West Point Cemetery
West Point Cemetery is a historic cemetery on the grounds of the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. It overlooks the Hudson River, and served as a burial ground for American Revolutionary War soldiers and early West Point inhabitants long before 1817 when it was officially designated as a military cemetery. Prior to 1817, the area was known as "German Flats" before it was formally designated as the official cemetery.[2] Until that time several small burial plots scattered in mid-post also served as places of interment. The graves from these plots and the remains subsequently found during building excavations were removed to the new site. An improved road to the cemetery was constructed in 1840, and the caretaker's cottage was erected in 1872.[1] Besides offices for the cemetery management, the caretaker's cottage now also houses West Point's Inspector General office.[3] The cemetery is home to several monuments, to include Dade Monument, the Cadet Monument, Wood's Monument, and Margaret Corbin Monument.
Notable interments[4]
- Major General Leonard Wood, a physician who served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
- Major General Robert Anderson, Union Army officer in command of Fort Sumter at start of Civil War
- Earl "Red" Blaik, Army football head coach 1941–1958, member of the College Football Hall of Fame
- John Milton Brannan, Union army general
- Major General Daniel Butterfield, composer of Taps
- Major General John Buford, Union cavalry commander who set the stage for the Battle of Gettysburg
- General Lucius D. Clay, "Father of the Berlin Airlift"
- Margaret Corbin, Revolutionary War heroine.
- Major General George Armstrong Custer, commander at the Battle of the Little Bighorn
- Maggie Dixon, head women's basketball coach at Army at the time of her unexpected death in 2006
- Major General George Washington Goethals, "Builder of the Panama Canal"
- Major General Frederick Dent Grant, son of President Ulysses S. Grant
- Lieutenant General Howard Dwayne Graves, Superintendent, United States Military Academy
- Major General Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Mexican-American War veteran, special advisor to the President during the Civil War
- Brigadier General Ranald S. Mackenzie, Civil War veteran, commander of Buffalo Soldiers during the Indian Wars
- Master Sergeant Martin "Marty" Maher, Jr., Central character in the film The Long Grey Line
- Colonel David "Mickey" Marcus, Israel's first general, only American buried here who died fighting under a foreign flag
- Major General Wesley Merritt, Civil War veteran, Military Governor of the Philippines
- Major General Bryant Edward Moore, Korea IX corps,WWII 8th inf div "Blue Devils" "Timberwolves" and Pacific
- General Alexander Patch, commander of U.S. Seventh Army
- Major General Thomas H. Ruger, Civil War veteran, United States Military Academy Superintendent
- Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, longest serving American general
- Major General George Sykes, Civil War commander
- Brigadier General Sylvanus Thayer, known as "The Father of the U.S. Military Academy" for the strict regimens implemented at his direction
- Brigadier General John T. Thompson, inventor of the Thompson submachine gun
- Ensign Dominick Trant, a native of Cork, Ireland and a soldier in the Ninth Massachusetts Infantry, died at West Point in 1782. His grave is the oldest one in the cemetery.
- Colonel Theodore S. Westhusing, highest ranking officer to die in Iraq war - 2005, "Multi-national Security Transition Command - Iraq".
- General William Westmoreland, Army Chief of Staff, Superintendent, United States Military Academy
- Lieutenant Colonel Edward Higgins White II, first American to make a spacewalk, killed in Apollo 1 fire on January 27, 1967.
- Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Eleazer D. Wood, first West Point Graduate to die in battle and first to be buried at West Point.
See also
References
External links
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