Battleground National Cemetery

Inscribed on the DC Preservation League's List of Most Endangered Places for 2005.

Shortly after the Battle of Fort Stevens in the summer of 1864, General Montgomery C. Meigs, Quartermaster General of the United States Army, selected this site and instructed Captain Moore to evacuate and bury the Union dead. With a combined total casualty figure of over 900 killed or wounded during the conflict, 41 Union soldiers who fought and died in Fort Steven’s defense were interred in a specially created cemetery dedicated by Abraham Lincoln.

Comprising just one acre of land, Battleground National Cemetery is one of the Nation’s smallest national cemeteries. Two 6-pounder, smoothbore guns of Civil War vintage flank the entrance. In the center of the Cemetery, a flagpole surrounded by 14 regulation marble headstones mark the remains of the honored dead. In the rear of the property stands a marble rostrum built in 1914 in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Stevens, which is used to conduct yearly Memorial Day services.