An estimated 700,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died in the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, and as the death toll rose, the U.S. government struggled to bury fallen Union troops, helping drive the creation of a national cemetery system. On September 11, 1861, the War Department directed officers to keep accurate and permanent records of deceased soldiers, and federal authority to create military burial grounds came in an Omnibus Act of July 17, 1862. Cemetery sites were chosen where troops were concentrated, including camps, hospitals, battlefields, and railroad hubs. By 1872, 74 national cemeteries and several soldiers' lots contained 305,492 remains, about 45 percent of them unknown. Soldiers' lots were established at private cemeteries in northern states, while national cemeteries were built throughout the South, where most Civil War action occurred. At Baxter Springs, the Battle of Baxter Springs on October 6, 1863, began when Confederate guerrilla William Clarke Quantrill planned a two-pronged attack on Fort Blair, a Union garrison near Baxter Springs, Kansas. One group of about 450 Confederates attacked from the east and surprised the small Union post, but Lt. James B. Pond rallied his men and defended the fort. A second group led by Quantrill got lost en route but encountered Union soldiers escorting Gen. James G. Blunt, the U.S. district commander. Because many of Quantrill's men wore captured Union uniforms, their allegiance was unclear until they charged, broke the Union line after a brief exchange of gunfire, and left Blunt with more than eighty men lost, many executed after surrendering. Nearly 100 Union soldiers were killed in action that day. The Union dead were buried in Baxter Springs' city cemetery, and although the U.S. government planned to remove the remains to the new national cemetery in Springfield, Missouri, residents petitioned to keep and care for the graves. Between 1869 and 1887, the City of Baxter Springs incrementally donated the 0.7-acre soldiers' lot to the United States. In 1873, the mayor requested artillery pieces as ornamental features, and the U.S. Army Ordnance Department supplied four 32-pounder cannon tubes that still flank the central monument. The 27-foot-tall granite monument honoring those killed in the 1863 battle was dedicated on Decoration Day in 1886 after Congress allotted $4,000 for its construction, and the pedestal of its Union soldier figure at parade rest is inscribed with 163 names of soldiers and civilians buried there.
