Confederate Cemetery

Bethel Cemetery holds more than 1,600 Confederate dead, about a hundred of them killed at Fort Sanders, along with some 50 Union men and a few dozen veterans. After the war the federal government gathered Union dead into a national cemetery, while Confederate burials were left to local communities and the ladies' memorial associations that formed across the South. The cemetery has been privately owned since 1873, and the monument was unveiled on May 19, 1892, with contributions from veterans of both armies. Federal headstones for Confederate dead did not come until 1924.

What the plaque says

Confederate Cemetery During the Confederate War, 1861-65, more than 1600 Confederate soldiers and about 50 Federal prisoners were buried here. About 20 Confederate veterans have been buried since the war. The tall monument was erected in 1892 by the Ladie's Memorial Association.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 0.2 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Blount Mansion — 1.2 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Green McAdoo Cultural Center — 16 mi
  The 1935 school in Clinton that sent twelve Black students down Foley Hill to desegregate Clinton High School in August 1956, now a museum with bronze statues of the Clinton 12.
• Museum of Appalachia — 17 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.

More markers nearby

• Odd Fellows Cemetery — 0.2 mi
• William Francis Yardley — 0.4 mi
• First African American Church — 0.5 mi
• Beauford and Joseph Delaney — 0.7 mi