Confederate Cemetery, Fayetteville

The Fayetteville Confederate Cemetery is the final resting place of Confederate soldiers who died throughout northwestern Arkansas. Closely associated with the activities of the Southern Memorial Association (SMA), it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 3, 1993.

The SMA of Washington County was established on June 10, 1872, when several women met in answer to a notice in the June 6 Fayetteville Democrat calling for establishment of a “Confederate burying ground.” 

The SMA began raising funds and, on April 11, 1873, was able to pay Charles W. and Serena Walker $150 for a 3.48-acre site on the western slope of East Mountain (Mount Sequoyah). They began locating Confederate graves in Washington County and adjacent areas of northwestern Arkansas.

They contracted with J. D. Henry in March 1873 to begin gathering Confederate dead at the Pea Ridge battlefield for reinterment in the Fayetteville cemetery at a cost of $1.40 per body. Confederate remains from the Prairie Grove battlefield and other locations in northwestern Arkansas were carried to Fayetteville and reburied for $2.50 each.

Dedicated on June 10, 1873, approximately 300 Confederate war dead, some of the soldiers buried here died from illness in disease-ridden camps during the brutal winter of 1861-1862, while others fell in battle, were buried there at that time; the number eventually grew to about 800. The grounds, the fence, the removing of bodies, clearing and improving cemetery, cost about $1,200. The money for all this was raised though suppers, bazaars and theatrical performances. 

Organized into separate areas for casualties from Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, and Louisiana, the original sandstone head and foot markers were replaced, in 1903 with marble stones. 

The cemetery buried its highest-ranking officer in 1880, when the remains of Brigadier General William Yarnell Slack were removed from the Roller Cemetery at Moore’s Hill to rest at the head of the Missouri section of the Confederate Cemetery. Slack, a Mexican War veteran, was wounded at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek on August 10, 1861. He recovered from his wounds but was shot again as he led his Missouri volunteers at the Battle of Pea Ridge. Carried from the field and moved 3 times to avoid capture by Federal troops, Slack succumbed to his wounds on March 21, 1862, one of 3 Confederate generals who died from injuries sustained at Pea Ridge. While records show that a few commissioned officers are buried in the Confederate Cemetery, most of the remains there are of private soldiers.

In 1896, the SMA decided to install a monument in the center of the cemetery, and the organization again began fundraising activities. “People of Cane Hill, Bentonville, Prairie Grove, Cincinnati, Springdale and other northwest Arkansas towns gave active support to the monument enterprise,” a later SMA president recalled, including lectures and recitals, song tournaments, card and Parcheesi tournaments, poetry readings, and distributions of cards with enough spaces for dimes to total $1 when filled. By February 16, 1897, all but $511 of the $2,500 monument cost was raise

The SMA continues to maintain the cemetery located on Rock Street near the intersection with Willow on the mountain slope just east of the downtown area. It overlooks the site of the Battle of Fayetteville.