History: NCA History Blog
NCA historians blog about current events, cemeteries, preservation projects, headstones and monuments, Memorial Day, notable persons and much more. Read our latest blog posts or view the list below.
Featured Blog Post
Les' Melnyk
Senior Historian, National Cemetery Administration
Published: November 19, 2024
President Abraham Lincoln is one of the most revered figures in American history. Rankings of U.S. presidents routinely place him at or near the top of the list.
Lincoln is also held in high esteem at VA. His stirring call during his second inaugural address in 1865 to "care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan" embodies the nation's promise to all who wear the uniform, a promise VA and its predecessor administrations have kept ever since the Civil War.
Lincoln's second inaugural address is inscribed on the north interior wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Directly across from it, engraved on the south interior wall, is another speech by Lincoln which is even more famous. It is arguably the greatest piece of oratory in the nation's history. The speech, of course, is the Gettysburg Address.
Tablet of address by President Lincoln at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863.Latest Blog Posts
LGBTQ+ Monument in Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery
Matthew Harris
Intern, NCA
Two LGBTQ+ monuments adorn national cemeteries maintained by VA: Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Ellwood, IL and the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix.
VA encourages Veterans who were issued an administrative discharge for their sexuality to apply for an upgrade to the discharge and request the VA benefits they have earned through their service.
French Cross at Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn
NCA History Program
The 25 French sailors buried here are one of earlier instances of allied forces being buried in a national cemetery. It is also remarkable in that all of the sailors died from the same cause — they fell victim to the Spanish Flu which was sweeping the nation, and the world, in 1918–1919.
Emme Richards
Virtual Student Federal Service
Intern, VA History Office
Originally written to honor the Kentucky volunteers who died in the Mexican War (1846–1848), Theodore O'Hara's elegiac poem, "Bivouac of the Dead," now serves as a literary memorial to all lives lost in service to the nation.
List of NCA History Blog Posts
| Blog Post | Date |
|---|---|
| NCA Historic Objects: USS Bennington Monument and Grave Plot | September 21, 2023 |
| NCA Historic Objects: Civil War 6×6 Unknown Grave Markers | August 31, 2023 |
| NCA Historic Objects: Edmund Whitman's 1869 Report on Reburying Union Dead in National Cemeteries | June 15, 2023 |
| NCA Historic Objects: The Veterans Legacy Memorial | May 23, 2023 |
| NCA Historic Objects: Congressional Cemetery Cenotaphs | May 11, 2023 |
| George Ford – Veteran and National Cemetery Superintendent | April 25, 2023 |
| NCA Historic Objects: Dorothea Dix's Monument to Union Soldiers | March 7, 2023 |
| NCA Historic Objects: Funeral Ceremony for Vietnam Unknown | February 3, 2023 |
| Blog Post | Date |
|---|---|
| Halyburton and Grimsley – Story of U.S.'s first POW in WWI | November 23, 2021 |
| Remembering the USS Indianapolis | November 15, 2021 |
| 1973 – When VA took over the National Cemetery System | November 12, 2021 |
| Exhibit – USCT Substitutes in the Border States, Buried in National Cemeteries | November 12, 2021 |
| John Pitzer and the journey to Loutre Island | November 12, 2021 |
| Lincoln and Grant in Lights: The Grand Army of the Republic's 1887 memorial stained-glass windows | November 1, 2021 |
| NCA Monuments Dedicated on Memorial Day | May 1, 2021 |
| The World's Most Intrepid Airman is a Woman: Remembering Katherine Stinson Otero | March 25, 2021 |
| Contrasting Lives: WWI Black Veterans Everett Johnson and Robert Chase | February 27, 2021 |
| Creating a Formidable Force: Colonel Dan T. Moore | February 26, 2021 |
| Trailblazers, Advocates, and the Anguished: Veteran Profiles of the 349th Field Artillery | February 25, 2021 |
