{{Use American English|date=July 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}} {{Infobox NRHP | name = Friendship Cemetery | nrhp_type = | image = Friendship Cemetery (160958986).jpg | caption = View within Friendship Cemetery | location = 1300 4th Street South, Columbus, Mississippi | coordinates = {{coord|33|28|51|N|88|25|50|W|display=inline,title}} | locmapin = Mississippi#USA | area = 70 acres | built = 1849 | architect = | architecture = | website = | added = July 23, 1980<ref name="nris">[https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/78de780a-5ab2-4c29-b921-30ccffa97877 National Park Service, Digital Asset Management System (Friendship Cemetery)] Retrieved 2018-01-02</ref> | refnum = 80002287 | designated_other1_name = Mississippi Landmark | designated_other1_link = Mississippi Landmark | designated_other1_abbr = USMS | designated_other1_color = #B3A1D7 | designated_other1_number = 087-CBS-1601-NR-ML | designated_other1_date = December 14, 1989{{#tag:ref|{{cite web |url=http://www.apps.mdah.ms.gov/Public/rpt.aspx?rpt=msLandmarkList&City=Columbus&County=Lowndes |title=Mississippi Landmarks (Lowndes County) |publisher=Mississippi Department of Archives and History |access-date=2018-01-02 }} |name="usms"}} | designated_other1_num_position = bottom | image_size = }}
'''Friendship Cemetery''' is a cemetery located in Columbus, Mississippi. In 1849, the cemetery was established on 5 acres by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.<ref name=NRHP>{{cite web|url={{NRHP url|id=80002287}}|title=National Register of Historic Places Registration: Friendship Cemetery |publisher=National Park Service|author= |date=April 28, 1980 |access-date=2018-01-01}} With {{NRHP url|id=80002287|photos=y|title=9 photos from 1980}}.</ref> The original layout consisted of three interlocking circles, signifying the Odd Fellows emblem.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ioof.org/|title=Welcome to IOOF|publisher=Advanced Solutions International|website=www.ioof.org|access-date=2018-01-02}}</ref> By 1957, Friendship Cemetery had increased in size to 35 acres, and was acquired by the City of Columbus. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and was designated a Mississippi Landmark in 1989. As of 2015, the cemetery contained some 22,000 graves within an area of 70 acres and was still in use.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=40355|title=Historic Friendship Cemetery is still open for business|work=The Commercial Dispatch|access-date=2018-01-02}}</ref> The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science hosts a public event every April at night in the cemetery. Students complete a research project on someone buried at the cemetery, before dressing up and doing a performance as the person they researched.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://mississippitoday.org/2017/03/25/columbus-students-tell-tales-from-the-crypt/|title=Columbus students tell ‘Tales from the Crypt’|last=McCollum|first=Anna|work=Mississippi Today|access-date=2024-05-05}}</ref>
==Memorial Day connection== During the American Civil War, Columbus served as a military hospital center for the wounded, particularly after the Battle of Shiloh.<ref>{{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}}</ref> More than 2,000 Confederate soldiers were interred in Friendship Cemetery,<ref name="Ghosts">{{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}}</ref> along with 40 to 150 Union soldiers.<ref name="Friendship">{{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}}</ref>{{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.<ref>{{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}}</ref> 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''.<ref name=Ghosts/><ref>{{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}}</ref> In 1867, the remains of all Union soldiers were exhumed and reinterred in Corinth National Cemetery.<ref name=NRHP/> Over time, these ''grave decoration days'' – honoring those who died in military service – eventually morphed into Memorial Day.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.usmemorialday.org/?page_id=2|title=Memorial Day|website=www.usmemorialday.org|language=en-US|access-date=2018-01-02}}</ref>
===Monuments===
The cemetery contains two Confederate monuments:<ref name=NRHP/> <gallery widths="200px" heights="200px"> File:Friendship Cemetery 280-001.JPG|Monument to Confederate dead (1873) File:Friendship Cemetery 286-001.JPG|Monument to an ''unknown Confederate soldier'' (1894) </gallery>
==Notable interments== * William Edwin Baldwin (1827–1864), Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War.<ref name=Ghosts/> * William Barksdale (1821–1863), Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War. Cenotaph only, Barksdale's remains were interred in Greenwood Cemetery (Jackson, Mississippi).<ref>[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.</ref> * William S. Barry (1821–1868), member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States (1861–62).<ref name=NRHP/> * William Cocke (1748–1828), U.S. Senator from Tennessee (1796–97, 1799–1805).<ref name=Ghosts/> * 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.<ref name=Ghosts/> * James Thomas Harrison (1811–1879), member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States (1861–62).<ref name=Ghosts/> * Clyde S. Kilby (1902–1986), noted American author and English professor.<ref name=Ghosts/> * Stephen Dill Lee (1833–1908), Confederate lieutenant general during the American Civil War.<ref name=Ghosts/> * Joshua Lawrence Meador (1911–1965), Disney animator.<ref name="Meador">{{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}}</ref> * Jehu Amaziah Orr (1828–1921), member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States and the Second Confederate Congress.<ref name=Ghosts/> * Jacob H. Sharp (1833–1907), Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War.<ref name=Ghosts/> * Jesse Speight (1795–1847), U.S. Senator from Mississippi (1845–47).<ref name=Ghosts/> * Henry Edward Warden (1915–2007), Career officer in the US Air Force; father of the B-52.<ref>{{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}}</ref> * Henry Lewis Whitfield (1868–1927), Governor of Mississippi (1924–27).<ref name=Ghosts/> * James Whitfield (1791–1875), Governor of Mississippi (1851–52).<ref name=Ghosts/>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{commonscat-inline}}
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 Category:Burials at Friendship Cemetery