Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg

From CivilWarWiki

To properly bury the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg, a "Soldiers Cemetery" was established on the battleground near the center of the Union line. Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin supported the proposal with state funds to purchase the cemetery grounds and pay for the re-interment of Union dead from inadequate grave sites that covered the battlefield. It was here during the dedication ceremony on November 19, 1863, that President Abraham Lincoln spoke of "these honored dead..." and renewed the Union cause to reunite the war-torn nation with his most famous speech, the "Gettysburg Address". The cemetery was landscaped by William Saunders, founder of the National Grange. The Cemetery was completed by 1872, and turned over to the care of the Federal government. In 1933 responsibility of the cemetery was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service.

Today, the Gettysburg National Cemetery is the final resting place for American veterans from all of this country's major wars and conflicts. It is closed to new burials. The cemetery is also the site of numerous monuments and memorials including the "Friend to Friend" Memorial in the National Cemetery Annex.

The pages linked below contain a roll of soldiers buried at the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg according to a report from 1865. It is a listing of soldiers by state. Some of the dead are listed with items found with them. Others are listed with identifying features. It's possible that some of these soldiers may have since been identified and/or moved. Some are marked removed as it occurred before the report was written.

Soldiers Buried at the Gettysburg National Cemetery Listed by Section and State

1. Unknown -- 143 soldiers
2. Illinois -- 6 soldiers
3. West Virginia -- 11 soldiers
4. Delaware -- 15 soldiers
5. Rhode Island -- 12 soldiers
6. New Hampshire -- 49 soldiers
7. Vermont -- 61 soldiers
8. New Jersey -- 78 soldiers
9. Wisconsin -- 73 soldiers
10. Connecticut -- 22 soldiers
11. Minnesota -- 52 soldiers
12. Maryland -- 22 soldiers
13. US Regulars -- 138 soldiers
14. Unknown -- 411 soldiers
15. Maine -- 104 soldiers
16. Michigan -- 171 soldiers
17. New York -- 866 soldiers
18. Pennsylvania -- 526 soldiers
19. Massachusetts -- 159 soldiers
20. Ohio -- 131 soldiers
21. Indiana -- 80 soldiers
22. Unknown -- 425 soldiers

• Total -- 3555

If you have questions about any of the men listed here, please contact the National Cemetery at Gettysburg.

Should you have any questions about the Confederate dead from Gettysburg, please contact the National Park Service or the United Daughters of the Confederacy for information about where they are buried. According to the Gettysburg National Military Park website, "Though the Union dead had been taken care of, the Confederate dead still remained in scattered field burials and hospital sites, including the temporary cemetery where Camp Letterman had been. Concerned with providing their native sons with a proper burial, ladies' memorial societies in several southern states secured state monies and donations to have the Southern dead relocated to their home states. The first re-internment of Confederate dead began in 1872, once again performed by Samuel Weaver who had been in charge of the re-internments in the Gettysburg national cemetery. Carefully boxed and labeled, the remains were shipped by rail to cemeteries in Savannah, Charleston, and Raleigh. When the state organizations from Georgia, North and South Carolina had completed their task, a co-operative effort by a similar organization (took place) in Virginia. The remaining bodies were to be shipped to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, where a special section was set aside specifically for this purpose. The boxes of remains, some containing as many as five in each, were set side by side in the designated plot as they arrived. The last of these reburials was completed by 1877."

Data from Revised Report of the Select Committee Relative to the Soldiers' National Cemetery Together With Accompanying Documents as Reported to the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Singerly & Myers, State Printers, 1865.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923.