Confederate Burials

Hastily interred by comrades—and sometimes by enemies—after battles and outside of hospitals and prisons, the Civil War dead often found their final resting places in temporary shallow graves or nameless burial trenches.  The often hasty efforts of wartime proved to be unsatisfactory in the ensuing peace, and required a large-scale effort to attend to the dead in a more dignified manner.  The creation of the national cemetery system provided for the decent burial of the Union dead, but there was no such provision for their fallen enemies. 

Arranging Confederate burials became a state, local, or individual responsibility.  As a result, many Confederates were buried in private family or city cemeteries.  After the war, some women’s groups and veterans’ organizations began campaigns to exhume the dead from their temporary battlefield graves and from small, remote plots and reinter them in central locations where they could be protected and honored.  Perhaps the best example of such an effort is the Confederate cemetery in Hagerstown, Maryland, where thousands of Confederate dead were relocated from the battlefields of Antietam and South Mountain.

These scattered Confederate cemeteries not only illustrate the human toll of this conflict, but also its divisive nature and the commitment of both sides to caring for their dead and paying tribute to their sacrifices.  What follows, admittedly incomplete, is a listing of Confederate cemeteries listed alphabetically by state and by city. 

This page is a work in progress and we would be happy to hear of any cemeteries not yet included.