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The largest memorial in Salisbury National Cemetery, the Federal Monument was built to honor the unknown dead of Salisbury prison. Paid for in 1873 the monument had the incredibly high claim of 11,700 dead which was done without accurate archaeology…

Main panel of the Federal Monument describing the impossible number of Salisbury prison dead.

One of many contemporary graves, McConville's grave is part of the larger life of Salisbury National Cemetery. McConville was killed in the early years of Operation Iraqi Freedom and represents the staying power of the National Cemetery in American…

Edward Hood was a private during the Second World War, his grave is an example of how commemoration changed during the World Wars. Instead of saying what state he was from, the grave describes what branch of the military he served in. National trumps…

At Salisbury the dead were too numerous for Confederates to provide individual graves, and instead dumped the bodies into eighteen trenches. These trenches were heavily contested after the war as how many bodies were actually inside.

Robert Drummond was a prisoner at Salisbury prison and published a popular memoir after the war and went on numerous speaking tours. His portrait was taken several years after the war in 1872 by an unknown photographer.

The gate to the National Cemetery is wrought iron and imposing.

The side panel for the Federal Monument describes the purpose of the memorial to "the memory of the unknown union soldiers who died in the confederate prison at Salisbury, NC."

The size of the National Cemetery at Salisbury is impressive. The space has recently been expanded to allow four hundred more graves for veterans. This image shows the many people who had been buried at Salisbury since the Spanish American War and…

The Salisbury National Cemetery is the only such cemetery in North Carolina: born out of a Confederate prison honoring the unknown Union dead. The cemetery houses almost four thousand Union veterans and six thousand U.S. veterans.