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Historic veterans cemetery in Bexar County, Texas From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas. Administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, it encompasses 154.7 acres (62.6 ha), and as of 2014, had over 144,000 interments. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery | |
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Details | |
Established | 1926 |
Location | San Antonio, Texas |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 29°28′32″N 98°25′27″W |
Type | United States National Cemetery |
Owned by | U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs |
Size | 154.7 acres (62.6 ha) |
No. of graves | >170,000 |
Website | Official |
Find a Grave | Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery |
Although the Army post in the area was established in 1875, and construction of Fort Sam Houston began the following year, no burials were made in the area that is currently the cemetery until 1926. In 1931 60 acres (24 ha) were added as an addition to San Antonio National Cemetery. In 1937, the addition became a National Cemetery in its own right, renamed Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. In 1947 several other forts in Texas, including Fort McIntosh, were closed and their cemetery interments were transferred to Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. [citation needed]
Interred at the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery are 140 Axis prisoners of war (POWs) from World War II who died in captivity. 133 are German, 4 are Italian, and 3 are Japanese. These POWs were disinterred from various Texas POW camps and reburied at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. [citation needed] When originally interred, these graves were isolated from the American graves.
Two gravestones marked with swastikas were replaced on December 24, 2020. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation had demanded their removal in May 2020, but the Veterans Administration (VA) resisted on the grounds that they were historical. The VA resisted until Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Congressmen Will Hurd (R-TX23) and Kay Granger (R-TX12) put pressure on them.[1][2]
In February 2023, the Department of Veterans Affairs dedicated new headstones at the cemetery for 17 black soldiers who were wrongly blamed and executed for a race riot that occurred in 1917. The military trials were marked by irregularities, a rush to judgment and the failure to appoint an attorney to defend the men.
Most of those executed were initially buried in unmarked graves, then reburied at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in 1937 with only their names and dates of death inscribed. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth vacated the soldiers’ convictions in 2023 and their records now reflect honorable discharges. New headstones have been provided by the VA. [3]
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