15 - 21 July 1862

National Cemetary System

Congress provided the legal sanction for creation of a national cemetery system by authorizing President Lincoln in the Act of 17 July 1862, “to purchase cemetery grounds ... to be used as a national cemetery for soldiers who shall have died in the service of the country.”

The Quartermaster Department was given the responsibility to establish and maintain these new national cemeteries. By 1870 the Department had completed the final interment of Civil War remains in 73 national cemeteries, and added several more in the West to receive remains from the burial grounds of abandoned frontier posts.

Created originally to afford a decent resting place for those Civil War soldiers who fell in defense of the Union, the national cemetery system symbolizes in its gracious landscapes and marble headstones both the violence of the struggle and the healing aftermath. Today these cemeteries are managed by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, where men from both the North and South now sleep side by side in many of its cemeteries.

Compiled by Dr. Steven Anders, former Quartermaster School historian.