Est. 1884 · First National Cemetery on the West Coast · Civil War veterans including Medal of Honor recipients · Buffalo Soldiers of 9th and 10th Cavalry · Pauline Cushman — Union spy · Senator Edward D. Baker
The land now occupied by the San Francisco National Cemetery had already received military burials before it was formally designated. The first documented burial occurred in 1854, three decades before Congress recognized the site as a national cemetery under General Order 133 on December 12, 1884.
The cemetery's 28 acres form a densely layered record of American military history. Civil War dead occupy the oldest sections, including Medal of Honor recipients and Major Oliver D. Greene. Senator Edward D. Baker — the only sitting U.S. Senator killed in action during the Civil War — is interred here after falling at the Battle of Ball's Bluff in 1861. Baker had been Abraham Lincoln's close friend and the man for whom Lincoln named his second son.
The Officers' Circle holds one of the more unusual markers in the national cemetery system: the grave of Pauline Cushman, born Harriet Wood, who served as a Union spy and was captured by Confederate forces in 1863. Sentenced to hang, she was rescued when Union troops took Shelbyville, Tennessee. Her headstone reads 'Pauline C. Fryer, Union Spy' — a distinction rarely inscribed on government-issued grave markers. She died in San Francisco in 1893.
Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry units, who served in the West after the Civil War and were stationed at the Presidio, occupy sections of the cemetery reflecting the segregated burial practices of their era. Representatives Phillip Burton and Sala Burton are among the 20th-century interments. The cemetery closed to new burials in 1973, with exceptions for reserved gravesites.
Sources
- https://www.nps.gov/prsf/learn/historyculture/san-francisco-national-cemetery.htm
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_National_Cemetery
- https://www.nps.gov/people/paulinecushman.htm
- https://home.nps.gov/prsf/historyculture/san-francisco-national-cemetery-famous-interments.htm
Phantom bugle callsUniformed apparitionsRelocated grave flowersCold drafts
The Presidio as a whole has accumulated a long record of reported anomalies, and the national cemetery sits at the center of most accounts specific to the grounds. The most consistent report is auditory: taps — the 24-note bugle call played at military funerals — heard when no ceremony is scheduled and no bugler is on site. Park staff and early-morning visitors have noted this repeatedly enough that Ghost City Tours, which runs walking programs through the Presidio, lists it among the cemetery's documented phenomena.
Apparitions reported in the cemetery typically wear military dress. Accounts describe figures moving between the white marble headstones before vanishing. The most frequently named spirit on the grounds is Pauline Cushman, the Civil War-era actress and spy buried in the Officers' Circle. Her ghost is said to walk the cemetery at night in the theatrical costume she wore during her espionage work behind Confederate lines.
Flowers have reportedly been found relocated between graves with no apparent explanation. Whether these accounts reflect genuine anomaly or the power of suggestion in a place built around the rituals of death and military service is something each visitor assesses for themselves.
Notable Entities
Pauline Cushman
