page_title: Antietam National Battlefield
section_title: Cemetery
hierarchical_section_title: Antietam National Battlefield / Features / Cemetery
caption_attribution_description: English: The American Volunteer ("Old Simon"), U.S. Soldier Monument, Antietam National Cemetery. Carl Conrads, sculptor; James W. Pollette, carver; George Keller, architect. Dedicated September 17, 1880. Height: 44 feet, 7 inches. Weight: 250 tons.
context_page_description: Antietam National Battlefield is a National Park Service-protected area along Antietam Creek in Sharpsburg, Washington County, northwestern Maryland. It commemorates the American Civil War Battle of Antietam that occurred on September 17, 1862.
  The area, situated on fields among the Appalachian foothills near the Potomac River, features the battlefield site and visitor center, a national military cemetery, stone arch Burnside's Bridge, and a field hospital museum.
context_section_description: Antietam National Cemetery, which adjoins the park, covers 11.36 acres (4.60 ha) and contains more than 4,976 interments (1,836 unidentified). The cemetery was commissioned in 1865, and interments began in 1867, following an arduous process of identifying the remains, which was only successful in about 40% of the cases. Civil War era burials in this cemetery consist of only Union soldiers; Confederate dead were interred in the Washington Confederate Cemetery in Hagerstown, Maryland; Mt. Olivet Cemetery, in Frederick, Maryland; and Elmwood Cemetery in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. The cemetery also contains the graves of veterans and their wives from the Spanish–American War, both World Wars, and the Korean War. The cemetery was closed to additional interments in 1953. However, two exceptions have been made; the first in 1978 for Congressman Goodloe Byron and the second in 2000 for the remains of USN Fireman Patrick Howard Roy who was killed in the attack on the USS Cole. The cemetery was placed under the War Department on July 14, 1870; it was transferred to the National Park Service on August 10, 1933. The gatehouse at the cemetery entrance was the first building designed by Paul J. Pelz, later architect of the Library of Congress.
caption: U.S. Soldier Monument ("Old Simon"), Carl Conrads, sculptor, George Keller architect, dedicated September 17, 1880.
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