A National Cemetery System -- Chattanooga National Cemetery, Chattanooga TN, USA - Political Revolutions on Waymarking.com

Before the US Civil War, there was no formal US Government National Cemetery system in place. Men who fell in battles of the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and other conflicts wee usually buried wither on the field where they fell or in local cemeteries or family plots. The US Civil War changed all that, both because of the vast number of men who served and died in that conflict, but also because they died so far from home.

The US Civil War directly led to the establishment of the US National Cemetery System, which over time has changed from a place to bury only US veterans of the Civil War (dead Confederate troops were usually buried in mass graves on the battlefields they died on, or in family plots at private cemeteries if they survived the war) to a place to bury ALL veterans, including those who died in peacetime.

This is the second of two signs at the Chattanooga National Cemetery describing how the American Civil War created the National Cemetery System as a whole, and also preserving the history of the Civil War in Chattanooga, plus the development and designation of the Chattanooga National Cemetery and its unique Civil War monuments in particular.

The sign reads as follows:

"A NATIONAL CEMETERY SYSTEM

Civil War Dead

An estimated 700,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died in the Civil War between April 1861 and April 1865. As the death toll rose, the US government struggled with the urgent but unplanned need to bury fallen union troops. This propelled the creation of a national cemetery system.

On September 11, 1861, the War Department directed commanding officers to keep “accurate and permanent records of deceased soldiers.” It also required the US Army Quartermaster General, the office responsible for administering to the needs of troops in life and in death, to mark each grave with the headboard. A few months later, the department mandated interment of the dead in graves marked with numbered headboards, recorded in the register.

Creating National Cemeteries

The authority to create military burial grounds came in an Omnibus Act of July 17, 1862. It directed the president to purchase land to be used as “a national cemetery for the soldiers who shall die in the service of the country.” Fourteen national cemeteries were established by 1862.

When hostilities ended, a grim task began. In October 1865, Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs directed officers to survey lands of the Civil War theater to find Union dead and plan to reinterred them in new national cemeteries. Cemetery sites were chosen where troops were concentrated: camps, hospitals, battlefields, railroad hubs. By 1872, 74 national cemeteries and several soldiers lots contained 305,492 remains, about 45 percent were unknown.

[Graphic of Knoxville National Cemetery]

Knoxville was established after the siege of the city and battle of Fort Sanders in 1863. Cemetery plan, 1892, National Archives and Records Administration.

Most cemeteries were less than 10 acres, and layouts varied. In the Act to Establish and to Protect National Cemeteries February 22, 1867, Congress funded new permanent walls or fences, grave markers, and lodges for Cemetery Superintendants.

At first only soldiers and sailors who died during the Civil War were buried in national cemeteries. In 1873, eligibility was expanded to all honorably discharged Union veterans, and Congress appropriated $1 million to mark the graves. Upright marble headstones honor individuals whose names were known; six- inch square blocks mark unknowns.

By 1873, military post cemeteries on the Western frontier joined the national cemetery system. The National Cemeteries Act of 1973 transferred 82 Army cemeteries, including 12 of the original 14, to what is now the National Cemetery Administration.

REFLECTION AND MEMORIALIZATION

The country reflected upon the Civil War’s human toll – 2 percent of the US population died. Memorials honoring war service were built in national cemeteries. Most were donated by regimental units, state governments and veterans’ organizations such as the grand Army of the Republic. Decoration Day, later Memorial Day, was a popular patriotic spring event that started in 1868. Visitors place flowers on graves and monuments, and gathered around rostrums to hear speeches. Construction of Civil War monuments peaked in the 1890s. By 1920, is the number of aging veterans was dwindling, more than 120 monuments had been placed in the national cemeteries."

Name of the revolution that the waymark is related to: US Civil War Adress of the monument: Chattanooga National Cemetery 1200 Bailey Chattanooga, TN What was the role of this site in revolution?: Chattanooga National Cemetery first served as a burial ground for Union troops killed at local-area Civil War battles of Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and Lookout Mountain, who were exhumed from mass graves on the battlefields and re-interred here after the Civil War. The national cemeteries are a relic of the Civil War. Who placed this monument?: US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Cemetery Administration Link that comprove that role: Not listed When was this memorial placed?: Not listed

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