Union Civil War Cemeteries
Alexandra (Virginia) National Cemetery - Virginia 3,601 Interments by 1866
After the Civil War, the Quartermaster General's Department was faced with the grim task of putting some 300,000 Union soldiers in their final resting place. Some of the bodies were reinterred in 72 national cemeteries, while others were buried in over 320 post cemeteries, soldiers' lots, and private cemeteries. Soldiers' lots were lots in private cemeteries that were set aside for the burial of dead soldiers. The soldiers' lot in the Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio, contained 1,005 bodies, but it never became a national cemetery. Today the ownership of the lot is unclear.
In 1871 Major Oscar Mack, the Inspector of National Cemeteries, reported the Quartermaster's Department had reburied a total of 305,492 Union soldiers. Only 164,413 of the burials were of known soldiers. Because of errors, misplaced files, and deliberate lies, it appears that these numbers are too low. The War Department inflated the number of Union POW's who died at the Salisbury, North Carolina, POW camp. Click here for more information.
Antietam (Maryland) National Cemetery
Only 1,475 of the 4,695 burials in the Antietam National Cemetery came from the Antietam Battlefield. The rest came from other sites in Maryland and West Virginia. See Bivouac of the Dead for more information.
Confederate and Union Headstones
By 1875 the Federal Government erected headstones at the graves of most (but not all) of the Union Soldiers burried in National Cemeteries. The Federal Government did not mark the graves of any Confederate Soldiers until the graves of Confederate POW's in Arlington National Cemetery were marked in the early 1900's. The Confederate headstone is pointed on top so no "Damn Yankee" could sit on it.
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