The 'Little Arlington of the South'—an 1837 Holly Springs burial ground holding five Confederate generals and a mass trench of 300 yellow fever dead.
Center St, Holly Springs, MS 38635
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Cemetery grounds are free to visit; ghost tour access via Haunted Holly Springs walking tour (separate fee)
Access
Limited Access
Historic cemetery with uneven ground, gravel paths, and monument obstacles
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1837 · Civil War · Confederate Generals · Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878 · NRHP Listed · Catholic Martyrs of 1878
Hillcrest Cemetery was established in 1837 when William S. Randolph, among Holly Springs' early settlers, donated the land. The ironwork railings enclosing its sections were cast at the Jones, McElwain and Company Iron Foundry in town before the Civil War—the same foundry whose products appear at several of Holly Springs' antebellum properties.
The cemetery's five Confederate generals—Samuel Benton, Winfield S. Featherston, Daniel Govan, Edward Walthall, and Absalom M. West—earned it the nickname 'Little Arlington of the South.' Several U.S. political figures are also interred here, including Senator Wall Doxey, and the site holds the graves of family members of Alamo defender Micajah Autry.
The most affecting section of the cemetery traces to the yellow fever epidemic of 1878, which devastated Holly Springs and the broader Mississippi Valley. Over 300 victims were buried in a mass trench, their individual identities often unrecorded in the chaos of the outbreak. A separate common plot holds the remains of seven Catholic nuns and a priest from the Sisters of Charity who came to nurse the sick and died in the effort. A memorial obelisk marks their grave.
Hillcrest was vandalized in 1980 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The 24-acre grounds remain publicly accessible and serve as a stop on the Haunted Holly Springs walking tour.
Sources
The paranormal reputation of Hillcrest Cemetery rests largely on its documented history of mass death rather than any single dramatic incident. The 1878 yellow fever outbreak killed over 300 people in or near Holly Springs, many of them buried in unmarked or minimally marked graves in the cemetery's northern trench section. Visitors on the Haunted Holly Springs tour have reported cold spots in and around that area that do not correlate with ambient temperature or airflow.
The Travel Channel's production crew visited the cemetery during their 2019 Holly Springs shoot for 'Hauntings in the Heartland,' drawn by the combination of Civil War dead, epidemic mass graves, and the existing ghost tour infrastructure in the town.
No specific named apparitions are consistently documented in available sources. The cemetery's reputation is environmental rather than individual—rooted in the scale of the dead buried there and the often-anonymous circumstances of the 1878 burials.
Media Appearances
Hillcrest's 24 acres are open for self-guided visits. Notable monuments include the graves of five Confederate generals—Samuel Benton, Winfield S. Featherston, Daniel Govan, Edward Walthall, and Absalom M. West—as well as a memorial obelisk marking the common plot of seven Catholic nuns and a priest who died nursing yellow fever patients in 1878.
Hillcrest Cemetery is a featured stop on the Haunted Holly Springs walking tour. Guides present the 1878 yellow fever epidemic history, the mass trench burial of over 300 victims, and the paranormal reports documented by visitors and investigators at the site.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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