Chattanooga National Cemetery
1200 Bailey Avenue
Chattanooga, TN 37404
Phone: (423) 855-6590 or 6591
FAX: (423) 855-6597
Office Hours:
Monday thru Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Closed federal holidays except Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
Visitation
Hours:
Open daily from dawn to dusk.
Acreage: 120.9
Number of Interments
Thru Fiscal Year 2008: 46,601
Directions from nearest airport:
Cemetery is located in the center of Chattanooga. From
Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport take Airport Rd. to Lee Hwy (U.S.
11 and 64, Tenn. 2). Travel southwest on Lee Hwy, which becomes
Brainerd Rd. Continue through the Missionary Ridge Tunnel.
Brainerd Rd. then becomes McCallie Ave. Turn left at Holtzclaw
Ave. and proceed 3 blocks to the cemetery on the right.
HISTORICAL
INFORMATION
On Dec. 25, 1863, Maj. Gen. George H.
Thomas, “The Rock of Chickamauga," issued General Orders No. 296
creating a national cemetery in commemoration of the Battles of
Chattanooga, Nov. 23-27, 1863. Gen. Thomas selected the cemetery
site during the assault of his troops that carried Missionary
Ridge and brought the campaign to an end. The land was
originally appropriated, but later purchased, from local
residents Joseph Ruohs, Robert M. Hooke and J. R. Slayton.
The site Thomas selected was
approximately 75 acres of a round hill rising with a uniform
slope to a height of 100 feet; it faced Missionary Ridge on one
side and Lookout Mountain on the other. Gen. Grant established
his headquarters on the summit of the hill during the early
phase of the four-day battle for Lookout Mountain.
Chaplain Thomas B. Van Horne was placed
in charge of the cemetery’s development. In a report of May 14,
1866, the chaplain indicated that one-third of the cemetery site
could not be used for burials due to large rock outcroppings. As
a result, he suggested a design dictated by the rocky terrain.
Much was accomplished during Van Horne’s tenure at the cemetery.
Flowering shrubs, evergreens and other trees were planted to
replace a portion of the dense forest of oak trees that had been
cut down as a part of the battleground. Each interment section
consisted of a central site for a monument surrounded by plots
for officers with the graves of enlisted personnel arranged in
concentric circles around them. In 1867, it was designated
Chattanooga National Cemetery.
By 1870, more than 12,800 interments
were complete: 8,685 known and 4,189 unknown. The dead included
men who fell at the battles of Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge and
Lookout Mountain. There were also a number of reinterments from
the surrounding area, including Athens, Charleston and locations
along the line of Gen. Sherman’s march to Atlanta. A large
number of men—1,798 remains—who died at the Battle of
Chickamauga were relegated to unknowns during the reinterment
process.
In addition to Civil War veterans, there
are 78 German prisoners of war buried here. Pursuant to
provisions included in the peace treaty between the United
States and Germany at the end of World War I, the German
government sought the location and status of the gravesites of
Germans who died while detained in the United States. An
investigation conducted by the War Department found that the
largest number of German POWs was interred at Chattanooga
National Cemetery. For a short time, thought was given to
removing all other German interments to Chattanooga. In the end,
however, the German government decided that only 23 remains from
Hot Springs National Cemetery should be reinterred here. The
German government assumed the cost of disinterment and
transportation to Chattanooga, and erected a monument to
commemorate the POWs.
Chattanooga National Cemetery was listed
in the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
Monuments and
Memorials
Chattanooga National Cemetery is home to one of five monumental
masonry archways that originally served as the formal entrance
to national cemeteries found in the South. Three are managed by
NCA: Marietta, Ga., built 1883; Chattanooga, Tenn., built
ca.1880; and Nashville, Tenn., built ca.1870. These
Roman-inspired structures are approximately 35 feet high with
Doric columns, a pair of ornamental iron gates, and inscriptions
above. The two other memorial arches are found at Arlington
National Cemetery, built 1879, and Vicksburg National Cemetery,
ca. 1880, properties managed by the Department of Defense and
National Park Service, respectively.
The Andrews Raiders Monument, erected by
the state of Ohio in 1890, is among the most unique memorials in
the cemetery. The granite base and die is topped with a bronze
replica of “The General,” the Civil War-era wood-burning
locomotive famous for its great chase of 1862.
The Fourth Army Corps erected a granite
obelisk in 1868 to honor their fallen comrades.
The German government erected the German
World War I prisoner of war monument in 1935 to honor German
soldiers who died in an American POW camp and are interred at
the cemetery.
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