Memphis National Cemetery

GPS Coordinates: 35.173528, -89.937443
County: Shelby
Record count: 43,891

Ownership: National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Directions: Located in north Memphis, in The Heights community, the cemetery's main entrance lies at the north-east corner of Jackson Ave (Highway 14) and Townes Ave.

Background: Memphis National Cemetery, originally named Mississippi River National Cemetery, traces its origins to the Civil War, when the Union Army established hospitals in the city to care for thousands of wounded soldiers and purchased 32 acres northeast of Memphis for a burial ground. After the war, remains from battlefields, camps, and hospitals across the region were reinterred here, resulting in one of the largest numbers of unknown soldiers of any national cemetery, due to deteriorated markers and the lack of personal identification requirements at the time. The cemetery also became the final resting place for many victims of the USS Sultana disaster in April 1865, when the overloaded steamboat exploded near Memphis, killing over a thousand recently released Union prisoners of war in one of the deadliest maritime tragedies in U.S. history.

Burial Records

• View All Transcriptions Combined, 43,891 records
  • Unidentified Burials, by Interment.net, April 17, 2025, (8,822 records)
  • Veterans Affairs Database, by Interment.net, April 17, 2025, (35,069 records)

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