Hart Island Soldiers Cemetery

Although active duty Civil War soldiers were eligible for burial in National Cemeteries, veterans who died following their discharge did not receive military burials until 1916 when Congress appropriated funding. Unclaimed veterans were buried separately by the city in a separate area known as Soldier’s Plot on Hart Island. Both Civil War and Spanish American War veterans who died in New York City were interred here. Some of these veterans were immediately transferred to West Farms Soldiers Cemetery in the Bronx in 1916. Others were removed to Cypress Hills in 1941. While all of the remains were moved, an obelisk constructed in 1877 by the Army Reserves to honor soldiers and sailors, as well as fragments of cast-iron fencing, mark the location of Soldier’s Plot.