Magnolia Cemetery (Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

 cemetery, place with historical importance, confederate

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Magnolia Cemetery was established in 1852. Some of the heaviest fighting during the Civil War Battle of Baton Rouge took place in and near the cemetery. The grave markers, trees, and picket fence surrounding the cemetery were used as cover by both Confederate and Union troops during the hour-long engagement. Musket and cannon shot caused extensive damage to the site. Eighty-four Confederate and eighty-four Union troops were killed in the conflict. The next day, after the Confederate troops had withdrawn from the city, local citizen gathered the bodies of the Confederate dead. Although historical records are unclear, local tradition holds that the majority of them were buried in a mass grave within Magnolia Cemetery.

Among the more well-known individuals interred at Magnolia are famous Louisiana author, Lyle Saxon; Civil War Photographer, Andrew Lytle; Judge Thomas Gibbs Morgan, father of Civil War diarist Sarah Morgan; and Charles Phelps Manship, Sr., publisher of the State-Times and Morning Advocate, Congressional Representatives Edward White Robertson, his son Samuel Matthews Robertson and William Brainerd Spencer.

The site is bounded by Main Street, Florida Street, North 19th Street, and North 22nd Street. It is immediately north of the Baton Rouge National Cemetery which began with the interrment of federal troops killed in the Battle of Baton Rouge.