One of the lasting monuments to Basil Biggs and his commitment to equality is the Lincoln Cemetery in Gettysburg. Biggs worked with a local group of black men to form the Sons of Goodwill, which raised funds for the creation of the cemetery. Its original mission was to be a resting place for veterans of the US Colored Troops. Why was this necessary when Biggs and other black men had been critical to the establishment of the national cemetery where Lincoln gave his famous address?

The obvious answer is segregation, though the history is more complicated and, in some ways, uglier even than that. The national cemetery has two burials of black servicemen from the Civil War. One is Charles Parker, a Pennsylvania native who served in the 3rd USCT Infantry. Parker was wounded during the war and later died of illnesses related to those he acquired during his service. He was buried in 1876 in Biglerville, then later relocated to the national cemetery. The other servicemen buried with fellow white veterans is Henry Gooden, a member of the 127th USCT. What occasioned his burial in the national cemetery against general segregation practices is unclear.

As for national policy, the establishment of national cemeteries in the 1870s guaranteed a place for black servicemen, but they were nevertheless segregated by rank and color. This practice was particularly egregious in the Arlington National Cemetery. In 1871, black veterans petitioned the federal government to move USCT graves from the lower cemetery to the upper cemetery near Arlington House where their white counterparts were buried, but the War Department denied their claim. Meanwhile, in 1898 after the Spanish-American War, the federal government, in the “spirit of fraternity,” permitted the burial of Confederate veterans at Arlington in their own section and with their own monument (which has now been removed following Congressional direction in 2019). Black veterans did not enjoy similar full integration until 1948 when Harry Truman fully integrated the military.

As a result of these social tensions and government policies, nearly all local members of the USCT were buried in the Lincoln Cemetery. Today, research about the cemetery and efforts to restore it are ongoing.