Knoxville National Cemetery (KHP)
We always meet at Maple Hall on the second Tuesday of each month, and this time it happens to land on Veterans Day. We’ve never given a public talk about Knoxville’s National Cemetery, and we’ll share a slide show about that cemetery and its very unusual history, reflecting what we learned a few years ago when we researched a book about the subject for the national Veterans Administration. The region’s first cemetery set aside for veterans, the 10-acre plot adjacent to Old Gray was established by Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s Union Army in 1863, just weeks before the Confederate siege, making it one of America’s first generation of national cemeteries. Several aspects of the cemetery make it unusual, including its unusual, perhaps unique geometry, the fact that it was racially integrated from the beginning, and the truly bizarre story of the evolution of its striking monument, said to be the South’s largest Union monument not on a battlefield park. We’ll also talk about the large gatherings that once made the cemetery almost festive and outline a few people you’ve heard of who are buried there.
Free program. Food and drinks available for purchase.
