Mountain Home National Cemetery covers nearly 92 acres and contains the remains of more than 10,000 veterans.  The cemetery is located on the grounds of the former Mountain Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Johnson City, Tennessee, just west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

The Mountain Branch opened in 1903 to provide housing, medical care, education, training, and employment to Union veterans in the South.   Congressman Walter Preston Brownlow of Tennessee’s First District urged the establishment of the National Home, successfully arguing for the need of a second home in the South. Eastern Tennessee, he argued, which supplied more than 30,000 troops to the Union army, was the most appropriate location.  The National Home is a part of the James H. Quillen Veterans Affairs Medical Center, which is affiliated with the James H. Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University.

The cemetery, developed adjacent to the National Home, recorded its first interment, Francis Conaty, on September 18, 1903, nearly one month before the first resident of the Home arrived.  The oldest burial sections, the wedge-shaped Sections A through H, surround Monument Circle, a pathway which loops around a section of officers’ graves and a granite obelisk marking the grave of Congressman Brownlow and his wife, Clayetta.  Although Brownlow did not serve in the military, he is buried in the cemetery to honor his work in locating the National Home in Johnson City, and his years serving on the Home’s Board of Managers.

The cemetery’s main entrance is located at the southeast corner of the site, and is marked by a double gate anchored on either side by brick columns.  The road leading from the entrance passes the cemetery’s administrative office and visitors center before branching off into several winding pathways through the grounds.

Mountain Home National Cemetery Photo by James Rosenthal, Historic American Buildings Survey Photographer

The “Special Section” of burials lies between Sections E and I, containing the remains of former governors (managers) of the National Home; Carl Andersen, the landscape architect who is believed to have designed the Home's layout; and the Catholic chaplain John K. Larkin.  The section is also the final resting place for three children of Home employees.

Mountain Home National Cemetery is the final resting place for four recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, given for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”