Office Hours: Contact the Fort Smith National Cemetery at (479) 783-5345 Monday thru Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Visitation Hours: Open daily from dawn until dusk.
Early in the Civil War, the land that is currently the national cemetery was located outside Little Rock city limits and was used for Union encampments. With Union troops still occupying the city in 1866, a portion of the new city cemetery was purchased by the government and set aside for military interments.

The government purchased the military plot in Little Rock City Cemetery as two parcels: 9.1 acres in September 1866 and 3.2 acres in April 1868. On April 9, 1868, it was designated a national cemetery with the stated purpose to concentrate remains of Union dead who had been buried throughout Arkansas. By this time, there were 5,425 interments: 3,092 known dead and 2,333 unknowns. In 1868, 1,482 remains removed from area battlefield graves were reinterred here.

In 1884, an 11-acre Confederate cemetery was established adjacent to the national cemetery. The remains of 640 Confederate soldiers were removed from Mt. Holly Cemetery in Little Rock and reburied here. In 1913, Congress authorized the Secretary of War to accept a deed from the City of Little Rock for the Confederate cemetery, with the restriction that only Confederate veterans could be interred on the newly acquired land. In 1938, this restriction was removed and the Confederate cemetery became the Confederate Section of Little Rock National Cemetery.

In 1990, the National Expansion Corp. purchased additional land from the adjoining Oakland Fraternal Cemetery and formally donated it to the United States for expansion of the national cemetery. In November 1999, the City of Little Rock donated one additional acre. Little Rock National Cemetery, encompassing a little over 31 acres, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

Monuments and Memorials
The granite and bronze Minnesota Monument was dedicated to 162 Minnesota soldiers who fell in Arkansas during the Civil War. Erected in 1916, it is one of seven Minnesota monuments found in the national cemeteries. The memorialized soldiers were enlisted in the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th Minnesota U.S. Volunteers. The sculptor was John K. Daniels of St. Paul, Minn. Other Minnesota monuments are located at Marion, Ind. (1913); Memphis (1916), Nashville (1920) and Shiloh (1908) Tenn.; Jefferson Barracks, Mo. (1922); and Vicksburg, Miss. (1906-07). Daniels also did the monuments at Nashville and Shiloh national cemeteries.

The marble Confederate Monument was erected in 1884 by trustees of the Mount Holly Cemetery in honor of the 640 Confederate soldiers originally buried in this cemetery and later re-interred in Little Rock National Cemetery. The soldiers died in Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, and Louisiana between1861-1863.

As a significant sculpture of the post-Civil War period (1886-1934) in Arkansas, both monuments were individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.