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Battleground National Cemetery
During the late evening of July 12, 1864, 40 Union soldiers that perished while defending Washington, DC from a two-day Confederate attack (known as the Battle of Fort Stevens) were laid to rest here in what was once an apple orchard. President Abraham Lincoln, who attended the burial ceremony, dedicated the land as hallowed ground, making Battleground National Cemetery one of America's smallest national cemeteries.
Between the 1870s and the early 1900s, a Superintendent's Lodge, rostrum, flagpole, and regimental monuments were added to the cemetery to pay tribute to the brave men who sacrificed all to preserve this nation and its capital city. In addition to the fallen soldiers, the cemetery also holds the remains of the wife and three children of Augustus Armbrecht, the original caretaker of the cemetery. |