Arkansas Listings in the National Register of Historic Places: Arkansas's National Cemeteries

Arkansas Listings in the National Register of Historic Places: Arkansas's National CemeteriesAuthor(s): Zackery A. CothrenSource: The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Spring, 2005), pp. 74-80Published by: Arkansas Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40018561 .

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Arkansas Listings in the National

Register of Historic Places

Zackery A. Cothren

Arkansas s National Cemeteries

From the earliest battles of the Revolutionary War to today's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, American soldiers have answered their country's call to service. Many of those brave soldiers have made the ultimate sacrifice. During the Civil War, the huge numbers of casualties on the battlefield, in military hospitals, and at prison camps, together with the difficulties of nineteenth-century logistics, led to many soldiers being buried near where they had perished. On July 17, 1862, President Abra- ham Lincoln signed legislation authorizing the creation of national cemeteries. It provided for government purchase of land to be used for interring soldiers killed in the service of their country. On November 19, 1863, during the dedication of one such cemetery, Lincoln delivered what we celebrate as the Gettysburg Address. By 1864, twenty-seven cemeteries bore the designation of National Cemetery.

At the close of the war, the government undertook a massive effort to relocate remains of soldiers from scattered graves and neglected battlefield burial sites to central locations that could be properly maintained. By the end of 1870, the designation of national cemetery had been be- stowed on seventy such sites, many located in the southeastern United States. Authorities often established cemeteries near the bloodiest of Civil War battlefields and large military prison camps. In other cases, preexisting cemeteries associated with forts or military hospitals were brought under the umbrella of the national cemetery program. This was the case with the Fort Smith National Cemetery.

Zackery A. Cothren is preservation outreach coordinator for the Arkansas Historic Preservation Pro-

gram.

THE ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY VOL. LXIV, NO. 1, SPRING 2005



NATIONAL REGISTER 75

The first military post near present-day Fort Smith was established in 1817, just below the junction of the Arkansas and Poteau Rivers. Post surgeon Thomas Russell, who died in August 1819, may have been the first person buried there. During the summer of 1823, disease cost the post nearly one-fourth of the approximately 200 men stationed there. Although a cemetery may have been established at the post as early as 1819, there definitely would have been some kind of burial ground in place by the end of that deadly summer. In 1 824, the fort was aban- doned, chiefly because of unhealthy conditions. Although the army had pulled out of Fort Smith, some of the fort's soldiers who had left the army and remained in the area would be buried there. These included the post's first commander, Maj. William Bradford, who died of yellow fe- ver in 1826.

In 1838, the Army reestablished a post at Fort Smith. It built a new fort and quarters but, rather than establish a new cemetery, enlarged and rehabilitated the existing one. The Army evacuated the fort in April 1861. Confederates occupied the fort until Union soldiers retook Fort Smith on September 1, 1863. During the Confederate occupation, over 400 rebel soldiers were buried at the cemetery, most notably Gen. Al- exander Steen, who died at the battle of Prairie Grove, and Generals Benjamin McCulloch and James M. Mclntosh, killed within minutes of one another during the battle of Pea Ridge. (McCulloch's remains were later moved to Austin, Texas.) Richard Gatlin, a Confederate general who served as commander of the Military Department of North Caro- lina and moved to Arkansas after the war, is also buried in the cemetery.

In 1871, a new law provided for the disposal of "useless" military posts. Title would be transferred from the War Department to the De- partment of the Interior, which would in turn sell the property. Fort Smith was one of these posts. In May of that year, the secretary of war was advised that a national military cemetery had been established at the fort and was asked to provide for its protection. After a cooperative effort on the part of the Department of the Interior and the War Depart- ment, President Ulysses Grant excluded the cemetery grounds from the sale.

After the closing of the fort, the federal court for the Western District of Arkansas, which had been based for twenty years in Van Buren, was moved to the old military barracks at Fort Smith. The district had juris- diction over half of the state of Arkansas and all of the Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, which had been a safe haven for outlaws seeking refuge from authorities. Isaac Parker, a Civil War veteran and former congress- man from Missouri, presided over this court from 1875 to 1896. He hired nearly 200 United States deputy marshals, and for the first time the court



76 ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

The front gates of Fort Smith National Cemetery. Courtesy Arkansas His- toric Preservation Program.

actively pursued criminals in Indian Territory. Nicknamed the "Hanging Judge," for the seventy-nine executions he carried out, Parker is buried in the Fort Smith National Cemetery, as are many of his deputies.

The cemetery continued to be used to inter veterans of the Civil War who were living in the area at the time of their deaths. Soldiers of World War I and World War II also rest there, including. Brig. Gen. William O. Darby, who is credited with the establishment of the famed U.S. Army Rangers. A native of Fort Smith, Darby died in Italy within days of Ger- many's surrender in 1945.

Today, the Fort Smith National Cemetery occupies over twenty -two acres and holds more than 12,000 graves. Soldiers from nearly every war fought by the United States, beginning with the War of 1812, lie there. In addition to grave markers, the grounds include several memorials, fencing from various periods, and the 1904 lodge building, now used as the administrative office. The cemetery remains open for burial today and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 20, 1999.

The Fayetteville National Cemetery was established in 1867 specif- ically to provide an appropriate final resting place for troops killed in northwest Arkansas during the Civil War. The state's largest Civil War battles took place in northwest Arkansas, and rather than establish mul- tiple cemeteries in the region, authorities decided that a single cemetery




The Fayetteville National Cemetery. Courtesy Arkansas Historic Preser- vation Program.

should hold the remains of soldiers killed at Pea Ridge, Cane Hill, and Prairie Grove. Authorities located the cemetery in Fayetteville because it was an established town and roughly an equal distance from the three battle sites.

The land for the cemetery was acquired between 1 867 and 1 875 from David Walker and Stephen Stone and consisted of approximately six acres. Gravesites were originally arranged in the shape of a five-pointed star with an outer circle and a centrally located flagpole. Headboards ini- tially marked the graves, but they were later replaced by upright marble headstones. A wooden fence originally surrounded the cemetery. It was replaced in 1 874 with a brick fence that was in turn demolished in the late 1990s and replaced by metal fencing. A small portion of the brick fence remains as part of the entry gates, built in the 1940s.

In 1991, the cemetery began to expand with the purchase of adjacent parcels of land. This would extend the active life of the cemetery so as to accommodate the rapidly growing population of northwest Arkansas. The cemetery remains a popular burial spot for veterans in the area, and,




James C. Putnam's grave marker. Courtesy Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.

as of 2003, the cemetery had grown to over fourteen acres with 6,700 graves.

One of the Fayetteville cemetery's most notable graves is that of Spanish- American War veteran James C. Putnam. One of thirteen men who founded the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Putnam served as the orga- nization's first commander-in-chief.

Many of the historic structures associated with the Fayetteville Na- tional Cemetery have been demolished, including two separate lodge buildings and the aforementioned fence. Despite the addition of some modern buildings and new memorials, the Fayetteville National Ceme- tery retains its historic integrity and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 30, 1999.

The land now occupied by the Little Rock National Cemetery was located a mile and a half outside of the city limits when it was purchased by the military in 1866. The Union Army had used the area as a camp- ground during the occupation of Little Rock. It acquired the land, which was part of the new Little Rock city cemetery, in order to establish a burial ground for Union soldiers. The original purchase only included




about nine acres, but shortly thereafter the military plot was enlarged to over twelve acres. The Little Rock National Cemetery was the last national cemetery created in Arkansas. It was officially designated a national cemetery on April 9, 1868, to serve as a burial spot for Union troops who had perished while serving in the central and southern parts of the state. By that time, 5,425 people had already been buried there. In 1868, 1,482 sets of remains removed from graves in DeValls Bluff, Lewisburg, Pine Bluff, Marks' Mills, and other locations were reinterred at the cemetery. The graves were first marked by numbered stakes. Up- right marble markers that one typically associates with military cemeteries eventually took their place.

A fieldstone fence originally enclosed the cemetery, but over the years most of the original stone wall has been replaced with iron fencing and later with chain link fencing. Like all national cemeteries, a lodge was built on the cemetery's grounds when it received its national cemetery designation. The original lodge was demolished in 1908. Replace- ment lodges were built in 1908 and 1949, but those structures have also been demolished.

An eleven-acre Confederate cemetery was established adjacent to the national cemetery in 1884, and the remains of 640 Confederate soldiers were removed from Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock and re- buried at the site. In 1913, the secretary of war accepted the deed for the Confederate cemetery from the city of Little Rock, but only Confederate veterans were allowed to be buried there. With the passing of nearly all of the nation's Confederate veterans, the rule was overturned in 1938. The former Confederate cemetery became the Confederate Section of Little Rock National Cemetery.

Two historic monuments sit within the cemetery boundary. The first celebrates the sacrifice of Confederate soldiers. The trustees of Mount Holly financed its construction in 1884, when the soldiers buried in Mount Holly were reinterred. The monument honors the soldiers from Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, and Louisiana buried there.

The state of Minnesota financed the other monument, one of only three in Arkansas that honors Union troops. Created by John K. Daniels, the Minnesota Monument, also known as Taps, honors that state's soldiers who served in Arkansas during the Civil War. The monument is one of three identical monuments commissioned by Minne- sota, with the other two located in Memphis, Tennessee, and Andersonville, Georgia. The bronze monument features a solemn, bare-headed soldier whose hands rest upon the butt-end of a rifle, with the barrel resting on the ground. Officially dedicated on September 22,




Minnesota's Civil War monument at Little Rock National Cemetery. Courtesy Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.

1916, the monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 3, 1996.

Today, the Little Rock National Cemetery occupies nearly thirty-two acres of land and holds the remains of nearly 25,000 veterans. In recent years, the cemetery reached its maximum capacity and is closed to fur- ther interments. The Little Rock National Cemetery was listed on the Na- tional Register of Historic Places on December 20, 1996.



Documents

Arkansas Listings in the National Register of Historic Places: Arkansas's National Cemeteries