NPS Photo Project OverviewA multi-year, multi-phase project to stabilize portions of Vicksburg National Cemetery in Vicksburg National Military Park began in April 2023 to address grave disturbances and erosion caused by severe weather events in 2020 and 2021. Beginning in January 2020, unprecedented rainfall caused extreme erosion, road loss, sinkholes and severe landslides at Vicksburg National Military Park and the National Cemetery. This weather event impacted historically significant landscapes, including burial sites in the national cemetery. Additional storm activity in 2021 contributed to further impacts. Current StatusBurial Recovery Phase
NPS image TimelineEmergency burial recovery: Work began in April 2023 and was completed in April 2024. Short-Term Stabilization: Construction is to begin after completion of the Burial Recovery. Work projected to begin in 2025. Mitigation: Preliminary mitigation measures began in November 2022 and are ongoing. Frequently Asked QuestionsIn January 2020, Vicksburg, Mississippi, had several severe weather events back-to-back, yielding more than 23.2 inches of rain in total. As a result, several landslides occurred in Vicksburg National Military Park, including one large landside adversely affecting close to an acre in Vicksburg National Cemetery. Portions of the roads through the cemetery were also damaged extensively. The damage required the removal of nine burials that were displaced or otherwise imperiled as a result of the slide. The slide area needs to be stabilized to prevent further damage to graves, repair the damaged road, and to prevent additional slides. An estimated 50 to 100 at-risk burials will need to be temporarily disinterred to protect them before and during construction necessary to repair and stabilize the landform. While NPS Management Policy on the Stewardship of Human Remains (5.3.4) directs park superintendents to make every effort to avoid impacting burial areas and graves, it allows for archeological investigations and removal of burials when they are “threatened with destruction.” In this case, the graves will be further disturbed or lost due to ongoing erosion from past landslides and will otherwise continue to be at risk of further damage from future landslides. The temporary removal of imperiled burials is necessary to protect the human remains until they can be safely and respectfully reinterred to their original locations after the affected area has been restored and the landform has been stabilized. Burial Recovery Curatorial Storage of remains Stabilization Mitigation Measures Emergency burial recovery: Work began in April 2023 and was completed in April 2024. Short-Term Stabilization: Construction is to begin after completion of the Burial Recovery. Work projected to begin in 2025. Mitigation: Preliminary mitigation measures began in November 2022 and are ongoing. It will ensure that the NPS upholds its commitment to protect and maintain the Vicksburg National Cemetery in perpetuity with the utmost dignity and respect. The park will also work with all interested parties to recognize the cultural components that have been identified in this section of the cemetery including Native American, colonial Spanish, and most significantly the role of the USCTs and the local African American community’s contributions to the significance of the Vicksburg National Cemetery and to the history of our Nation as a whole. The affected burials are located in sections designated for USCT. This is an opportunity to bring co-stewardship into the forefront concerning our histories of United States Colored Troops (USCT) at Vicksburg and across the region and to highlight. This effort also brings new attention on Vicksburg’s national significance during the Federal occupation and Reconstruction and to the under-told stories of that pivotal period. The project will stabilize areas in the cemetery to make it safer and will enable disinterred burials to be reinterred to their original locations, preserving this portion of the cemetery for future generations of visitors. This project will help prevent additional damage to other portions of the National Cemetery and will also protect vulnerable graves, which could be damaged if not stabilized. This project will bring to the forefront the substantial contributions of the USCT and partially restore personal identities and honor the individuals to be temporarily disinterred. This project will open new avenues and opportunities for community collaboration. The park’s mission includes telling the larger story of Vicksburg from 1862 through Reconstruction. It will build on other related efforts underway at the park and with our partners to tell more complete stories. Focused archival research of Civil War era regimental records and National Cemetery Records, combined with consultation and collaboration with descendant communities and detailed skeletal analyses, will afford an ability to provide identities to previously unknown individuals. Yes, a portion of the cemetery will remain open to pedestrians through the duration of the project. The portion of the cemetery in the southwest corner where the landslides occurred will be fenced off and be out of view and will continue to be closed to the public until the project is completed. There is no vehicle access to the cemetery at this time.
Burial Recovery, archaeological excavations, and project construction will all impact existing vegetation in the project area. However, no endangered species or species of concern will be affected, and reconstruction and stabilization of the terraces and slopes will significantly reduce the risk of future damage to plant and animal communities in the area. The project is also considered an adverse effect to the cultural resources of the national cemetery. Through the Section 106 consultation process, the park has mitigated the adverse effect by identifying several measures to increase knowledge about USCTs at Vicksburg. Following the landslides in 2020 and 2021 the park initiated an extensive compliance process to ensure that natural and cultural resources are protected for the full duration of the project. This federally-mandated process, includes compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), ensures that all appropriate efforts to minimize adverse effects to these resources will be taken into consideration. Documents pertaining to this compliance is publicly available upon request.
Compliance with NAGPRA and Treatment of Human Remains All aspects of this project will comply with state and federal legislation (e.g., Mississippi Antiquities Law and Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) regarding the treatment of Native American and non-Native American human remains. The possibility exists that Native American human remains may be encountered during any phase of this project. If Native American human remains, funerary objects, or items of cultural patrimony as defined by NAGPRA are encountered all personnel shall follow the procedures as outlined in NAGPRA. All excavations in that area must immediately cease and the park superintendent and Southeast Region NAGPRA coordinator will be contacted. The superintendent will contact the appropriate tribes, the Mississippi SHPO and convene consultations and responses with all other appropriate parties. The specific courses of action regarding treatment of human remains and any accompanying materials shall follow the procedures regarding the disposition of human remains as outlined in the NPS-28: Cultural Resource Management Guidelines and the Mississippi SHPO Guidelines for Archaeological Investigations and Reports in Mississippi. The team consists of a principal investigator, bioarcheologists/osteologists, and multiple qualified field archeologists. The park archeologist monitors and manage all aspects of the burial recovery in conjunction with the principal investigator. The team works together to ensure the safe and respectful disinterment of burials.
No. Appropriate samples will be taken and will be temporarily held so that they will be available for future analysis, if such studies are approved. However, skeletal analysis as a part of this project in combination with review of historic regimental and burial records may lead to some presumptive personal identifications for individuals who were originally buried in the cemetery as unknowns.
At the start of the burial recovery effort, it was estimated that 50 to 80, possibly up to 100 threatened burials might need to be disinterred. At the conclusion of the project in April 2024, a total of 102 burials were exhumed. Excavation of these burials will protect them from further disturbance during future stabilization efforts as well as protect them from further impacts from additional landslides.
Following the complete hand excavation of each burial and its full contents, the remains of each individual will be placed into appropriately labeled bags and boxes which will then be transported by motor vehicle each day to the secured and climate-controlled archeology and osteology laboratory built specifically for this purpose located on the grounds of the national park.
The NPS modified an existing maintenance and restoration shop to establish a secured, climate-controlled archeology and osteology laboratory with a separate curation facility to temporarily house the human remains, burial objects, and associated grave markers that need to be moved as a part of this project. This facility is in a gated and secured area with restricted access under the control [jurisdiction] of NPS law enforcement. All aspects of how and where these burials are to be temporarily stored is designed to uphold ethical treatment and to ensure preservation of all aspects of the original provenience for all disinterred human remains, burial objects, and grave markers. All such items will remain secured on-site until the time that they are to be reinterred.
All disinterred human remains, burial objects, and grave markers, taken from the cemetery will remain in secured on-site storage until such time that all aspects of this project have been completed, all approved studies and technical reports have been completed and accepted, and a future Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) has been signed by the park, Federally Recognized Tribes, the SHPO, and all other invited signatories. This future MOA will outline all responsibilities and responsible parties to be assigned specific tasks and outline will all aspects of the reinterment process.
All human remains, burial objects, and grave markers, disinterred as a part of this project will be reinterred to their original locations with solemnity and respect. The specific details of how this will occur and who will be invited to participate directly in the reinterment process will be outlined in the future MOA to be signed by the park, Federally Recognized Tribes, the SHPO, and all other invited signatories to that forthcoming document.
Human remains, associated burial objects (buttons, etc.), and disinterred grave markers coming from cemetery burials will be inventoried separately from other artifacts as they will only be held temporarily in NPS-Park curation facilities until reinterment. However, because ancient Native American artifacts have been previously identified in the area, and because the national cemetery is located within a Civil War battlefield, there may be artifacts that are not associated with cemetery burials but otherwise fit the park’s Scope of Collection Statement. Final disposition of these artifacts shall be determined in consultation with the park’s museum collections advisory committee. Previous archeological investigations and other past studies completed within and adjacent to the cemetery have also determined that Native American human remains and associated funerary objects may be located within the project area. The Park will ensure that the treatment of any human remains inadvertently discovered during the project complies with all applicable state and federal laws concerning the treatment of Native American human remains. Should unmarked human remains of any kind be encountered all ground disturbing activity in the immediate area of the discovery will cease immediately, and, at a minimum, a hundred (100) foot buffer will be established to protecting the human remains until the park initiates and completes NAGPRA consultation with the relevant Tribes and State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). From its inception, the cemetery was segregated according to race. White soldiers were reinterred in sections A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and O, while initial reinterments of black soldiers were confined to section M, but later expanded into other sections including Sections J and Section T Because Civil War era regiments were racially segregated, and because the Union war dead were systematically exhumed and brought to Vicksburg from places where specific regiments had makeshift burials of their dead, this led to a general pattern of reburial of soldiers by regiment for many sections at Vicksburg National Cemetery; however, there may have also been other factors taken into consideration as to why certain sections were designated for certain regiments and may have been influenced by prevailing attitudes towards racial segregation held by the cemetery administrators at the time.
The cemetery closed for future burials in 1961, with the only exception being a few remaining grave sites that were reserved for veterans and widows who had reserved burial plots prior to the cemetery’s closing in 1961.
Today the cemetery includes more than18,000 interments, including 17,077 Civil War dead of which 12,909 are of unknown soldiers. Rounded, upright headstones mark the graves of the known soldiers, while small, square blocks, etched with a grave number only, designate the burials of the unknowns.
The names of the soldiers interred in Vicksburg National Cemetery have been compiled from the original cemetery ledgers. The three-volume set contains only basic information about each known veteran recorded at the time of reinterment. Although the handwritten pencil entries are in remarkable condition, many contain inaccuracies and/or only partial information about the soldiers. The public can search cemetery records via an online database and two kiosks in the park: one in the Visitor Center and one in the foyer of the USS Cairo Museum, which is adjacent to the national cemetery. The online database has basic information. The ledgers are in the park’s archives and can be viewed by making a research appointment.
Following the emergency recovery of burials that were actively eroding out of the landslide in 2020 and 2021, the Park in collaboration with the US Army Corps of Engineers needed to develop the most viable plan for restoring and stabilizing the damaged portion of the cemetery. Following the development of those plans, additional archeological studies were needed to better evaluate the current conditions and full scope of the total undertaking, and lastly, in compliance with federal law, the Park needed to follow the NHPA Section 106 Consultation Process to ensure that all potentially interested parties and the general public would have the opportunity to share their interests and concerns about how this project is to be carried out.
No, the data does not currently support that the landslides that caused the most recent damage to the cemetery resulted from climate change, however occurred due to specific weather-triggered events. As global and regional weather patterns change, the park may see more extreme weather events in the future. These most recent landslides in the National Cemetery are probably connected with the characteristic of the area’s loess soils becoming heavy with excessive precipitation, thus destabilizing the slope.
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Last updated: May 28, 2024