QUARTERMASTER GENERAL'S OFFICE
Washington, D. C., August 9, 1869.
The following volume (the XXIVth) of Rolls of Honor prepared in the cemeterial
branch of this office, under the direction of Brevet Brigadier General Alex. J.
Perry, Quartermaster United States Army, and containing the records of the
graves of eighteen thousand three hundred and seventy-five (18,375) Union
Soldiers interred in the national cemeteries at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and New
Albany, Indiana, is published by authority of the Secretary of War for the
information of their surviving comrades and friends.
VICKSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY
The Vicksburg National Cemetery is located at Vicksburg, Mississippi, a short
distance above the city, covering the ground upon which stood the rebel
batteries that offered most effective resistance to the passage of our gunboats
past the city. The entire side-hill toward the river has been converted
into terraces, and the dead have been interred from near the bank of the river
to the road at the summit of the hill.
It contains forty acres, purchased at a cost of nine thousand dollars.
The site was selected and recommended by Major General T. J. Wood and Brevet
Brigadier General H. M. Whittesley, A. Q. M.
To the present date the remains of fifteen thousand five hundred and eight
Union soldiers have been interred here, of which ten thousand and twenty-seven
are white and five thousand five hundred and fifty-three colored. Of the
white soldiers two fifths are among the known, while of the colored there are
but two one-hundredths known; and of the whole number interred the records show
three-fourths unknown.
These dead have been gathered throughout the entire region of General Grant's
campaign against Vicksburg, from Rodney, a short distance on the river below
Bruinsburg--the point of landing in the crossing of the river to approach
Vicksburg in the rear. On the east the search extended to Meridian, and on the
north up the Yazoo, and in the interior to the district from which the dead were
removed to Memphis. On the west bank of the Mississippi River the dead
have been brought from Lake Providence, Milliken's Bend, Young's Point, and De
Soto, and down the river to the place of crossing.
The interments in this cemetery are not yet completed. None but
unknown, however, are now found, and after so long a lapse of time, and in a
soil like that on the banks of the Mississippi, it must soon become impossible,
if it is not already so, to distinguish the remains of a soldier from those of a
citizen.
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