City of Alexandria, VA Page updated Apr 25, 2012 9:34 PM
Alexandria Contrabands and Freedmen’s Cemetery Freedmen’s
Cemetery graves were marked with wooden headboards like these at
Alexandria National Cemetery, 1876 (Photo, Library of Congress).
In the first year, burials included those of black soldiers, but
African American troops recuperating in Alexandria’s hospitals
demanded that blacks be given the honor of burial in the
Soldiers’ Cemetery, now Alexandria National Cemetery. The
soldiers’ graves were disinterred and moved to the military
cemetery in January 1865. The last burial in Contrabands and
Freedmen’s Cemetery took place in January 1869. The cemetery
fell into disrepair, and a brickyard and railroad cutting
encroached on its edges. The cemetery appeared on maps until
1939, but by then there would have been little remaining above-
ground evidence of the burials. In 1955, a gas station was built
on the property, followed by an office building. More than 30
years later, historical research revealed the