TOUR STOP 11
FORT DONELSON NATIONAL CEMETERY
The last stop on a tour of Fort Donelson National Battlefield is Fort Donelson National Cemetery. It is open to the public every day of the year except Christmas from 8 AM to 5 PM. It is one of 14 national cemeteries that are under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service (there are 155 national cemeteries overall with 73 located in the South). Except for Andersonville National Cemetery, all of the National Park Service-affiliated cemeteries are full and now closed to future burials other than spouses of veterans already buried and veterans who were preassigned a spot. Fort Donelson National Cemetery is only 15 acres and thus it filled up quickly. I do not know exactly when it closed, but the last veteran graves I saw were from 1985.
Prior to the establishment of national cemeteries, unless claimed by family members or local citizens, soldiers who died in battle were buried at hospitals, on the battlefield, and just about anywhere else they were found dead. This particularly affected Union soldiers. Since most fighting took place in the South, there weren’t many family members around, and local citizens, if they buried anyone, typically only took care of Confederate dead.
Realizing that the inability to provide dignified burials for Union soldiers was a problem, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill on July 17, 1862, that established a National Cemetery system, with the first one being Alexandria National Cemetery in Virginia. Fort Donelson National Cemetery wasn’t established until 1866, which was after the war ended. In 1867, the Federal government purchased 15 acres on the site of the Union’s Fort Donelson for use as the burial grounds (the original Confederate fort was abandoned in 1863 and a new, smaller fort was built closer to Dover). The Fort Henry, Heiman, and Donelson areas were scoured for Union dead, resulting in 670 reinterments. Of these, 512 are unknown.
Graves of Union soldiers killed in the fighting in the Fort Donelson area, Fort Donelson National Battlefield
I have often wondered how so many men could be “unidentified.” Somebody had to know them. What I learned is that one common reason for the unknown status is that while a man may have been known when he was originally buried (unless mangled beyond recognition), many hastily dug graves were marked by wooden crosses with names scratched in them—if that—and by the time the bodies were dug up for burial at a national cemetery, many of these wooden markers were no longer there, thus the names were forgotten. Mass graves were also commonly used on the battlefield when time did not allow for individual burials, and of course these men would not be identifiable years later.
The large house on the cemetery property was built in 1876 for the cemetery superintendent. It was used for this purpose up until 1931, at which time it was converted into staff housing for the park. Today it is the National Park Service’s Administrative Office for Fort Donelson National Battlefield and is not open to the public.
There are two additional buildings within the cemetery. The largest is a former carriage house built in 1911. It now has information and exhibits about the history of the cemetery as well as a list of the people buried there. The other, a smaller building behind the Superintendent’s House, is now a restroom. It was originally a pump house built in 1935.
Unlike a private cemetery with ornate tombstones, a military cemetery is full of plain, government issued markers. Standard tombstones with veteran names on them mark identified soldiers, while small, square stones with a number on top mark unknown graves.
Like most national cemeteries, there are more than just Civil War-era soldiers buried at Fort Donelson. There are graves of soldiers who actually died in battle up through the Vietnam War along with graves of veterans who died long after their service ended. Anyone who is honorably discharged from the military is qualified to be buried in a national cemetery (an exception is an honorably discharged veteran who is later convicted of subversive activities).
Most spouses of veterans also qualify to be buried in national cemeteries. Their grave inscriptions are on the back side of the tombstones of their military spouses. Many of the newer graves (I saw one as recent as 2013) are those of spouses.
With a few exceptions, Confederate troops were not allowed to be buried in the national cemeteries. Since nearly all of the fighting took place in the south, many Confederates were buried in town cemeteries by the locals who lived by the battlefield, especially if the battle ended in a Confederate victory. In the case of Union victories, Confederate dead not spoken for by family or friends ended up in mass graves, for the task of burying the dead fell upon the victor. The Union wasn’t about to spend much time on individual funerals for the enemy, especially given the fact that Union soldiers themselves were often buried in mass graves due to the urgency of moving on to the next battlefield or because of the heat that quickly spoiled the bodies. All Confederate soldiers who died at Fort Donelson are still buried on the battlefield. The location of their graves is unknown. The Confederate Monument (Stop 1 on the Fort Donelson National Battlefield Tour) was erected to honor the forgotten Confederate soldiers who died during the fighting at forts Donelson, Heiman, and Henry.
Regulations state that Confederate POWs were the responsibility of the Union in life and death, and thus any Confederates who die in a Union prison camp can be buried in the same cemeteries as the Union soldiers. If these cemeteries subsequently became national cemeteries, the Confederate graves became part of the national cemetery. Since Confederate POWs were usually held in northern states, the national cemeteries with the largest number of Confederate graves are located in the north. Very few Confederate graves are found in the southern national cemeteries.
Confederate soldiers can also be buried at national cemeteries if they subsequently served in the United States military after the Civil War, for they were considered U. S. soldiers at that point. Furthermore, in 1956 Congress changed the national cemetery rules to allow Confederate burials. However, a body would have to be moved from its original grave to a national cemetery, and thus very few such burials have taken place.
Stop 10: Dover Hotel | Battlefield Tour Main Page
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Last updated on October 22, 2024