United States National Cemetery System

The United States National Cemetery System is a system of 164 military cemeteries in the United States and its territories. The authority to create military burial places came during the American Civil War, in an act passed by the U.S. Congress on July 17, 1862.^[1] By the end of 1862, 12 national cemeteries had been established.^[2] Two of the nation's most iconic military cemeteries, Arlington National Cemetery which is under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Army, and Gettysburg National Cemetery, under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, were established in 1864 and 1863, respectively.

The National Cemetery Administration of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) maintains 156 national cemeteries as well as the Nationwide Grave-site Locator, which can be used to find burial locations of American military Veterans through their searchable website.^[3][4] The Department of the Army maintains two national cemeteries, Arlington National Cemetery and United States Soldiers' and Airmen's Home National Cemetery.^[5] The National Park Service (NPS) maintains 14 national cemeteries associated with historic sites and battlefields.^[6]

The American Battle Monuments Commission, an independent agency of the executive branch, established by Congress in 1923, maintains 26 American military cemeteries and other memorials outside the United States.

Twelve national cemeteries were established in 1862. A total of 34 were established during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865. Additional cemeteries were set up after the United States Civil War by Edmund Burke Whitman.^[7] Congress passed additional laws to establish and protect national cemeteries in 1867.^[8] The National Cemetery Administration lists a total of 73 Civil War-Era National Cemeteries from 1861 to 1868.^[9]

Final military honors are provided for qualified Veterans by volunteer veteran or National Guard details known as Memorial Honor Details (MHD), upon application by family members through their choice of mortuary handling the deceased.

*Please note that the year listed is the official date of establishment listed by the VA. This may differ from the year of the first burial, the oldest remains, the year the land was acquired, etc. Many post cemeteries have been given national cemetery status as late as 2020, which is considerably later than the original cemetery. For example, Vancouver Barracks post cemetery was established in 1849 and became a national cemetery in 2020—one of 11 cemeteries transferred from the Army to NCA in 2019–2020 per Exec. Order No. 13781, 2017.^[10]

• Fort Leavenworth Military Prison Cemetery
• USVA emblems for headstones and markers
• List of military tombstone abbreviations

• Bontrager, Shannon. Death at the Edges of Empire: Fallen Soldiers, Cultural Memory, and the Making of an American Nation, 1863–1921 (University of Nebraska Press, 2020); memories of American war dead. online summary by author

• Department of Veteran's Affairs, National Cemetery Administration