (containing the remains of 2,111 U.S. and Confederate soldiers who died at the First Battle of Bull Run, Second Battle of Bull Run, and along the Rappahannock River) were buried in Lee's former wildflower garden on the mansion's east