Side by Side

Side by Side. Rose Hill and Rosemount Cemeteries. Rose Hill Cemetery was established in 1853, with the earliest graves at the top of the hill. During the Civil War, when the Federals occupied Columbia, its location next to the Nashville and Decatur Railroad made it a significant outpost. Several hundred Confederate and Union soldiers were interred here after the Battles of Franklin and Nashville late in 1864. Confederate Gen. Patrick Cleburne's body was first buried here before being reinterred at St John's Church in nearby Mount Pleasant., Union quartermaster, Capt. Edmund B. Whitman, was ordered to search Western Theater battlefields and cemeteries for the Federal dead. He reported in December 1865 that “the bodies of all soldiers who have been killed or who have died at Columbia are deposited in the South East Corner of the Rose Hill Cemetery.” Whitman envisioned Rose Hill as a national cemetery in Middle Tennessee in part because Confederate soldiers were buried next to Rose Hill (102 today). In 1867, the Union dead were removed to Stones River National Cemetery in Murfreesboro. In May 1882, the local Women's Confederate Memorial Association erected the Confederate monument. The soldier stands at "funeral parade rest.", Columbia African Americans created Rosemount Cemetery, beyond the fence, in 1873. Some former soldiers who had served in the U.S. Colored Troops lived in town, and at least two are buried here: Sgt. Asa Johnson, Co. C, 15th USCT, and Sgt. William Frierson, Co. A, 13th USCT. In the Battle of Nashville, Frierson was wounded in the successful USCT charge at Peach Orchard Hill alongside white Federal troops., Captions: , Left, top: Confederate monument, Rose Hill Cemetery Courtesy Tennessee State Library and Archives , Left, bottom (left): Capt. Edmund B. Whitman Courtesy Kansas Historical Society , Left, bottom (right): Unidentified USCT sergeant Courtesy Library of Congress , Right: Battle of Nashville - Courtesy Library of Congress