Nestled on the grounds of one of the nation’s oldest rural cemeteries, the Soldiers’ Lot in the Albany Rural Cemetery is the final resting place for 149 Union soldiers, many who died of injury or illness in hospitals around Albany during the Civil War. The lot is located in the North Ridge section of the 467-acre cemetery.

In 1841, Albany’s citizens organized to establish a new cemetery in response to the city’s overcrowded and deteriorating church burial grounds.  Following the precedent set by Massachusetts' Mount Auburn Cemetery and other rural style cemeteries, Albany Rural Cemetery opened in 1844, sited on an elevated plateau overlooking the Hudson River just outside the city.  Landscape architect Major D. B. Douglass created the cemetery’s plan in keeping with Romantic ideals of pastoral beauty.  Curving drives follow the natural contours of the landscape, with trees and other plantings placed to enhance scenic vistas.  In 1866, the Albany City Council authorized the transfer of all burials in Albany’s church cemeteries to Albany Rural Cemetery.

The Soldiers’ Lot is located along North Ridge Road at Lot 7, Section 75.  The Albany Rural Cemetery Association donated the 0.16-acre lot to the Federal Government in June 1862 for the purpose of interring soldiers who died in the Albany region.  Most of the interments are soldiers who died while in Albany’s Civil War hospitals. The last burial in 1897 brought the total number of interments in the lot to 149.

Standing 15-feet high, the only monument in the Soldiers’ Lot is the Grand Army of the Republic monument, which commemorates the local men who lost their lives during the Civil War.  The monument, constructed in 1873, features a bronze statue of a Union soldier atop a tall granite base. Bronze plaques attached to the base list the names of the fallen soldiers.  Also attached to the base is a bronze plaque featuring a bas-relief portrait of President Abraham Lincoln.

Albany Rural Cemetery is the final resting place for numerous political leaders. Chester A. Arthur, the twenty-first president of the United States, is buried in the cemetery, as are eight presidential cabinet secretaries, five U.S. senators, 32 U.S. representatives, and two U.S. Supreme Court justices.  The cemetery also contains the remains of Colonial and Revolutionary-era figures, including twelve assemblymen of the New York Colony and six members of the Continental Congress.