Philadelphia National Cemetery

Philadelphia National Cemetery. . , Civil War Philadelphia , At the time of the Civil War, Philadelphia was the second-largest American city. Its factories supported the Union war effort by producing everything from blankets to gunboats. In less than three months, its navy yards produced the sloop-of-war U.S.S. Tuscarora. The ironclad U.S.S. New Ironsides, which saw action at Charleston, South Carolina, and at Fort Fisher and Wilmington, North Carolina, was also built in Philadelphia shipyards., Thousands of Union soldiers passed through the city on the way to the front. Local organizations provided lodging, food, laundry, and bathing facilities. Later, the city opened hospitals for soldiers, as did the federal government. Ailing troops were treated at Broad Street, Christian Street, Citizens Volunteer, Cuyler, Haddington, Islington Lane, McClellan, Officer, South Street, Summit House, and Turner's Lane hospitals., Satterlee and Mower hospitals were the largest. Satterlee General Hospital, opened 1862, could accommodate 3,000 patients. Mower General Hospital, opened 1863, held 4,000 patients. During the war more than 157,000 soldiers, sailors, and Confederate prisoners were treated in Philadelphia hospitals. Many died from disease or wounds., National Cemetery , The dead were initially buried in several locations that collectively made up the original Philadelphia National Cemetery. The War Department maintained lots in seven city cemeteries , Glenwood, Lafayette, Lebanon, Mount Moriah, Odd-Fellows, United American Mechanics, and Woodlands. Lots in Rural Cemetery in Chester, and Whitehall and Bristol cemeteries, also received military burials. By the early 1880s, Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs chose to consolidate these dead into a single national cemetery. After the War Department acquired more than 13 acres in northwest Philadelphia in 1885, an estimated 1,500 Union and Confederate remains were reinterred here., The cemetery was designed in the rural style. Curving roads and generous plantings created a park-like environment. A large Italianate house acquired with the property served as the superintendent's residence for fifty years. It was razed in 1934., Medal of Honor Recipient , One Civil War recipient of the Medal of Honor is buried in the cemetery: Gen. Galusha Pennypacker, 97th Pennsylvania Infantry., First bestowed in 1863, it is the highest award for military valor in the U.S. Armed Services. For acts above and beyond the call of duty, 1,522 individuals who served in the Civil War received the medal. Pennypacker earned it for bravery in the January 1865 assault on Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Afterward he was promoted, and at 20 became the youngest Union general. He died in 1916 (Officers Section, Grave 175).