Friendship Cemetery

During the American Civil War, Columbus served as a military hospital center for the wounded, particularly after the Battle of Shiloh.{{Cite web|url=http://lowndes.msghn.org/history.shtml|title=Lowndes County, Mississippi History|website=lowndes.msghn.org|access-date=2018-01-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180121003138/http://lowndes.msghn.org/history.shtml|archive-date=2018-01-21|url-status=dead}} More than 2,000 Confederate soldiers were interred in Friendship Cemetery,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JCXVDAAAQBAJ&q=Ghosts+of+Mississippi%E2%80%99s+Golden+Triangle|title=Ghosts of Mississippi's Golden Triangle|last=Brown|first=Alan|date=2016-09-26|publisher=Arcadia Publishing|isbn=9781439657591|language=en}} along with 40 to 150 Union soldiers.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LkkUAAAAYAAJ&q=Friendship+Cemetery&pg=PA128|title=A History of Columbus, Mississippi, During the 19th Century|last=Lipscomb|first=William Lowndes|date=1909|publisher=Press of Dispatch printing Company|language=en}}{{rp|127}}

In 1866, four women, who became known as the Decoration Day Ladies, organized a formal procession and ceremony to be held at Friendship Cemetery on April 26 so that a large group of Columbus women, both young and old, could place flowers atop the graves of these fallen Confederate and Union soldiers.{{Cite web |title=Image 191 of A history of Columbus, Mississippi, during the 19th century, |url=https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcmassbookdig.historyofcolumbu00lips/?sp=191&st=image |access-date=2024-06-17 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}} The women's tribute – treating the soldiers as equals – inspired poet Francis Miles Finch to write the poem, The Blue and the Gray, which was published in an 1867 edition of The Atlantic Monthly.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/03/the-blue-and-the-gray/388511/|title=A Famous Civil War Poem Comes to Life in Contemporary Mississippi|last=Fallows|first=James|work=The Atlantic|access-date=2018-01-02|language=en-US}} In 1867, the remains of all Union soldiers were exhumed and reinterred in Corinth National Cemetery. Over time, these grave decoration days – honoring those who died in military service – eventually morphed into Memorial Day.{{Cite web|url=http://www.usmemorialday.org/?page_id=2|title=Memorial Day|website=www.usmemorialday.org|language=en-US|access-date=2018-01-02}}

The cemetery contains two Confederate monuments:

File:Friendship Cemetery 280-001.JPG|Monument to Confederate dead (1873)

File:Friendship Cemetery 286-001.JPG|Monument to an unknown Confederate soldier (1894)

• William Edwin Baldwin (1827–1864), Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War.
• William Barksdale (1821–1863), Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War. Cenotaph only, Barksdale's remains were interred in Greenwood Cemetery (Jackson, Mississippi).[http://www.genbarksdale.org/William%20Barksdale.html William Barksdale biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130916220313/http://genbarksdale.org/William%20Barksdale.html |date=2013-09-16 }}, Sons of Confederate Veterans.
• William S. Barry (1821–1868), member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States (1861–62).
• William Cocke (1748–1828), U.S. Senator from Tennessee (1796–97, 1799–1805).
• Cornell Franklin (1892–1959), judge who served as chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council (1937–40).
• Jeptha Vining Harris (1816–1899), Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War.
• James Thomas Harrison (1811–1879), member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States (1861–62).
• Clyde S. Kilby (1902–1986), noted American author and English professor.
• Stephen Dill Lee (1833–1908), Confederate lieutenant general during the American Civil War.
• Joshua Lawrence Meador (1911–1965), Disney animator.{{cite news |last1=Wilson |first1=Sarah |title=Son of Disney animator speaks on father's legacy |url=https://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=3379 |access-date=21 January 2020 |publisher=Dispatch |date=October 18, 2009}}
• Jehu Amaziah Orr (1828–1921), member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States and the Second Confederate Congress.
• Jacob H. Sharp (1833–1907), Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War.
• Jesse Speight (1795–1847), U.S. Senator from Mississippi (1845–47).
• Henry Edward Warden (1915–2007), Career officer in the US Air Force; father of the B-52.{{Cite web|url=https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/8-december-1945/|title=8 December 1945|last=Swopes|first=Bryan|date=2018-12-08|website=This Day in Aviation|language=en-US|access-date=2019-08-29}}
• Henry Lewis Whitfield (1868–1927), Governor of Mississippi (1924–27).
• James Whitfield (1791–1875), Governor of Mississippi (1851–52).

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Category:Columbus, Mississippi

Category:Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Mississippi

Category:1849 establishments in Mississippi

Category:Mississippi Landmarks

Category:National Register of Historic Places in Lowndes County, Mississippi

Category:Odd Fellows cemeteries in the United States

Category:Cemeteries in Mississippi

Category:Cemeteries established in the 1840s