Winchester National Cemetery
14th New Hampshire Monument and 114th New York Monument behind it on the right
The Winchester National Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 5,500 veterans. Many of those buried at the cemetery were Union soldiers who died on one of the valley’s numerous battlefields. The cemetery features more than a dozen regimental monuments that Union states and veterans dedicated to honor their fallen citizens and comrades. The modified Meigs lodge served as both the cemetery office and housing for the cemetery superintendents and their families.
The need for a centralized burial ground for the Union casualties from battles in and around Winchester, and surrounding towns such as New Market, Front Royal, Snicker’s Gap, Harpers Ferry, Martinsburg, and Romney, led to the establishment of Winchester National Cemetery in 1866. The first burials were battlefield reinterments. The rectangular cemetery is laid out with 91 square burial sections, numbered 1 to 92 (there is no Section 5). Originally, these sections were named after states forming the Union, and the burial of each state’s volunteer soldiers was made accordingly. The largest group burial at the cemetery, located in Section 37, and marked by wooden posts at each corner, contains the remains of 2,338 unknown Union soldiers. The cemetery closed to new interments in July 1969.
The main entrance to the cemetery is in the middle of the north side, and is marked by an elaborate iron gate that was erected in 1910, with smaller, pedestrian gates on either side. The cemetery’s central axis runs north and south, passing the superintendent’s lodge just inside the front gates. A flagpole sits at the center of the cemetery. A second entrance, located on the southern edge of the cemetery, directly opposite the main gates, features cast-iron gates anchored by stone piers. A low limestone wall encloses the cemetery. The superintendent’s lodge, built in 1871, is based on the design by U.S. Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs found at many other Civil War-era national cemeteries across the country. However, rather than having a mansard roof hiding a second story, the one-story lodge was capped by a hipped roof. A frame kitchen addition dates from the turn of the 20th century, and a second story was added in 1914. The kitchen was improved at an unknown date, with a laundry room added off the kitchen in 1936 and basement dug under the lodge.
The cemetery features 15 monuments, most dedicated to fallen Civil War soldiers by their surviving comrades. These include memorials to the 114th New York Volunteer Infantry, the 123rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, the 12th Connecticut Volunteers, the 13th Connecticut Volunteers, the 14th New Hampshire Regiment, the 18th Connecticut Volunteers, the 34th Massachusetts Infantry, the 38th Massachusetts Volunteers, the 3rd Massachusetts Cavalry, the 8th Vermont Infantry, the 8th Vermont Volunteers, and the 6th Army Corps. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania dedicated a monument to its Civil War dead in 1890, which featured a bronze figure of a woman supporting a fallen soldier. Likewise, in 1907, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts erected a life-sized bronze sculpture of a soldier to honor its Union casualties. A plaque memorializing the Third Battle of Winchester is located near the main entrance, and two seacoast cannons, planted in concrete bases, are located on either side of the flagpole.