Walking tour of the Alexandria National Cemetery

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Walking Tour of Alexandria National Cemetery

Eight stops among the Union dead of Alexandria’s wartime hospitals — the first burial of 1862, the Fort Lyon explosion row, the four civilians lost in the hunt for Lincoln’s assassin, and the soldiers whose petition made this the first integrated national cemetery. With a route map and the grave row for every stop.

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Tri-fold guide — print it or save it to your phone.

A New Guide for an Old Ground

Established in 1862, Alexandria National Cemetery is one of the first national cemeteries in the country and the only federal ground among the thirteen cemeteries of the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex. The City bought two acres from John H. and Margaret Baggett on June 1, 1862; Congress authorized national cemeteries a month later. The first burial, Private Reuben Rowell of the 22nd Massachusetts, came before either.

For years the only walking brochure available here was a government leaflet from 2014. It was a good start, but it described a Latin cross that no longer stands, gave burial figures that have since been corrected, and placed the Black Diamond disaster on the wrong river. This guide replaces it with Gravestone Stories’ own research — the cemetery’s records, wartime newspapers, hospital letters, and Wesley Pippenger’s Tombstone Inscriptions of Alexandria — and it is free, like the cemetery itself.

What this guide corrects. The four Quartermaster Department civilians honored at the granite boulder died on the Potomac River, not the Rappahannock, when the steamer Massachusetts struck the coal barge Black Diamond off Blackistone Island just before 1 a.m. on April 24, 1865. The cemetery holds about 4,242 burials, 117 of them unknown, and roughly 78 percent date from the Civil War era. The Latin cross once listed as a stop is gone.

The Eight Stops

Rows are counted from the Wilkes Street gate; the grave number is cut into the top of each stone. Allow 45 minutes to an hour.

The Wilkes Street Gate & the First BurialThe 1892 cast-iron gates, and just inside, Private Reuben Rowell, who died May 16, 1862 — the first grave in the cemetery

The Superintendent’s LodgeBuilt 1871, burned 1878, rebuilt 1887 in local Seneca sandstone under Quartermaster General Meigs; today VFW Post 609

The Fort Lyon Explosion RowRow 10 — the 3rd New York Heavy Artillery men killed when eight tons of powder detonated on June 9, 1863

Edward French, an Irish ZouaveRow 3, A:233 — shot through the lung at Second Bull Run; two letters from King Street Hospital tell his last days

The Flagpole & the Black Diamond BoulderCircle South, Row 1 — Carroll, Huntington, Farley and Gosnell, lost on the Potomac in the pursuit of John Wilkes Booth

The RostrumThe 1945 marble rostrum inside the circular drive, on the grounds that by 1871 held a fountain, a pond and a greenhouse

The Petition of 1864Section B, Rows 13–18 — Shadrack Murphy, John Cooley, and the 443 soldiers who wrote “We are not contrabands”

The Buffalo SoldiersRows 14–18 — six men of the 9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry, including Joseph F. Whelen and his wife Annie B.

Every stop is told at greater length — with sources — on Interesting Burials in the Alexandria National Cemetery, Gravestone Stories’ full history of the ground.

Before You Go

Location

1450 Wilkes Street, Alexandria, VA 22314
West end of the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex

Hours & Cost

Open daily, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (extended on Memorial Day)
Open to all — no charge, no ticket

Getting There

From King Street Metro: east on King, right on Daingerfield, across Duke, then the Hooff Run path to the Jamieson Avenue pedestrian gate or the Wilkes Street main gate

Please: stay on the walks and drives, keep off the graves, and give any funeral or ceremony a wide berth. Photography is welcome. The cemetery is managed by the National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Gravestone Stories is not affiliated with the VA.

Take the Stories With You

Print the guide, or save it to your phone, and walk the rows with the research in hand.

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