Marietta National Cemetery

Located in Marietta, Georgia, Marietta National Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 17,000 United States veterans and family members. Of the 17,000 burials, 10,172 are Union Civil War soldiers of which approximately 3,000 are unknown. Marietta National Cemetery serves as the final resting place for many Union soldiers who perished at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Marietta National Cemetery is administered by the National Cemetery Administration and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The cemetery closed to new internments in 1970.

 

NPS Photo / T. Hegler

 

NPS Photo / T. Hegler

Cemetery History

This 23.2-acre cemetery was designed by Union Army Chaplain Thomas B. Van Horne who designed the burial sections and the cemetery’s paths to follow the site’s natural topography. The cemetery was once a proposed location for the Capitol Building of the Confederate States of America. When offered $50,000 by the CSA for use of the land as such, landowner Henry Green Cole, a Marietta businessman and Union loyalist, declined the offer stating that he, “expected to put it to a better purpose.” Instead, Cole offered to donate the land as a cemetery for both Union and Confederate soldiers with the hope of it being emblematic of reconciliation – but agreements between the two sides could not be made and it became solely a Union cemetery.

In 1866, work began to disinter fallen soldiers from the surrounding areas and reinter them at Marietta National Cemetery. As a thank you for the donation of the property, the Federal Government named Cole as the cemetery’s first Superintendent and granted him a family burial plot. The gravesite of Henry Green Cole and several of his family members can be visited today.

 

Headstone of Emma Stephenson located in Section F of Marietta National Cemetery.

NPS Photo / T. Hegler

United States Colored Troops

Marietta National Cemetery is also the final resting place for nearly 300 United States Colored Troops (USCT) who served during Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign. Several of these USCT burials can be found in Section F of the cemetery, including the grave of the formerly enslaved Emma Stephenson who served as a nurse during the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. According to records published by The Center for Civil War Research at the University of Mississippi, Marietta National Cemetery has 158 known and 67 unknown USCT burials. While all-black regiments did not formally serve during the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, there were some USCTs assigned to white regiments, such as Austin Gilmore who served as a stretcher bearer for the 111^th Illinois during the battle.

 

NPS Photo

Memorial Archway

One eye-catching feature of Marietta National Cemetery is its monumental archway situated at the cemetery’s main entrance. One of only five such archways in the national cemetery system, the archway is emblematic of American Neoclassicism, an incredibly popular architectural style at the time of the archway’s creation in 1883. This style is evidenced heavily by the archway’s prominent Doric columns. Other memorial archways can be found at Nashville, Chattanooga, Arlington, and Vicksburg National Cemeteries.

 

For more information about Marietta National Cemetery, follow the links below:

National Cemetery Administration – Marietta National Cemetery

Civil War National Cemeteries – Marietta National Cemetery

City of Marietta, Georgia – Marietta National Cemetery