Salisbury National Cemetery

Salisbury National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery located in the city of Salisbury, in Rowan County, North Carolina. It encompasses 65 acre, 15 acre in the original location and 50 acre at the annex, and as of 2012 had 6500 interments (in 6000 standard graves, many of which also hold a spouse), plus an estimated 11,700 in 18 mass graves, at the original location and 5000, in 4500 graves, in the new location.

History
Salisbury National Cemetery began as simply a place for the Confederacy to inter Union prisoners of war who died while held in Salisbury. The conditions at the prison were poor, and many of those incarcerated there succumbed to disease or starvation. Many of the dead were buried in eighteen 240 ft trench graves without coffins in a former corn field, so it is unknown exactly how many prisoners were buried there, but 11,700 is the generally accepted number; research by Louis A. Brown shows the maximum number to be close to 5000. Union Gen. George Stoneman ordered that a fence be built around the trenches, which was later replaced with a stone wall. After the American Civil War, the cemetery officially became a National Cemetery and had remains from other cemeteries around the area transferred to it.

Salisbury National Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

By 1994 the cemetery was expected to fill up by 1997, with no more burials other than spouses of those already there. Despite additions in 1976, 1985 and 1995 that gave the cemetery a total of 12.5 acres, and 5800 buried at the cemetery already, it was later predicted that by the end of 1999, the cemetery would have no more room. Representatives of the cemetery, veterans, and Rowan County traveled to Washington, D.C asking for help, and on Memorial Day 1999, the Veterans Administration announced the donation of about 40 acre, at the W.G. (Bill) Hefner VA Medical Center in Salisbury. The land included the Brookdale Golf Course, donated by Samuel C. Hart American Legion Post to be used by the hospital when it opened in 1953, and used until the late 1980s. The expansion gave the cemetery enough room to last for 50 to 75 years, with room for 20,000 more veterans and family members. A groundbreaking ceremony was held at the cemetery annex on Pearl Harbor Day 1999. The first burial in the new location took place in March 2000.

In April 2000, 4.7 acre became part of the Salisbury National Cemetery. Two years later, a $2.8 million expansion began on 31 acre of the former golf course, with space to bury 12,000 more people.

On November 14, 2011, work began on a new columbarium with a capacity of 1000, which was expected to last ten years. The existing columbarium was nearly filled. Also, the cemetery was adding 2400 "pre-placed in-ground crypts"; these allowed 1500 burials per acre compared to 700 with normal graves.

As of Memorial Day 2012, the original cemetery, with about 7000 markers, was closed to new burials, except for spouses of those already buried. The annex had 4000 markers and was the state's only open national cemetery.

Notable monuments

 * A 25 ft granite monument topped by a statue of a soldier, erected in 1908 by the state of Maine.
 * The Federal Monument to the Unknown Dead, a 50 ft granite obelisk erected in 1876.
 * The Pennsylvania Monument, a 40 ft monument on a granite base, erected in 1909.

Notable interments

 * Private First Class Marshall Sharp, Buffalo soldier.