Friendship Cemetery
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Friendship Cemetery
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View within Friendship Cemetery
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| Location | 1300 4th Street South, Columbus, Mississippi |
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| Coordinates | 33°28′51″N 88°25′50″W / 33.48083°N 88.43056°WCoordinates: 33°28′51″N 88°25′50″W / 33.48083°N 88.43056°W |
| Area | 70 acres |
| Built | 1849 |
| NRHP reference # | 80002287 |
| USMS # | 087-CBS-1601-NR-ML |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | July 23, 1980 |
| Designated USMS | December 14, 1989 |
Friendship Cemetery is a cemetery located in Columbus, Mississippi. In 1849, the cemetery was established on 5 acres by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The original layout consisted of three interlocking circles, signifying the Odd Fellows emblem. By 1957, Friendship Cemetery had increased in size to 35 acres, and was acquired by the City of Columbus. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and was designated a Mississippi Landmark in 1989. As of 2015, the cemetery contained some 22,000 graves within an area of 70 acres and was still in use.
During the American Civil War, Columbus served as a military hospital center for the wounded, particularly after the Battle of Shiloh. More than 2,000 Confederate soldiers were interred in Friendship Cemetery, along with 40 to 150 Union soldiers.
On April 25, 1866, the graves of these fallen soldiers, both Confederate and Union, were decorated with flowers by a large group of ladies from Columbus. The women's tribute – treating the soldiers as equals – inspired poet Francis Miles Finch to write the poem, The Blue and the Gray, which was published in an 1867 edition of The Atlantic Monthly. In 1867, the remains of all Union soldiers were exhumed and reinterred in Corinth National Cemetery. Over time, these grave decoration days – honoring those who died in military service – eventually morphed into Memorial Day.
The cemetery contains two Confederate monuments:
Monument to Confederate dead (1873)
Monument to an unknown Confederate soldier (1894)
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Wikipedia