Camp Nelson National Cemetery

Camp Nelson National Cemetery located several miles south of Nicholasville was first established in  1866 by the U.S. government which appropriated several acres for a cemetery. Since approximately 1863, burial of the men who died at Camp Nelson took place in a small plot next to the camp's hospital. Camp Nelson was a major recruitment center of African American men who, upon enlistment into the army, became members of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT). Following the end of the Civil War, Camp Nelson was a refugee camp under the direction of the Freedmen’s Bureau.


Camp Nelson's Graveyard #1 is the final resting place of nearly 400 men from Camp Nelson who were buried between 1863 and 1865. By February 1866, an additional 1,100+ men were also interred at the cemetery in Graveyard #2, which is where the present day national cemetery lies. After the war's end in the summer of 1868, over 2,000 remains from across central Kentucky were reinterred at Camp Nelson. The remains of Confederate soldiers originally buried in the cemetery were removed to Nicholasville or other local private cemeteries. In 1998, the cemetery was included on the National Register of Historic Places.


The cemetery adjoins the Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park.


HOURS: 
Monday- Friday 8AM–4PM
Saturday Closed
Sunday Closed