Tour Sites

Left: Main entrance to Nashville National Cemetery on Gallatin Road in Madison.

Call (615) 860-0086.

Gates open for visitation during daylight hours.
Office open Mon.-Fri., 8-4:30

Directions: From I-65 North, exit at Briley Parkway and travel east 2 miles to Gallatin Rd. and take 2nd exit (Gallatin Rd. N.). The cemetery is 0.25 mile on the left.

Location Maps.

Hallowed ground for American soldiers:
This hallowed ground was established as a U.S. Military Cemetery on Jan. 28, 1867. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad runs through the cemetery, dividing it into two nearly equal halfs. The stone wall around the cemetery and the limestone archway at the front entrance were constructed in 1870. Among other outbuildings and structures, a speaker’s rostrum was completed in 1940.

Roll of Honor, No. XXII, dated July 31, 1869, submitted to Quartermaster General’s Office, U.S.A., Washington, D.C., recorded the graves of 16,485 Union soldiers interred in the national cemetery at Nashville, Tennessee and remains as a part of the cemetery’s historical records.

Originally there were 16,489 interments (burials) of known soldiers and employees: 38 were officers, 10,300 were white soldiers, 1,447 were colored soldiers, and 703 were employees.

Among the unknown, there were 3,098 white soldiers, 463 colored soldiers and 29 employees. The deceased had been gathered from an extensive region of Middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky. The number of distinct burial places from which these bodies were taken is 251.

A very large proportion of the dead in the cemetery, however, were transferred from the hospital burial grounds in and around the city of Nashville and from temporary burial grounds around general hospitals in Nashville and nearby battlefields of Franklin and Gallatin, Tenn. Reinterments were also made from Bowling Green and Cave City, Ky.

During the Civil War, if marked at all, wooden headboards with the names and identifying data painted thereon marked graves of those who died in general hospitals, on the battlefields, or as prisoners of war. Many of these headboards deteriorated through exposure to the elements. The result was that when the remains were later removed for burial to a national cemetery, identifications could not be established, and the gravesites were marked as unknown.

NOTABLE MONUMENTS, MARKERS:

• Statue of soldier dedicated in 2006 to the United States Colored Troops.
  
  
• One of the oldest private markers in the cemetery is a spire located in Section M, Grave 16234, which was dedicated to the memory of James A. Leonard of the 1st Kansas Battery. He was killed by guerillas on Jan. 23, 1864 and interred on Jan. 27, 1864.
  
  
• In 1920, the State of Minnesota erected a monument in Section MM inscribed, “In memory of her soliders here buried who lost their lives in the service of the United States in war for Preservation of the Union--AD 1861-1865.”
  
  
• Chaplain Erastus M. Cravath, 101st Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was interred in Section MM, Grave 16694, in 1900. Chaplain Cravath was one of the founders of Fisk University in Nashville, and served for 25 years as its president.
  
  
• Colonel James W. Lawless, 5th Kentucky Cavalry, was buried in Section MM, Grave 10662, on June 25, 1899. Col. Lawless was born in Ireland and came to the United States at the age of 16.
  
  
• Colonel Edward S. Jones, Commander of the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry, was also the founder of the Department of Tennessee and Georgia Grand Army of the Republic and served as Commander for many years. He was interred in Section MM, Grave 16520, in Nov. 1866.

Source: Nashville National Cemetery

LINK: Listing of all the Civil War soldiers buried at the cemetery

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