Memphis National Cemetery

About this property

Memphis National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery located in the Nutbush neighborhood in northeast Memphis, Tennessee. Administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, it encompasses 44.2 acres (17.9 ha), and as of the end of 2007, had 42,184 interments. Several Civil War battlefield cemeteries were transferred to the Memphis National Cemetery after the war. The national cemetery at Memphis, Tennessee, was established in 1867. The cemetery, then comprising an area of 32.62 acres, was at that time about seven miles northeast of Memphis. The site for the cemetery was chosen by a board of officers consisting of Chaplain William R. Earnshaw, Brevet Lieutenant Colonel A.W. Wills, assistant quartermaster, and Brevet Major G.W. Marshall, assistant quartermaster, The first superintendent of the national cemetery at Memphis was John F. Carl, a discharged corporal of Company A, Fourth Regiment of Artillery, who was appointed on 6 August 1867. The 1869 report of Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas, Inspector of National Cemeteries, indicates that Superintendent Carl was attentive to his duties, and that he had the cemetery in good order. Old records show that Memphis National Cemetery was originally established as the Mississippi River National Cemetery when the Union Army forces took control of Memphis during the American Civil War. This was a most appropriate designation in recognition of the fact that a very large number of the initial burials in the cemetery were the remains of members of the Union forces who participated in the battles and engagements during the early years of the war, which contributed to eventual control of the Mississippi River by the forces of the United States. Following the close of the war, reinterments were made in the national cemetery at Memphis from war time burial sites along the Mississippi from Hickham Kentucky to Helena Arkansas, including New Madrid, Island No. 10, and Fort Pillow. In 1867, about 250 bodies of Union soldiers, some of whom were casualties of the Battle of Fort Pillow in Lauderdale County, were moved from a battlefield cemetery south of Fort Pillow to Memphis National Cemetery to be re-interred in a designated field. The exigencies of war with the inevitable toll of wounded and sick necessitated the establishment of many military hospitals. The city of Memphis, once it had come under control of Union forces, furnished a convenient location for military hospitals to care for a portion of the wounded and sick from the Mississippi River area of combat. General hospitals capable of caring for 5,000 men were set up in and about the city. The more serious cases were sent to these hospitals in three river steamers assigned to the Medical Department as hospital transports. These hospitals, though better staffed and organized that some of the Civil War facilities, nonetheless had a high death rate among the wounded and ill committed to their care. The dead from these hospitals, initially interred in hospital and private cemeteries in the Memphis area, were subsequently reinterred in the Memphis National Cemetery after its establishment in 1867. After the war, several battlefield cemeteries were transferred to Memphis National Cemetery.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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