06/01/2026
In the months and years following the Battle of Antietam, grave locations and names were gathered around Sharpsburg as contributions came in from Northern states to the administrators of an established Antietam National Cemetery Board. While the cemetery was created for the burials of Union soldiers, the gathering of this information was an incredibly difficult task as anywhere between 3,500 to 4,000 total (depending on various records) from both sides had been killed or later died of their wounds or disease at one of the area's field hospitals.
Confederate dead remained on the battlefield in the immediate years following until they were moved and reinterred in a number of the region's other burial grounds. Today, many of those Southerners rest at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Frederick, Maryland, Rose Hill Cemetery in Hagerstown, Maryland, and Elmwood Cemetery in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
Many farmers and their families had difficulties for considerable time as portions of their fields had become graveyards with several burial pits and individual graves. With the majority of the work finished, Antietam National Cemetery was dedicated on September 17, 1867. President Andrew Johnson and many other dignitaries attended.
