Navajo Code Talkers were used during WWI, WWII to send secret coded messages. This monument contributes to the Historical Cemetery since burials of the Civil War era. The earliest burials date to 1868 when the War Department re-interred 266 unknown soldiers from the battlefields of Glorieta, Kozlowski and Old Fort Marcy in a plot of the Catholic Cemetery in Santa Fe. With the donation of additional land by the Catholic Cemetery, Santa Fe National Cemetery was briefly established in 1875; it reverted to a post cemetery the following year. It was reestablished as a national cemetery in 1892. As of March 2020, Santa Fe National Cemetery contains over 59,000 interments. Other monuments or plaques:  Bivouac of the Dead Plaque, Gettysburg Address Plaque, World War II Combat Glider Pilots Memorial, Navy Women Memorial, China – Burma – India Memorial, Glorieta Pass Confederate Dead Memorial, Fort Craig Unknown Dead Memorial, Private O’Leary Headstone, and Navajo Code Talkers.

 

Burial Significance