Mobile National Cemetery
Mobile National Cemetery like the majority of the coastal National Cemeteries that have Civil War-era burials has a distinctive "Navy" and "Army" section once it is mapped out and post-war burials that are not in "Roll of Honor: Names of Soldiers Who Died in Defense of the American Union" are disregarded. The bulk of the Navy burials are in Section 2 of the cemetery with Magnolia Cemetery that it was carved out of bordering the North and Western edges of the wall. The "Navy" section also includes a number of civilian mariners who died from various reasons who are interned in the section but were never in the Navy. The space between the Army and Navy sections was eventually filled primarily with graves of veterans of the Spanish-American war along with the grass walkways being used for post-WWII grave sites.
On this page is a list of burials of sailors and Marines who were attached to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, including survivors who died after the war.
To make it easier to locate gravesites since there is no kiosk on site, in italic at the end of each listing is a row and grave number. Row #1 will be the row along the western edge bordering Magnolia starting with John Ryan's grave as grave #1 counting southwards.
Despite the VA page about the cemetery, there are only seven marked burials in the cemetery who actually are known to have died at the Battle of Mobile Bay - all from the USS Brooklyn whose graves were moved sometime between 1865 and 1870 from their original location at Fort Powell. The dead from the Hartford and Ossipee were also buried at Fort Powell. I am so far unable to locate a cemetery sexton book for Mobile National akin to the rest of the Civil War-era national cemeteries along the Gulf Coast that logs the moving of graves from their original locations to the national cemeteries. If the rest of the dead from the Battle of Mobile Bay that were not buried at sea were also moved from Fort Powell after the war, it is unknown so far which plots they were put in. However there is a large number of unknowns south of what was once a grass walkway between that section (section 3) and the Navy burials (section 2).
John Ryan, Landsman, USS Brooklyn
Died 5 August 1864 aboard the Brooklyn at the Battle of Mobile Bay.
Row 1, Grave 1
Charles B. Seymour, Seaman, USS Brooklyn
Died 5 August 1864 aboard the Brooklyn at the Battle of Mobile Bay.
Row 1, Grave 2
Lewis Ecore, Seaman, USS Port Royal
Died 7 September 1864
Row 1, Grave 3
Thomas Williams, Seaman, USS Brooklyn
Died 5 August 1864 aboard the Brooklyn at the Battle of Mobile Bay.
Row 1, Grave 8
George Parker, Fireman 2nd Class, USS Elk
Died 5 July 1865.
Row 1, Grave 10
Martin E. McLane, Fireman 1st Class, USS Cincinnati
Died 13 June 1865.
Row 1, Grave 12
Henry Lee, Seaman, USS Kittatinny
Died 11 June 1865.
Row 1, Grave 13
Samuel Parent, Landsman, USS Winnebago
Died 25 May 1865.
Row 1, Grave 14
Alden S. Carr, Ordinary Seaman, USS Chickasaw
Died 26 May 1865.
Row 1, Grave 15
George Smith, Boatswain's Mate, USS Winnebago
Died 9 May 1865.
Row 1, Grave 17
Thomas Hawke, Seaman, USS Chickasaw
Died 26 April 1865.
Row 1, Grave 18
Leon De Wolf, Acting Master's Mate, USS Cincinnati
Died 13 April 1865.
Row 1, Grave 19
Unknown
Possibly remains of PVT William H. Smith, USMC of the USS Brooklyn. See internment section on Smith's page for more information.
Row 2, Grave 10 (the back of the stone is engraved "432")
William H. Cook, Acting Master's Mate, USS Brooklyn
Died 5 August 1864 aboard the Brooklyn at the Battle of Mobile Bay.
Row 2, Grave 16
Peter Murphy, Private, USMC, USS Brooklyn
Died 5 August 1864 aboard the Brooklyn at the Battle of Mobile Bay.
Row 2, Grave 19
Anthony Dunn, Fireman 2nd Class, USS Brooklyn
Died 5 August 1864 aboard the Brooklyn at the Battle of Mobile Bay.
Row 2, Grave 20
Richard Burke, Coal Heaver, USS Brooklyn
Died 5 August 1864 aboard the Brooklyn at the Battle of Mobile Bay.
Row 2, Grave 21
Charles E. Millikin, Landsman, USS Seminole
Died 25 August 1864
Row 4, Grave 24
Charles Stewart, Landsman, USS Metacomet
Died 5 June 1910. Stewart shows up on the Metacomet's muster rolls marked as a "contraband" (escaped slave) not entitled to a share of any prizes due to the crew. He and a number of other blacks apparently fled to the fleet and freedom while Farragut's ships were still engaged with Fort Morgan and enlisted into the Navy on 13 August 1864 as landsmen, eight days after the Battle of Mobile Bay. Stewart served aboard the Metacomet and the Paul Jones and was discharged at the end of his one year enlistment the following summer.
Row 5, Grave 20
William T. Sturgis, Landsman, USS Chickasaw
Died 1 May 1865
Row 7, Grave 14
John Reefe, Landsman, USS Sebago
Died 25 June 1865
Row 15, Grave 14
Arthur Caldwell, Fireman 2nd Class, USS Monongahela
Died died 23 November 1894. Caldwell was aboard the Monongahela as a Fireman 2nd Class during the Battle of Mobile Bay. He moved his family to Mobile after he was discharged from the Navy in September 1867 as a Fireman 1st Class from the USS Colorado.
Tweet